Migrazioni e identità in Adán Buenosayres di Leopoldo Marechal

The novel Adán Buenosayres (1948) by Leopoldo Marechal (1900-1970) has some aspects that are often underestimated by critics, such as the role played by European and extra-European immigrants in the creation of an Argentinian national identity. Marechal was an exponent of Martinfierrism, a movement set out to revise Argentinian national identity in a cosmopolitan perspective; still, according to the movement supporters, only the argentinos viejos could elaborate a linguistic criollismo, while the new immigrants were excluded from this process. A reading of Marechal’s novel allows to analyse his particular position in the movement: Adán Buenosayres ironically revisits the contrasts between modernity and tradition that distinguished Buenos Aires in that period, and it testifies of a new, more positive attitude towards the new immigrants.