BUENOS AIRES (dpa) – “At 20.25 Eva Peron, spiritual leader of the state, entered eternity.” The Argentine government of Juan Domingo Peron announced the news of the early death of perhaps Latin America’s most famous woman of the 20th century with these sad words 50 years ago.
In 1978, Andrew Lloyd Webber spread her name throughout the world with his musical Evita and its hit song “Don’t Cry for me Argentina”, and later Madonna made her contribution to Evita’s fame with a film version.
Her death on July 26, 1952, did not, however, come as a great surprise. Although only 33 years old, she was suffering visibly from cancer and weighed less than 30 kilograms.
Nevertheless, millions of her countrymen were devastated at the death of St. Evita, entering deep and lengthy mourning that for some continues to this day.
Nobody who lived through the 10 days of state mourning at the time in depressing winter weather could ever forget it.
Following her tumultuous life, not even her body was left to lie in peace. Following an odyssey through Europe it was finally laid to rest in 1976 at the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires, where other prominent Argentines lie buried.
The myth surrounding her as the “standard bearer of the poor” or the “Joan of Arc of Argentina” may sound almost comically naive today, but remain part of her legacy for many Argentines and particularly for the Peronists.
In recent years, widespread poverty has once again held more than 50 per cent of this once prosperous country in its grip, but none of today’s politicians would be in a position to evoke the emotions of the people the way Evita did.
At the time, many Argentines, particularly from the upper classes, were relieved at the death of their first lady. The passions around Evita were as contradictory as those of Peronism itself, and as divisive for Argentine society.
The poor regarded her as being in the vanguard of their struggle, while for the rich she was a parvenu, who had bought the support of the workers for her husband with cheap gifts.
Evita campaigned for women’s rights, although she continued to see their “natural place” as wife and mother in the home in line with the conservative and Roman Catholic sentiments of the Argentine middle classes.
Although she saw herself as the advocate of the “shirtless” piece workers that characterized Argentina in the 1950s, she herself preferred to wear extravagantly expensive Paris creations.
And alongside the social-revolutionary aura that surrounded her, stood her conservative and even authoritarian attitudes. To this day, Argentines have contradictory views on the Peronist past.
Evita provoked the hate of the upper classes because she breached their strict rules on etiquette, smashing the taboos of high society with delight. She was after all an illegitimate child herself.
Members of an elite charity organization were outraged when she put forward her own mother, who came from a poor provincial background, as director.
The ladies had turned Evita herself down on the grounds that she was “too young”, but her revenge was sweet. She founded the Evita Foundation and soon reduced the organization to irrelevance.
General Peron, at the time still labour state secretary under a military dictatorship, met Eva in 1944 at a festival.
She was only 24 when they married shortly afterwards. Together they set their mark on Argentine society, leaving a legacy that their supporters still see as beneficial.
Critics, however, believe the country has never managed to shrug off Peronist populism and the belief that the state should shoulder responsibility for all society’s ills.
