Albert Einstein's South American letters: Buenos Aires critics and fascination for Montevideo

At forty-one, the man had already received the Nobel Prize in Physics his discoveries on the photoelectric effect (a fundamental step on the path of quantum mechanics) and the formula E = mc², the one that very few people understand or can explain but that the whole planet knows.

As he was also Jewish Friendly, spiritual and entertaininghe immediately became a celebrity in the style of time, invited to travel around the world and comment on any subject through countless interviews and articles requested by newspapers.

A character of his day, Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in Germany and on March 14, his 140th birthday is celebrated. Icon revered worldwide, his scientific theories are still present in many elements of everyday life, its theoretical status is badured for centuries.

But, in addition to his scientific work, Einstein left a legacy of thousands of letters and documents, travel diaries and annotations, many of which are revealed a complex human being, able to enjoy the benefits of celebrity, but also put a bad mood in the presence of strangers and make comments that are today considered strongly racist or xenophobic.

Recently, Einstein wrote in his travel journal between October 1922 and March 1923 in Asia, the Middle East and Spain, in which he described the Chinese as a "hardworking, filthy, obtuse" people. Not very politically correct …
A similar journal covered the vicissitudes of the author of Theory of Relativity during his 1925 voyage through Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Y Racist or pejorative comments were not lacking, mixed with statements of love and admiration for their guests.

Reading the newspapers shows Einstein as A moody man who did his best with the overwhelming weight of fame and went from praise to climate or to certain customs to strike with the hammer of his pen and describe without filtering the local characters.

Einstein left Europe aboard a ship that stopped over in Spain and Portugal and stopped a few hours in Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo before berthing in Buenos Aires. March 24, 1925.

Upon arriving at the Rio Scale, Einstein was received by "a rabbi and someone else, as well as by engineers and doctors," said the scientist to the newspapers, who make part of the archives of his documents preserved by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In his first impression of Brazil, Einstein said that "everything lives and thrives, so to speak, before our eyes," according to the newspaper pages published in German and translated into English by Princeton University.

"The mix of people on the streets has no price", continued the scientist who saw in Rio"Portuguese, Indians, Blacks, with all possible nuances in the middle"

At the stop of the boat, in the Brazilian city, lived "a marvelous experience, an indescribable abundance in a few hours".
Then stop in Montevideo "at noon", where he received "journalists and other Jews of different types", including a secretary, Nierenstein, from the local university. Nierenstein, he writes, "is a good person resigned, but the others are more or less sordid".

After a delay in the port of Montevideo, Einstein finally arrived in Buenos Aires, "a comfortable and boring cityto "with"Delicate people, innocent look, funny but 'cliché"", an original in the eyes of the scientist, who saw in the Argentine capital, just got off the boat, "luxury, superficiality"

In Argentina, Einstein spent several weeks, gave twelve lecturesHe met Jewish and Zionist organizations and was received by the highest local authorities. He went to Córdoba and a friend's farm in Llavallol, wrote some articles for the newspaper La Prensa and noted in his papers the impressions and events of this trip. including very long formulas.

Already with a day in Buenos Aires, Einstein was of the opinion that the city was like a "New York attenuated by the south"When he met a director of the University of La Plata, he later described it in his diary as"a small, elegant and fake man with a similar little woman"

For the most part, South American newspapers are written with short sentences, like flashes of memory that reached Einstein's hands from a brain who wanted to remember every striking detail of his adventures.

From his first lecture, he stressed the "boiling heat"in the room, but stressed the great presence of young people",always kind because they are interested in things"He also found" nice "a senior official of the Ministry of Education, but found a series of visits"useless but tolerable"

A little peace came the "rainy month" of Sunday, March 29, when he was able to enjoy "a blessed peace alone in my room during the morning."
"You need a lot of external anxiety to find inner happiness when everything is calm," he wrote.

In the early days of April, Einstein flew over the city aboard a Junker seaplane, met with the then president, Marcelo T. de AlvearHe visited an ethnology museum and had dinner with his friend Leopoldo Lugones. He also visited La Plata, a city "beautiful, calm, Italian style, with magnificent university buildings that are furnished in an American style"

Obviously, he liked La Plata, but could not with his genius: the opening ceremony of the semester university, which he was the guest star, began with "too long speech" of an official who has not not named.
In the newspaper, he wrote the trip to Llavallol between the 8th and the 10th of April. In the locality of Buenos Aires, he found "a good climate and a wonderful rest"And as someone who does not want the thing, it's also" a great idea for a new theory of the link between gravitation and electricity "(however, a few days later, already in Montevideo, Einstein wrote that "all the scientific ideas I thought of in Argentina proved useless").

