070267 SE Research Seminar Applied Global History (2019W)

This research seminar will not exclusively deal with the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua. Nevertheless, Nicaragua serves as a starting point to analyze 20th ct. revolutions and revolutionaries in Latin America. Its centrality is owed to the broad participation of Sandinista male AND female militants. It is the gender relation that matters in this definition of a revolution even though, it is only one of the many concepts of revolutions and revolts debated, not only in Latin America and the global South in general.
Considering the outcome of a revolution, to say, whether it was successful to overthrow a former regime in the long run by definitely defeating it, few cases count. The Mexican revolution of 1911-17, the Cuban revolution of 1959, Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution of 1979; but if it comes to revolutionaries not only the Tupamaros and Agusto César Sandino needs to be seen in the same way as Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa who were the very protagonists of the Mexican revolution. Fidel Castro in Cuba and Ernesto Che Guevarra are equally identified with the revolution in Cuba. But, was Salvador Allende also a revolutionary. Things are getting more complicated if we are adding unsuccessful revolutionaries who had not participated in the overthrowing of a regime but fought for liberation as guerrill*s, e.g. Domitila Barrios. She was a unionist and protagonist of the eventually defeated MNR resistance of Bolivia in 1952 ff. By the way, does Evo Morales' enduring government indicate a revolutionary move? And, how will history evaluate the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez? Last but not least, the term revolución also applies in the context of Rigoberta Menchu's resistance in Guatemala, or even more prominently in Mexico, when in 1994 the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) launched its claims for autonomy from the Selva Lacandona of Chiapas, with comandante Ramona on front of it.