GABRIELA MISTRAL

Real name Lucila de Maria del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga. Chilean poet. In the years 1924-1946 was in the diplomatic work. Her lyrics are united with the traditions of Spanish poetry animistic imagery of Indian mythology. Compilations: "Sonnets of Death" (1914), "Despair" (1922), "Tala" (1938), "Spinning" (1954). Nobel Laureate (1945).

Her and still called "the great stranger. " Being always in sight, having an unusually strong public temperament, Gabriela Mistral, whose real name - Lucille Godoy Alkayaga - managed to remain a mysterious person. Significant in her life entwined with the legends, with a lot of speculation and guesswork. One of the legends, furnished with the most tragic poet and nomadic details on all her biography - a love story. Supposedly 17 years old Mistral love with a young man with all my heart (and her heart was, of course, knew no variability), but the happiness was short-lived, and her choice for unclear reasons he committed suicide. Myth - the fatal, boundless - nurtured by striking the tragic power of the Sonnets of Death ", in which the poet earnestly mourned lover who voluntarily departed from life.

In 1914 literary contest in Santiago there is a rare, though, seemed unimportant event: the prize was awarded an unknown poet Lucille Godoy. Evil tongues asserted that the jury made its decision to seek the lesser evil: All the submitted works to the judges seemed very weak, do not give a prize meant to disrupt holiday. Three loosely written sonnets under the general title "Sonnets of Death" the jury chose the allegedly because it was necessary that something be noted.

From the legend and the story that the poet was unable to read their poems at the festival, because she had only one dress is not suitable for luxurious surroundings, and she listened to the rendition of "Sonnets of Death", sitting in the gallery. But the image of a humble village teacher, "sort of Jane Eyre," was not bred with a real person Lucille Godoy - lady with a heavy, strange, secretive and touchy to the pettiness of character. A story about a single dress could easily happen with the poet, because it at an early age had lost his father, and experiencing hardship only by its own inhuman strain was able to get a good education, but the myth of a single, fatal passion shortly after the death of the poet was debunked authoritative biographer - Volodia Teitelboim.

Photo — «Gabriela Mistral»

Having collected a great documentary material, he has proved that it was suicide, that really happened, had nothing to do with the Mistral, that the Sonnets of Death "are only indirectly related to suicide. But her love for him - if there was - not the first and so, anyway, is not alone. There was another - a painful, long, strange - a little-known poet Manuel Magallanes Mowry. Again, the secret, again expanse for rumors and speculation. Mistral, so obsessively write about love for a man, apparently, and especially from her letters, and knew no carnal pleasures.

In her biography, as if everything is set out to show people, like great poets - the unearthly creatures, other-worldly order, which does not necessarily feel the real feelings to pour out their passions lava onto the paper. As if all that they knew in another past life. Her poems about children and motherhood gave her the highest title of the Mother of all children. It is hard to find in the world of poetry lines devoted highest calling of women - motherhood - penetration than the Mistral. Meanwhile, she had her children and others if they brought up, only to teaching faculty.

After winning the competition Mistral readily printed magazines and newspapers, but the poet's first book "Desperation" was released only nine years later. Its very hot, too pessimistic lines gathered under one cover, the impression of stress and long time could not find a publisher. Decided to print the same first "Despair" "Institute of Spain - The Institute of Spanish in the U. S. , and only then it was republished in his homeland. All these years, while poetry Mistral its way to the reader, she did teaching career. Strange teacher loved not everything, but its public temperament could envy each. Even in remote provinces, Gabrielle felt in the center of the universe. In it, despite the loneliness and misunderstanding, matured a persistent belief that she was destined to become Amautoy - bring the light of wisdom, not only children but also the entire human race. In its programmatic poem, "Credo" is a string. "I believe in my heart . . . because it is involved in the dreams of altitude and hugging all of creation. " She always wanted to be "more than a poet," and saw its mission of preaching. In his "Prayer of the teacher," she set a goal, frankly, feasible only deity: "Let me be a mother more than the mothers themselves, to love and protect, as they are, what is not flesh of my flesh.

