Bermejo, Ildefonso (1820–1892)

Ildefonso Bermejo (b. 1820; d. 1892), Spanish publicist and writer active in Paraguay. A budding journalist with experience in Madrid, Bermejo first came to Asunción in 1855 at the behest of the Carlos Antonio López government, which had hired him to help launch several projects of a cultural nature. Over the next few years, Bermejo was the main force behind such state-sponsored newspapers as El Semanario de Avisos y Conocimientos Útiles, El Eco del Paraguay, and La Época. More important, he trained a team of young Paraguayans in the field of journalism, and his flair and erudition appeared in much of their subsequent work. In 1860, for instance, they produced La Aurora, an ambitious literary and scientific review, the first publication of its kind in the still very isolated Paraguay.

Aside from his journalistic work, Bermejo founded several secondary-level educational institutions, including the Aula de Filosofía. He also wrote plays for the newly constructed Teatro Nacional.

Bermejo had an irascible character that all too often conflicted with the rather conservative members of the Asunción elite. After disagreements with officials of the Francisco Solano López regime in 1863, he returned to Europe, where he published a scathing account of his Paraguayan experiences, Repúblicas americanas: Episodios de la vida privada, política, y social de la República del Paraguay (1873), in which he lampooned the López family and the country he had left behind.

See alsoJournalismxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rafael Eladio Velázquez, Breve historia de la cultura en el Paraguay (1980), pp. 156-157, 169-171.

Efraím Cardozo, Apuntes de historia cultural del Paraguay (1985), pp. 248-274 passim.

Additional Bibliography

Bermejo, Ildefonso Antonio. Episódio da vida privada, política e social na república do Paragui. Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, 2002.

                                 Thomas L. Whigham