Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (Evita) is possibly the most famous (infamous?) woman to come out of Latin America up to the present time. The chronicle of her life from her birth in a squalid Argentine pueblo to her body's final interment in the Argentine soil of the exclusive Recoleta Cemetery of Buenos Aires on October 22, 1976 -- 24 years after her untimely death from cancer at age 33 -- is one of almost mythic proportion. In a study of her life it becomes clear that Evita was a woman driven by the desire for self- aggrandizement but who also became increasingly sincere in her wish to improve the position of the "descamisados" (the shirtless ones), who were the impoverished workers of Argentina. To do this it would be necessary to repress and damage the position of the oligarchs whom Evita had long detested. She was certainly willing and able to accomplish all three of these desires during her lifetime. Even years after Evita's death millions of Argentines are still infatuated with her. In fact, many of them worship her as a saint. To others, Evita represents the opposite of saintly attributes.
In viewing Evita's life one begins to see painted a picture of a woman who is a complete paradox. Eva Peron, depending on who you ask, was either a devil or a saint. To the oligarchs and bourgeois she was so detested that, at the height of her power, to speak her name was a social faux pas. She was referred to by them only as "that woman". On the other hand, to the poor of Argentina she was the embodiment of their hopes, dreams and ambitions. Among many incidents and events in her life are those which show Evita as a humorless, ruthless, vindictive, brittle tyrant with a single-minded quest for power. However, there are just as many incidents which demonstrate her tireless, self-destructive efforts to help the impoverished, to gain some emancipation for Argentine women, as well as her devotion to her husband, and her efforts at international charity. Evita was an extremely complex and enigmatic woman whose life provides a fascinating subject for study.
Maria Eva Duarte began life in the year 1919 in a one-room house near Los Toldos in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was the fifth and final child of Juana Ibaguren and her married lover and financial supporter, Juan Duarte. Her father died when Eva was seven years old. The years after this were very lean for Juana and her children and they worked in the homes of local estancias. This was little Eva's first good look at the opulent lives of the rich and powerful of Argentina.
Life improved when Juana found another benefactor. He moved Juana and her family to Junin, a much larger town. Juana found husbands for all of her daughters except Eva. No one expected much from little Eva Duarte - or rather, no one but Eva. She had decided to become Argentina's leading actress.
Eva left home at the age of fourteen with a travelling tango singer, Agustin Magaldi. In Buenos Aires, she played the starving actress bit for a while but gradually began to work her way up the ladder of success through a series of affairs with men who could benefit her. When Eva had Colonel Anibal Imbert, the Minister of Communications, as her lover, she persuaded him to stage a huge variety show to benefit a town nearly destroyed by an earthquake. At this show was Colonel Juan Domingo Peron. Their affair began that same night in 1944.
Eva's new paramour was twice her age but was also the power behind the president. In each other, they had found the person who could take them straight to the top. By October 19, 1945, two amazing things had occurred: Peron was returned to power after an attempted coup and he had married his mistress. Little Eva from Los Toldos had achieved the unthinkable in Argentina - she was the wife of the most powerful man in the nation.
Her next step was to become First Lady of Argentina. She accomplished this with her husband on June 4, 1946. She re-defined her position by taking an active stance in politics. Together the two were political magic. Juan Peron handled the day-to-day political business of being a despot while Evita courted her "descamisados" whose votes were plentiful enough to keep them in power despite the hatred and fear they incurred from the oligarchs and bourgeois.
In April of 1947, Eva Peron accepted an invitation from Franco to go to Spain and receive the Cross of Isabel the Catholic, the highest decoration bestowed by Spain. In Spain she received an exuberant welcome. However, when Franco tried to pretend that his starving country didn't need Argentina's offer of a huge shipment of wheat, he got a first-hand taste of just how frank the first lady of Argentina could be when annoyed. When Franco attempted to dissemble and ask "what would we do with it", Evita snapped sharply back with the reply "...why not try putting it in the bread.!". Her next two stops were Italy and Paris; these stops were less enjoyable than Spain, but were nevertheless successful in making Evita an international figure. Evita's trip was followed by the international press with a breathlessness and intensity usually reserved for royalty and movie stars. The blonde, well-coifed, well-dressed and highly bejeweled lady of Argentina made for glamorous headlines.
