José de la Riva-Agüero (1885-1944), Peruvian Historian

Abstract

BORN IN 1885 into one of the oldest and wealthiest Creole families, great-grandchild of the first president of the republic whose name he was given, Jose de la RivaAgliero seemed predestinled for a life of dignified leisure.1 Instead he turnled out to be a studious youth, the pride of the Recollect Fathers' school and an outstanding pupil at the University of San Marcos. At twenty he published his Bachelor of Arts dissertation, Caracwter de la literatura del Peru' independiente.2 It was immediately hailed as the first serious synthesis of the kind, learned, independent, and tasteful, and Unamuno commented on it favorably.3 Five years later, in 1910, appeared what has proved to be his most important work, the doctoral dissertation La historia en el PerPt.4 In 1912 Riva-Agiuero bested the Spanish scholar Manuel Gonz'alez de la Rosa in a polemic over the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, out of which the work of the mestizo chronicler emerged temporarily rehabilitated.5 That he was muistaken about El Inca's reliability (but not, to be sure, his literary worth) in no way detracts from the critical and polemieal powers Riva-Aguiero showed on this occasion. Within another two years he obtained * The author is instructor in Coluimbia University, anid has studiedl in Peru on a Doherty Fellowship. ' Riva-Agiiero descended on both sides from conquistadors, inieludinig Nicolds de Ribera el Viejo, one of the thirteen of Gallo Islanid and the first mayor of Lima. 2Lima, Rosay, 1905. 'Luis Alberto Sanchez, who did not think highly of this work, yet states in the preface to his Los poetas dle la colonia (Lima, Euforion, 1921): 'RivaAguiero is the one who can write in the future the definitive history of Peruviai literature. ' 4Lima, Inmprenta Nacional de F. Barriolnuevo, 1910, 555 pp. At the time a five-page dissartation satisfied the requiremelnt for a doetcrate. B El Inca Garcilaso 's fame profited from Riva-Agiuero 's defense on three major occasiolns: the 1910 dissertation, the reply tc Manuel Gonzalez (Revista Historica, Lima, 1912, v. IV, entrega IV, 312-47), and, above all, the beautiful eulogy of 1916 at Sani Marcos (Revista Universitaria, Aiio XI, Lima, April, 1916, I, 333-412; republished in its finial form in the Opysculos).