By Wilson García Mérida
February 15, 2009
Los Tiempos
Translated by Scott Campbell
The national revolution, which brought liberal winds to a conservative republic, had an impact in the press with a wave of alternative weeklies and biweeklies. Between 1902 and 1920, talented scholars began to appear in magazines with names like “Shadows”, “The Dynamite”, “The Tunari” [1], “The Crucible”, “The Industrial”, etc. “Art and Work” emerged in this context of freedoms achieved by the independent media (not forgetting that in 1925 the Press Law [2], yearned for by Bolivian liberals since 1826, was put into effect). The magazine headed by the anarchist Cesáreo Capriles was to be read and supported by all those in Cochabamban society who sought to develop paths to autonomy in the face of new centralisms.
With the certainty that solidarity between “men of goodwill”, beyond class or ethnic differences, was the ethical source of progress and prosperity, Capriles received the unexpected backing of industry, banking, and commerce to finance his press runs through lavish and aesthetically elaborate advertisements.
In his first issue he published 24 commercial ads in an equal number of pages. In the issues to follow, Capriles launched a campaign specifically promoting the reading of the advertisements, offering prizes to the readers who had filled a coupon with the number of ads read on each page; which gave him excellent results. By the fourth issue the print run grew from 800 to 3,000 copies and increased in page numbers to fit the ads which increased to 100 in 1923. In this way, continued publication was financially guaranteed, making “Art and Work” the “spokesperson for Cochabambanness” from a self-sustaining and libertarian perspective. In its layout read the headline: “Literature – Art – Commercial Propaganda – Current Events” and it was sold for 20 cents.
Its texts included a wealth of names such as Adela Zamudio, Jesús Lara, Gregorio Reynolds, Adrián Pereira, Man Césped, Juan Capriles and Guillermo Viscarra Favre who alternatingly wrote in the literary sections. Carlos Montenegro, who presented himself under the pseudonym of “Vega the Bum”, began to sketch out his anti-imperialist analysis, sharing pages with José Antonio Arze, Ricardo Anaya, Eduardo Arze Matienzo and José Aguirre Gainsborg, among many others. The scientist Martín Cardenas published one of his first works, “Indigenous pharmacopoeia in the northwest of Bolivia”, in three successive installments beginning with issue 68 of the weekly publication.
Translator's notes:
[1] Tunari is a mountain near Cochabamba.
[2] The 1925 Press Law punished slander and libel while defending freedom of the press.
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