Some time after returning home to Argentina, Evita began something of a metamorphosis. Her clothes became more subdued as did her hair style. She seemed to dig in to her charity works with a new intensity and sincerity. It seems that perhaps after her European trip, Evita began to gain a sense of purpose that directed her ambitions more towards those who believed in her and less towards simple self-aggrandizement.
From some accounts it seems that Evita was almost solely in charge of the fate of Argentina within two years of her husband's election. Whether this is true or not, one thing is certain - Evita had de facto power. Finally, Evita made a move to gain an actual political position in the form of becoming a candidate for vice president in the 1951 elections. The military blocked this maneuver and prevented her candidacy. This was one of the bitterest disappointments of Evita's short life. It was soon after this that the leukemia she had fought for a year (and the uterine cancer she was unaware of) began to win.
She made a bed-ridden plea via radio for her husband to be re-elected and many believe that this was the deciding factor in Juan Peron's winning another term. Evita made her last public appearance at her husband's swearing-in on June 4, 1952. She had held on long enough to help him get re-elected but on July 26, 1952, at 8:25 p.m., Evita succumbed to the cancer that had ravaged her body and caused her excruciating agony for many months.
Her body was preserved by Spanish pathologist, Dr. Pedro Adra. Over the next few years her preserved corpse was sent on a macabre odyssey in order to keep its whereabouts unknown. In 1974, it was exhumed from a Milanese grave labelled as Maria Maggi and sent to Madrid. When her husband died after having regained the presidency he had lost three years after her death, her body was finally sent home. It now rests in a steel vault deep in the Argentine soil of Recoleta Cemetery. This is Evita's resting place, safe from both those who long ago decided she was a Saint (despite the Pope's refusal to canonize her) and from those who would use her body for political power.
In an impartial review of the events of Evita's life one becomes painfully aware of the many character flaws of Señora Peron but still cannot help but see her as a sympathetic figure. Evita was a product of a childhood in which she was on the losing end of the incredible disparities in wealth and power that existed in Argentina between the nearly omnipotent oligarchs on their glorious estancias and the grinding poverty of so much of the rest of the populace. Evita truly believed that she was a woman who had been born with the mission to help the impoverished and exploited workers of Argentina. Evita's courage and drive are easily as impressive as her ego. She was certainly no saint but it is an injustice to condemn her out of hand as a con artist and cheat. She was a woman who was full of contradictions. She lived in a nation where she should never have been able to be anything more than an anonymous, impoverished woman in the depressing surroundings of a pueblo on the Pampas. Despite the odds and obstacles against her, this slight woman pulled herself to a position of extreme power and wealth, and made the hated oligarchs tremble. She was detested and loved with incredible passion, and refused to be disregarded by the oligarchs.
With a figure as contradictory as Evita Peron, it is perhaps difficult not to succumb to the temptation to paint an image of her in shades of black and blacker. Often, Evita seems to have become the scapegoat for all of the troubles Argentina faces and has faced in the years since her death. However, it is also unwise to go to the other extreme and deify Evita as a beautiful, selfless goddess because the reality of her life makes this a lie. Evita, despite being a legendary figure -- a devil incarnate to some and a saint to others -- was simply a human being. A very remarkable human being to be sure, but , nevertheless, simply made of flesh and blood, hopes and dreams, strengths and weaknesses. A dynamic woman possessed of faults and foibles but also kindness and sincerity. Evita Duarte Peron was a woman of incredible will who defied the odds and changed the course of a nation for all time with little more to work with than shear force of will.