Photo — «Gabriela Mistral»

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Operating a school principal in the town of Temuco, Gabriel drew attention to a talented student, who later became one of the most celebrated poets in Chile. Pablo Neruda was a creative "baptism" Mother Gabriella. Subsequently, when the Mistral reached the pinnacle of fame and served as consul in the Chilean Embassy in Rome, it is in defiance of public opinion, had hosted the disgraced Neruda deprived of citizenship. Ambassador demanded an explanation, she replied: "I accept and I will take each of Chileans who knocks on my door, especially when it comes to my old friend and a wonderful congregation Neruda. "

In later years Mistral overwhelmed the desire to wandering. At the invitation of Minister of Education Jose Vasconcelos of Mexico who arrived in this country. Minister, embodies the 1920's revolutionary ideas on education, said Gabriela - "shining ray, flashing the mysteries of human souls. " Re-affirmation poet is in a foreign country. It was in Mexico Mistral, not knowing the rest, with all the ardor given field of education: open rural schools and libraries, lectures, bathed in glory, feeling on par with Diego Rivera, Siqueiros, Pellicer.

In her lyrical talent of the poet in some strange way combined with rough, brash public temperament. This Mistral threw a passionate appeal to organize the Spanish-American Legion in Nicaragua, which was supposed to help "a little insane army, ready for sacrifice" (Army Sandino). After becoming a Nobel Prize, she felt like a citizen of the World, wrote articles, pronounced pacifist speech - hence its famed "covenant" "Damn the word" (1950). "After the massacre, in 1914 the word" world "torn out of the mouth with an almost morbid enthusiasm, the air is cleared from the nauseating smell, which is in the world - the smell of blood, whether it's the blood of slaughter animals, crushed insects, or the so-called" noble human blood " . . .

If, however, lacked the temperament to ensure that its voice is heard in all corners of the earth, the lyrical note of her soul remained Latin America. Affected the immutable principle of any talent and success - always be yourself and do not betray their "little homeland". Indian blood gurgling in the Mistral makes her poetry a mysterious, closed to those who are educated in European culture.

It is noteworthy in this regard, the story with a preface by Paul Valery to first poetry collection Mistral, translated into French.

Photo — «Gabriela Mistral»

He appeared as a bridge to the Nobel Prize. Self-publication was paid for by the Chilean government, rightly believe that the award Mistral - a question of honor of the nation. But the preface Valerie has caused a sharp rejection of Mistral, for some reason she was mad at a straightforward revelation of the French poet, who knew Gabriel personally. Valerie wrote that it shakes in the works Mistral stress feelings, amounting to the barbarous transcendence that the poetry of Gabriela as far from Europe as well as the South American Andes mountain range, that mysticism Mistral physiological too, and that nothing like Valerie in his lifetime did not read.

Gabriela fumed and raged and after reading the confession Frenchman. She fell on poor Valerie with all the force of his unbridled temper, accusing him of narrow-mindedness and superficiality, Eurocentrism. "I am the daughter of the country yesterday, metiska, and there are a hundred things that are beyond the reach of Paul Valery. "

French poet, probably wounded in the heart of the Mistral: striving to embody the ideals of "Our America", predstavitelstvuya in all corners of the land on behalf of his homeland, she, nevertheless, "escapes" from Chile, felt uncomfortable in front of a small audience of fellow countrymen. She wanted to make her speaker's tribune globe, the whole cosmos. Such gigantic strength and temperament gave her an unprecedented nature.

Gabriela Mistral's death found in the U. S. . From there, her body was sent to Chile. She had been arranged national funeral. And no wonder: it was the pride of the country, one of the first Latin American writers, famous throughout the world, and the only woman on the continent - a poet of such magnitude. All her life she fought against evil in a global sense, went ahead, cried in a loud voice, addressed the humanity as a whole. In one of his later poems, she demanded that the men broke down the door separating them, but the door of his house, which seemed to her prison door personal closeness she never wanted to, and perhaps could not break.