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Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm82011072
Collection material in Spanish
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The diaries of Alcides Arguedas, Bolivian author, diplomat, politician, and historian, were given by Arguedas to the Library of Congress between 1941 and 1944.
Due to a donor restriction, the papers were not open to research until 1991. A finding aid was created in 2016.
It is the researcher's responsibility to determine requirements of domestic copyright laws and international treaties and conventions.
The diaries of Alcides Arguedas are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Alcides Arguedas Diaries, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Alcides Arguedas (born 15 July 1879, La Paz, Bolivia--died 8 May, 1946, Chulumani, Bolivia) studied law and political science at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and sociology in Paris. Arguedas had an active career in government as a leader of the Liberal party and as a diplomat, representing Bolivia in London, Paris, Colombia, and Venezuela. In his scholarly writings on Bolivian history and society, Arguedas focused on the plight of the indigenous population, an interest also reflected in his novels. His best-known work is the novel
The diaries of Alcides Arguedas (1879-1946) span the years 1900-1943. The diaries are in Spanish and consist of fourteen bound volumes of carbon-copy typescripts, three hand-written volumes, and an index. The page numbers given in the index do not correspond to the page numbers in the typescript volumes, but does give an indication of topics covered in each year. Each typescript diary concludes with a chronological listing of topics covered in that volume.
The first volume begins with an introductory essay written in 1930, when Arguedas began the project of having multiple copies made of his extensive diary. The first entry, 1 January 1900, follows the introductory essay. All entries are dated and occasional newspaper clippings are added or transcribed into the text. In a 1941 letter to the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress, Arguedas explains that his original diaries were at that time in Germany where a typist was making five copies. The five copies, bound in twelve large volumes, averaging over two hundred pages each, were to be distributed, one to the family, and the others to the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the French national library, and the national library in Buenos Aires. All copies were given with the restriction that they be closed to researchers until, variously either fifty years from his death or until the year 1990 (the Library of Congress restriction) because of the political commentary in his diaries. When the typist began transcribing the diaries, entries deemed of a political nature were put into a separate volume. This was not the intention of Arguedas, and when he became aware of this, he directed that all entries be kept together in the same volume. Therefore, volumes 1A, 2A, and 3A contain political entries from 1906-1930, and these volumes should be cross checked with the regularly numbered volumes. In 1944 Arguedas gave his original diaries and the typescript copies covering the years 1942-1943 to the Library of Congress.
Excerpts from Arguedas's diary were published in
This collection is arranged by the number assigned to each volume by Arguedas. The regularly numbered group and the "A" series of volumes each are ordered chronologically.