‘Universal Bellism’

The word ‘bellista’ was accepted by the Royal Spanish Academy in 1956: “Scholar of the work of Andrés Bello [1781-1865]and of the things that belong to him.” There were always bellistas.

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But the bellista par excellence of our generation is Iván Jaksic, author of a magnificent biography of the “intellectual father” of Latin America, its most prolific scholar, its disseminator in the English-speaking world and, now, in charge of republishing his Complete works –an enormous work, whose first three volumes appeared this year in a collective task that includes institutions such as the Adolfo Ibáñez University and the National Library of Chile–.

“Bello remains a familiar and at the same time unknown figure,” warns Jaksic in his general introduction.

“Poet, jurist, philosopher, philologist, educator,” reads the inscription under his bronze bust next to one of the doors of the old building of St. Antony’s College, in Oxford. “Venezuelan patriot” who “lived here in 1810,” says the front plaque of the house on Grafton Way in London, the city where Bello stayed from that year until 1829.

Among his vast production, three titles stand out: Principles of international law (1832), Civil Code (1855), y Grammar of the Spanish language intended for use by Americans (1847) – the latter, the most recent volume appearing in the Complete works–. All of historical significance and continued relevance: in the efforts to recognize fair and equal spaces for all nations in the world order, in the tasks to consolidate the rule of law, and in the need to disseminate literature to build citizenship.

That Chile is today the country that leads “beauty” should not be surprising. It was the country that welcomed him after his long exile in London and where he lived until his death in 1865.

Of course, Bello’s intellectual production began long before he settled in Santiago. He had been chief editor of the Gazeta de Caracas until his trip to London. In England, with the Colombian Juan García del Río they promoted the journals Biblioteca Americana and Repertorio Americano –in one of “the most important intellectual collaborations of independence”–. It was in London where he wrote his most famous poems: Address to poetry y Silva to the agriculture of the torrid zonea.

It was in Chile, however, where his most productive years passed. He had arrived as a guest of the liberal government of Francisco Antonio Pinto (Simón Bolívar, from whom he had distanced himself, belatedly tried not to let “this illustrious friend be lost in the country of anarchy”).

However, he arrived there “at a critical moment in the country’s institutional formation,” as Jaksic observed in his biography. Soon Bello found himself collaborating with the “portalian order”, which turned Chilean political history upside down. He was in charge of writing the draft of the Constitution of 1833, collaborated in presidential messages and in the legislative tasks of Congress and wrote for The Araucanian. In 1842 he was appointed as the first rector of the University of Chile, whose inaugural address outlined horizons for Chilean historiography.

It was in Chile where his works were published for the first time. Complete worksbetween 1881 and 1893. A new edition was made in Caracas, from 1951 to 1981, followed by another facsimilar that finished production in 1984.

Since then, studies on Bello have received notable impulses that motivate this new enterprise of the Complete works, projected in 30 volumes, and available in digital format. We owe Iván Jaksic the vitality of “universal beauty”.

EDUARDO POSADA CARBÓ

(Read all Eduardo Posada Carbó’s columns in EL TIEMPO, here)