Cartas truncas, de amor, de miedo y de muerte: el epistolario de Dominguito Sarmiento a su madre (1865-1866) en la Guerra del Paraguay

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the exchange of letters between Domingo Fidel Sarmiento and his mother from the battlefield of the Paraguayan War. These private anguished texts of love and of fear -fear because of the threat of an imminent death- are testimonies of the conflict in first-person that contribute to widen the margins of the war studies. In this filigree woven between writing and life, this ordinary writing (Fabre, 1993) bases a string of experiences around the camp daily routines. As custodian of vital forces and desires, of tangible requirements, of requests and exhortations, the letters show a whole intelligibility of affections (Antières, 2019). Undoubtedly, the letters claim a resonance regarding everything, involving everything: the love between mother and son, a son dying at 21th in Curupaytí.