Corrientes culturales en la leyenda de Juana Azurduy de Padilla

Abstract

This essay examines the legend around Juana Azurduy de Padilla, the Chuquisaqueña now remembered as a heroine of the independence movement. Its objective is to better understand her development as a legend and the discourses (sociopolitical, religious and literary) that have influenced its continual (re)writing. The author analyzes her legend at the intersection of various cultural currents such as the myth of the American Amazon warrior, the tradition of armsbearing female saints, the cult of the Pachamama, the association between the Bolivian territory and the female figure and, finally, a feminist agenda that has emerged in the past three decades. The author finds that some representations of Azurduy rely on a religious framework, ideals of maternity and Azurduy’s supposed exceptionality as a way of justifying and mitigating her transgression of gender norms. This way, the trajectory of the legend of Azurduyan reflects dynamic gender ideals, as well as national anxieties, in post-independence Bolivia. This study constitutes a unique contribution to the bibliography on Juana Azurduy in that it analyzes previously-unexplored threads regarding her legend and it contextualizes its different stages historically.