1935
Ramona Aguirre, Victoria’s mother, passes
away.
1939
Victoria travels again to Europe. Roger
Caillois, responsible for the diffusion of
Borges’ work in France, arrives in Buenos
Aires. With Victoria’s help, he begins to
translate and publish the work of a number of
Latin American authors. World War II breaks out
in Europe. Ortega y Gasset undertakes his final
visit to Argentina.
1942
Victoria moves permanently to the Villa Ocampo.
1943
Victoria is invited by the Guggenheim Foundation
to give a series of lectures in the United States.
For this voyage, she travels by air rather than
by sea.
1946
Victoria is present at the Nuremberg trials. On
July 26, President Perón gives a speech
in which he promises the right to vote to the
women of Argentina. Victoria considers it contradictory
that women be granted this right by a government
she deems non-democratic.
1951
Victoria travels to Europe. Members of the Peronist
party mark the entrance to the Villa Ocampo with
a cross, indicating their assessment of Victoria
as an “oligarchic dissident.” Fearing
a break-in, she has suitcases of letters and documents
sent to various friends for safekeeping.
1952
Victoria begins writing her Autobiografía,
with the express wish that it be published after
her death.
1953
On May 8, Victoria is vacationing in Mar del Plata
when the police break into her house and arrest
her as a political prisoner. She is taken to the
“El Buen Pastor” prison, and the offices
of Sur are broken into. She writes: “In
jail one has the sensation of grasping the heart
of things, of living in reality.” Victoria
is released on June 2.
1958
André Malraux, while visiting Argentina,
stays at the Villa Victoria in Mar del Plata.
She writes of him: “I know of no genius
who defies definition like this Frenchman born
on the threshold of the 20th century.”
1963
Victoria travels to Paris. There, the first signs
of a cancer of the mouth appear.
1968
Indira Gandhi travels to Buenos Aires, and pays
a visit to Victoria at the Villa Ocampo. At the
Indian Embassy Victoria she is awarded an honorary
doctorate from the University of Visva Barathi.
1973
Victoria donates Villa Ocampo and Villa Victoria
to UNESCO “to be used in a vivid and creative
manner, for the production, investigation, experimentation
and development of cultural activities…”
1979
On January 27, at nine in the morning, Victoria
passes away at the Villa Ocampo. Borges would
write: “In a country and in an era in which
women were generic, she had the distinction of
being an individual.. she dedicated her fortune,
which was considerable, to the education of her
country and of her continent…Personally
I owe a great deal to Victoria, but as an Argentine,
I owe her far more.”
Sources:
Meyer, Doris: Victoria Ocampo, contra viento
y marea. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1981.
Vázquez, María Esther: Victoria
Ocampo. El mundo como destino. Buenos Aires:
Seix Barral, 2002.
Ocampo, Victoria: Autobiografía II.
Buenos Aires: Sur, 1980.
Ocampo, Victoria: Testimonios, series primera
a quinta. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1999.
Ocampo, Victoria: Testimonios, series sexta
a décima. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,
1999.
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