- Juan Bimba
Juan Bimba is a
fictitious character used in the past as thenational personification ofVenezuela , but is now regarded as obsolete. According to the localfolklore of the region ofCumaná the name comes from a mentally-ill local habitant of the 1850s; but this version is doubtful. It was first used by Juan Vicente González, a Venezuelan columnist of the 19th century as an example of the average Venezuelan peasant, the prototype of the common people. Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela. 2da Edic. Caracas: Fundación Empresas Polar, 1997. Tomo IV, pp. 221-222. [http://www.fpolar.org.ve/nosotros/historia/venezolanis.html] Last accessed 29 november, 2007.] The cartoon was drawn by cartoonist Mariano Medina Febres in the 1930s [CRW Flags Inc. [http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ve%7D.html Venezuela - Political Flags] Last modified: 2007-07-21]Use in politics
The name was used and preserved by
Andrés Eloy Blanco in several poems and in the Fantoches magazine. A sociopoliticalessay by the poet, in 1936, revolving particularly onsocialism andcommunism in Venezuelan history, [Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Capítulo Venezolano de El Club de Roma. [http://www.ucab.edu.ve/clubderomaVenezuela/LIBROCDE/SACONS~1.DOC] Last accessed 29 november, 2007.] was entitled "Carta a Juan Bimba" («A Letter to Juan Bimba»). [Universidad Nueva Esparta. Andrés Eloy Blanco - biography. [http://www.une.edu.ve/eloy/biografia.htm] Last accessed 29 november, 2007.]Acción Democrática , one of the two leading political parties of Venezuela in the 20th century, used and further popularized the name and created an image to accompany the symbolism of their 1963 electoral campaign's motto: "El Partido del Pueblo" («The People's Party»), especially since the country's supreme court banned the use of their official flag.The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. [http://hemi.nyu.edu/journal/1_1/calzadilla_print.pdf Welcome to the Nineteenth Century: Venezuelan Elections] by Fernando Calzadilla.] Resently, Venezuelan presidentHugo Chavez has been seen performing a humoristic version of himself as Juan Bimba, particularly during political campaigning tactics, portraying the image of a humble "llanero ".Other uses
Juan Bimbo is nowadays more commonly used as a
placeholder name , an informal name for unspecified persons in certain Venezuelan regions. [NationMaster.com - Venezuelan Language Statistics. [http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ve-venezuela/lan-language] Last accessed 29 november, 2007.]ee also
*
Brother Jonathan
*Doña Juanita
*Huaso References
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