Mario Corcuera Ibáñez: diplomat and writer of a long and fruitful career

1927-2019

An atmosphere of penetrating culture has invaded the house of Mario Corcuera Ibáñez. He made it possessed, with value understood by all, family conversations and discussions with those who visited. This could be both in the old address of this corner of the Botanic called Duck Palace as well as in the successive residences abroad imposed by the long and successful career diplomat condition.

In the marriage to Ruth Quiroga, daughter of a former family of Catamarca related to former President Ramón Castillo, the intellectual affinities between the philosophy professor and the doctorate in history, devoted to American anthropological questions and having dedicated a life to study of the textile traditions of our peoples.

In this sense, a path was drawn for the three children before leaving: María Silvia, the eldest, is recognized as a visual artist; Javier has made a name for himself as a biologist specializing in marine mammals and for the interest he brings to the environmental issues that he had then promoted to the Wildlife Management, and Santiago , the minor, made an outstanding judicial career as a Court official. Supreme and, for years, judge of the National Electoral Chamber.

With Falucho and Negra Luna, close friends of the Corcuera, the history of the country and the love of architecture as well as the pieces of marriage between Spanish colonial art and the indigenous imagination have occupied a privileged place in the usual meetings of their neighbors, on the outskirts of the chapel of the Lord. The same thing happened at the approach of major works of painting or novelties in galleries with maestro Guillermo Roux or, as for music, talks led by Irma Costanzo, eximia guitarist. Friendships that all Corcuera have cultivated here and in many other parts of the world, like Paris or Rome

On the death of Corcuera yesterday, one of the last diplomats who entered our diplomatic service disappeared immediately after the fall of Perón in 1955. He was consul in Rome and consul general in Paris, cultural advisor in Lima and spokesman Chancellor Luis María de Pablo Pardo. Corcuera did not turn away from this role on the side of a minister who, having been a true representative of aristocratic nationalism, stepped towards manifestly liberal positions: Pablo Pardo has always been a man whose conversation has always been at the highest level who has recorded who these lines are writing.

The last destinations of Corcuera as ambbadador were Senegal, ideal for whom he would write about tradition and oral literature in Black Africa and was predestined to have relations with a poet-statesman such as Lépold Sédar Senghor and Tunisia. He later became director of the Hispanic American Isaac Fernández Blanco (1997-2000). In the following years, he wrote extensively.

In the biography of Santiago de Liniers, the winner of Beresford and Whitelocke, he pointed out that it was about him, fallen in front of a rifle squad for conspiring against the Junta de Buenos Aires, first victim of political violence. In Courage and Fire, he describes Bouchard, Drake, Morgan, pirates and privateers who, from the first adventures in the Aegean Sea, forged what was identified as "a war without archives".

I believe that Corcuera's essential book is El Mediterráneo y nosotros, a historical and comparative fresco of the largest pool of cultures. From there came the most nourished society of our society: Spaniards, Italians, French, Arabs, Jews, Croats. The subtitle of the work in which Corcuera follows the school of the great historian Fernand Braudel says: "The identity of the Argentines".

We spoke on this subject Tuesday, and he on his deathbed, when he insisted that there would be no effective solution to the problems that preoccupy him. Argentina since time immemorial if her society does not immediately define what she is and wants to be. The author of many test articles in
THE NATION He said this with a weak voice and energetic hope: "We are a great country … but it takes humility, a lot of humility". I dared to ask him if this did not imply a warning alongside at least two of the main protagonists of Argentine politics. He remained silent, turned his head to the side in a usual gesture and smiled slightly. The last time I saw him.

He was born in Rosario on February 1, 1927.