Scope and Content Note
The diaries of Alcides Arguedas (1879-1946) span the years 1900-1943. The diaries are in Spanish and consist of fourteen bound volumes of carbon-copy typescripts, three hand-written volumes, and an index. The page numbers given in the index do not correspond to the page numbers in the typescript volumes, but does give an indication of topics covered in each year. Each typescript diary concludes with a chronological listing of topics covered in that volume.
The first volume begins with an introductory essay written in 1930, when Arguedas began the project of having multiple copies made of his extensive diary. The first entry, 1 January 1900, follows the introductory essay. All entries are dated and occasional newspaper clippings are added or transcribed into the text. In a 1941 letter to the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress, Arguedas explains that his original diaries were at that time in Germany where a typist was making five copies. The five copies, bound in twelve large volumes, averaging over two hundred pages each, were to be distributed, one to the family, and the others to the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the French national library, and the national library in Buenos Aires. All copies were given with the restriction that they be closed to researchers until, variously either fifty years from his death or until the year 1990 (the Library of Congress restriction) because of the political commentary in his diaries. When the typist began transcribing the diaries, entries deemed of a political nature were put into a separate volume. This was not the intention of Arguedas, and when he became aware of this, he directed that all entries be kept together in the same volume. Therefore, volumes 1A, 2A, and 3A contain political entries from 1906-1930, and these volumes should be cross checked with the regularly numbered volumes. In 1944 Arguedas gave his original diaries and the typescript copies covering the years 1942-1943 to the Library of Congress.
Excerpts from Arguedas's diary were published in Ciencia y Cultura: Revista de la Universidad Católica Boliviana in July 2007, edited by Salvador Romero Pittari. Romero used the family copy, still in Bolivia, and the excerpts, in addition to 1900-1908 and 1943, include entries from 1944-1945, volumes not included in the Library of Congress collection.