Leopoldo Lugones, Biography Of Lights And Shadows

Leopoldo Lugones was a master of letters, but also an erratic and visibly contradictory man. As a writer, he is remembered in the gallery of the greatest in Argentine history; as a politician, there are still many who deplore it; And as a man, he was one of those romantic subversives who commit suicide for love.

Perhaps, he was simply a poet who was made of passion . For this reason, what prevailed in him was impulse, an indomitable heart for which reason built supports that eventually collapsed. Those closest to him always described him as a kind man and obsessed with honesty. In this way, it is difficult to see in him, simultaneously, the talented poet and the radical fascist.

In reality, the contradiction was the natural way of being of Leopoldo Lugones. He was a poet and a bureaucrat at the same time. He was a convinced Catholic and equally passionate about the occult. Believer and atheist, avant-garde as a poet and rooted in tradition as an essayist. A man attached to customs who was scandalized by his sentimental behavior.

Early years

Leopoldo Lugones was born on June 13, 1874 in a small town called Villa de María del Río Seco (Córdoba, Argentina). He came from an elite family and received a strict Catholic upbringing. He had four brothers and a childhood very attached to the customs of the time. He was an obedient and responsible child, of whom no one had a complaint.

At the end of the century, he was already showing his literary gifts; from that time, his first writings date, both in literature and in journalism. His talent was undeniable. He married very young , at the age of 22, with Juana Agudelo; after getting married, they moved to Buenos Aires. A year later, their only son, Leopoldo “Polo” Lugones, was born. By then, the author was already considered a convinced socialist.

He traveled to France and was imbued with symbolism, a current very in vogue at the time. His poems turned modernist and he was seen as an avant-garde writer. He also began studying occult subjects and became involved in “theosophy.”

Politically he underwent a metamorphosis that led him from socialism to nationalism, later to radicalism and finally to fascism.

A passion that exploded

The ideological changes were a constant in his life, a swing that led him to acquire enemies in every corner. These enmities had a pejorative influence on the valuation of his work; and it is that, sometimes, it is difficult to separate the person from the artist and the judgments end up clouding the work.

All this came to a head when, in 1930, he decisively supported José Félix Uriburu’s military coup  in Argentina. In any case, even his most staunch critics admit that he did it out of conviction and without any interest.

Since 1915, he held the position of director of the Library of teachers and held it until the day of his death. Precisely, it was to that office where one day a young woman of no more than 25 years old, named Emilia Santiago Cadelago, arrived. Leopoldo Lugones was 52 years old at the time. The young woman came looking for one of his works, which was exhausted, and what she found was a love that split the poet’s life in two.

Lugones boasted of being the most faithful husband in Argentina, and perhaps he was until Emilia came into his life. From that moment on, a series of clandestine, passionate and extremely intense encounters took over the author’s love life. Also an obsessive correspondence, in which some of the poet’s letters were smeared in blood and semen … The die was cast.

Leopoldo Lugones, a tragic and ironic ending

The only son of Leopoldo Lugones, “Polo”, had been a commissioner during the Uriburu dictatorship. He is responsible for the introduction of “the prod” as a method of torture.

It was precisely Polo who discovered his father’s furtive romance and first went to speak with the girl’s family. After that, he  spoke clearly with his father: if he did not leave Emilia, he was going to declare him crazy and lock him up in an asylum.

The father knew that his son was serious. Emilia’s family moved to Uruguay in order to start from scratch. Then, Leopoldo Lugones succumbed to a severe depression that would accompany him for six long years.

Such was his pain that one day he arrived at an inn called “El tropezón”, there, he shut himself up and drank whiskey with cyanide. They found him when he barely had his last breath left and, next to his body, he left a note asking that no tribute be paid to him.

The frustrated love and the sadistic son were surely the main triggers of his suicide. “Polo” also committed suicide in 1971, he had left two daughters: Piri and Babu. Piri joined the subversive group Los Montoneros in the 1970s. Paradoxically, she was tortured thanks to her father’s invention and later disappeared, leaving behind three children. One of them, Alejandro, also committed suicide years later, close to where his great-grandfather had done it.

The tormented poet, the tragic life and his incomparable controversy have turned Leopoldo Lugones into an immortal author. An author whose texts remain, his legacy and, without a doubt, a whole halo of art and mystery around his figure.