After Llavallol and Córdoba, Einstein returned on April 14 to Buenos Aires. He declared himself "happy to arrive" in the city and "terribly tired of the people". "The idea of ​​continuing to travel for so long weighs a lot on me," he told his newspaper.

In a rapture of memory, he then wrote impressions of the pbadage through Córdoba, where – he says found "residues of true culture with love for the earth and sense of the sublime"

One moment particularly struck him, while he was visiting a Zionist organization, it is not clear whether in Buenos Aires or Cordoba. Apparently, the directors of the organization tried to show him artifacts and photographs. When someone found one of these images hanging on the wall, Einstein saw "a horrible dirt" at the location of the frame of the picture. "I hope this is not taken as a symbol," he said.

On April 22, he had lunch with "figures"From science and politics and night, a meeting with students during which the guitar was played and sung."And me, finally, with the violinhe recalled.

Two days later, the German physicist was already in Montevideo, where "I have been received with sincere cordiality, rare in my life"In the Uruguayan capital, he continued, he discovered"love for the land without any kind of megalomania"

Uruguay seemed to Einstein "a happy little country"with"social institutions models", especially those who protected women and"Older people and illegitimate children"

It was then a state "very liberal, completely separated from the church"said Einstein.

In the papers, the scientist explained that the comments on Montevideo had been written in order to remember that he was already on board the ship that had brought him back to Brazil. "In reality, there was much more" in the Uruguayan capital than the newspapers say, "to the point that he could barely catch his breath in the face of so much love"Uruguayans," he said.

Montevideo turned out "much more human and pleasant than Buenos Aires, to which, of course, the small dimensions of the city and the country contributed"

The Uruguayans reminded himSwiss and Dutch"Einstein said, according to who"the devil seizes big countries with his madness"

"I would cut them (to countries) in small parts, if I had the power"To do it, he speculated.

On May 4, he finally arrived in Rio for his official visit. As in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Einstein met with Jewish and Zionist leaders, as well as the highest local dignitaries.

The 6th offered a lecture at the Engineers Club, where "communication was impossible for acoustic reasons" derived from the "noise" coming from the street.

"Little scientific sense" had this meeting for the German physicist. So little that it provoked one of those politically incorrect comments: "Here I am a kind of white elephant for others, "he noted," and they are like monkeys."

"At night, alone in the hotel, in my room, naked, I enjoy the view of the bay with its innumerable islands of green rocks and partially discovered by the light of the moon."… it is so that ended the day of Einstein in Rio.

The Rio visit was also tiring. Einstein spent a few days in a mental health house, an institute of biology, the local Zionist federation, a climatology observatory, the Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum, where he talked with an "interesting but pbadionate" teacher. true monkey ", a Russian archaeologist and a journalist"cute, smart and a little arrogant"

In Rio Einstein, He met with Brazilian General Cândido Rondon, first director of the Office for the Protection of Indians (FUNAI), then recognized as an advocate for indigenous rights. The impact that Rondon had caused to Einstein was such that the physicist would write a letter to the A Norwegian Nobel Committee will examine the Brazilian Peace Prize.

The letter to the Norwegian Committee is also archived in Jerusalem, with more than 80,000 other documents, including missives, diaries and photographs.

At the press conference to announce the acquisition of documents, the curator of the Archive, Professor Roni Grosz, was questioned about Einstein's racist comments about the Chinese and about the position of the university on the subject.

"Here we do not censor anything, the documents are never edited and are therefore available to the public and researchers," said Grosz.

So, amid the thousands of newspapers in Jerusalem, you can find Einstein brilliant, fickle, politically incorrect and ready to be surprised by people and by little things.

Or to describe travel moments with a few words that continue to produce reactions nine decades after writing:

"As soon as I get this little word, I'll be in Montevideo or Rio, from where I'll leave, on May 12, to return to Hamburg," Einstein wrote to his wife Elsa and his beautiful -girl Margot from Buenos Aires. March 25, 1925.

In South America, he told them, "the agenda is huge, but I feel strong and indifferent towards people"he added."What I'm doing here, "he says honestly," is probably not more than a comedy"

And, coming back to the scene, I told them that "Buenos Aires is a sterile city from the point of view of romance and the intelligentsia, but I am delighted with Rio"

In the Argentine capital, he sent another letter to Elsa and Margot, "there are many good people among the young people", but there "in general, nothing matters but money and power, as in North America"A real Einstein.