Eva Perón
María Eva Duarte de Perón (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈɾi.a ˈeβa ˈðwarte ðe peˈɾon]; née María Eva Duarte; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as just Eva Perón or by the nickname Evita (Spanish: [eˈβita]), was an Argentine politician, activist, actress, and philanthropist who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 1946 until her death in July 1952, as the wife of Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón (1895–1974). She was born in poverty in the rural village of Los Toldos, in the Pampas, as the youngest of five children. In 1934, at the age of 15, she moved to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires to pursue a career as a stage, radio, and film actress.
In this Argentine name, the surname is Duarte and the marital name is Perón.
Eva Duarte Perón
Conrada Victoria Farrell
Mercedes Lonardi (1955)
Position established
Position established
7 May 1919
Junín or rural area of the General Viamonte municipality, Buenos Aires province, Argentina
26 July 1952 (aged 33)
Unzué Palace, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Juan Duarte (father)
Juana Ibarguren (mother)
She met Colonel Juan Perón on 22 January 1944 during a charity event at the Luna Park Stadium to benefit the victims of an earthquake in San Juan, Argentina. The two were married the following year. Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina in June 1946; during the next six years, Eva Perón became powerful within the pro-Peronist trade unions, primarily for speaking on behalf of labor rights. She also ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.
In 1951, Eva Perón announced her candidacy for the Peronist nomination for the office of Vice President of Argentina, receiving great support from the Peronist political base, low-income and working-class Argentines who were referred to as descamisados or "shirtless ones" (similar to the term “sans-culottes” during the French Revolution). Opposition from the nation's military and bourgeoisie, coupled with her declining health, ultimately forced her to withdraw her candidacy.[1] In 1952, shortly before her death from cancer at 33, Eva Perón was given the title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation" by the Argentine Congress.[2][3][4] She was given a state funeral upon her death, a prerogative generally reserved for heads of state.
Eva Perón has become a part of international popular culture,[5] most famously as the subject of the musical Evita (1976).[6] Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez has said that Evita has never left the collective consciousness of Argentines.[3] Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the second female president of Argentina (after Isabel Perón), claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Eva for "her example of passion and combativeness".[7]
Death and aftermath[edit]
Declining health[edit]
On 9 January 1950, Evita fainted in public and underwent surgery three days later. Although it was reported that she had undergone an appendectomy, she was actually found to have advanced cervical cancer.[50] Fainting episodes continued through 1951 (including the evening after "Cabildo abierto"), with extreme weakness and severe vaginal bleeding. By 1951, it had become evident that her health was rapidly deteriorating. Although her diagnosis was withheld from Juan by her,[51] he knew she was not well, and a bid for the vice-presidency was not practical. A few months after "the Renunciation", Evita secretly underwent a radical hysterectomy, performed by the American surgeon George T. Pack[52]
at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in an attempt to remove the cervical tumor.[53] In 2011, a Yale neurosurgeon, Daniel E. Nijensohn, studied Evita's skull X-rays and photographic evidence and said that Perón may have been given a prefrontal lobotomy in the last months of her life "to relieve the pain, agitation and anxiety she suffered in the final months of her illness".[54][55][56][57]
Péron's cervical cancer had metastasized and returned rapidly despite the hysterectomy.[53] She was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy – a novel treatment at that time. She became emaciated, weighing only 36 kg (79 lb; 5 st 9 lb) by June 1952.[58][59]
Death[edit]
Péron died at 8:25 p.m. on Saturday, 26 July 1952 at the Unzue Palace. Radio broadcasts throughout the country were interrupted with the announcement that "the Press Secretary's Office of the Presidency of the Nation fulfills its very sad duty to inform the people of the Republic that at 20:25 hours, Mrs. Eva Perón, Spiritual Leader of the Nation, died."[60]
: Grand Cross of Honour of the Argentine Red Cross