INSTITUTO "DR. E.RAVIGNANI"   24160
INSTITUTO DE HISTORIA ARGENTINA Y AMERICANA "DR. EMILIO RAVIGNANI"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
capítulos de libros
Título:
Yrigoyen, Hipólito
Autor/es:
MARÍA INÉS TATO
Libro:
1914-1918 Online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
Editorial:
Freie Universität Berlin
Referencias:
Lugar: Berlín; Año: 2014; p. 1 - 1
Resumen:
Last Name Yrigoyen
First Name(s) Juan Hipólito del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús
Alternative Last Name(s) (Irigoyen)
Description Argentine politician and statesman
Date of Birth b. 13 July 1852
Place of Birth Buenos Aires, Argentina
Date of Death d. 3 July 1933
Place of Death Buenos Aires, Argentina
Summary: Hipólito Yrigoyen was President of Argentina during a critical moment of the Great War. He maintained neutrality despite internal and external pressures, and promoted panhispanism to counteract United States Pan-Americanism.
Hipólito Yrigoyen was the leader of the Unión Cívica Radical [Radical Civic Union], the main opposition party in Argentina since 1890. After the democratization of the political system in 1912, Yrigoyen was elected President of Argentina twice (1916-1922, 1928-1930). He was also the first Argentine president in being overthrown by a coup d'état.
Hipólito Yrigoyen maintained the neutrality adopted by his predecessor, the conservative Victorino de la Plaza, but in 1917 the international scene created a challenge for his government. After its entry into the war, United States started a campaign to persuade Latin America to declare war on Germany. At the same time, three Argentine merchant ships were sunk by German submarines, which aroused strong internal pressures to break diplomatic relations with that country. Yrigoyen´s persistence in neutrality led the USA to disclose some confidential telegrams of the German minister in Argentina, Graf Karl von Luxburg (1872-1956), addressed to his government, where he recommended sinking Argentine ships without a trace. Despite this revelation and the clamour of part of Argentine public opinion, Yrigoyen kept neutrality.
He also fostered Latin America´s adoption of a common strategy facing the war, based on panhispanism, the affirmation of a cultural identity rooted in Spanish heritage, as an alternative to US Pan-Americanism. In this line, he established the celebration of 12 October as the Day of the Race in homage to Spain.