Volodia Teitelboim. Volodia Teitelboim Volosky (originally ''Valentín Teitelboim Volosky''; March 17, 1916 – January 31, 2008) was a Chilean

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician, lawyer, and author.

Personal life

Born in

Chillán Chillán () is the capital city of the Ñuble Region in the Diguillín Province of Chile located about south of the country's capital, Santiago, near the geographical center of the country. It is the capital of the new Ñuble Region since 6 Sept ...

to Jewish immigrants (Ukrainian Moisés Teitelboim and

Bessarabia Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Be ...

n Sara Volosky), Teitelboim was interested in literature from an early age. He finished high school, then began his studies in the Faculty of Law of the

University of Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

, where at graduation he presented his senior thesis “The Dawn of Capitalism - The Conquest of America.”Teitelboim, Volodia (1943)
''El amanecer del capitalismo. La conquista de América''
. At the age of 29, Teitelboim married Raquel Weitzmann, who had also studied law. In the 1940s, while Teitelboim, like other members of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

, was forced to go underground, Weitzman became pregnant with the child of a former university colleague. The child, named

Claudio Claudio is an Italian and Spanish first name. In Portuguese it is accented Cláudio. In Catalan and Occitan it is Claudi, while in Romanian it is Claudiu. Origin and history Claudius was the name of an eminent Roman gens, the most important m ...

, was adopted by Teitelboim and Weitzman's affair was hushed up. Due to Teitelmboim's frequent long periods of absence due to party activities, persecution, and imprisonment, the marriage suffered, and finally ended in 1957, when Weitzman left for Cuba in company of Jaime Barros."Los hijos de Volodia"
''La Nación'' online, 2 Feb. 2008. Teitelboim then took charge of Claudio, who was 10 years old at the time. When, in 2005, Claudio learned that he had been deceived and that his father was actually the lawyer Álvaro Bunster, he broke relations with Teitelboim and took on his biological father's surname.
''Cooperativa'' online, 24 Oct. 2005 (Accessed 28 Nov. 2013)
''El Mercurio'' online, 1 Feb. 2008 (Accessed 28 Nov. 2013) Teitelboim's second marriage, at the age of 51, was to Eliana Farías. Together, while in exile in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

following the Chilean military coup d'état of September 11, 1973, they raised Faría's son, Roberto Nordenflycht, and their own daughter, whom they named Marina. Roberto followed Teitlboim's example and also became a communist. He was killed in August 1989 while taking part in a guerrilla action in Chile with the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front. The grief over Roberto's death marked the end of Teitelboim's marriage to Farías. Marina, for her part, eventually became a career diplomat. Teitelboim died on January 31, 2008, at the

Catholic University Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical univ ...

's hospital in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

of kidney failure resulting from lymphatic cancer. He and Claudio Bunster reportedly reconciled at the end.

Political career

Teitelboim joined the

Chilean Communist Party The Communist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Comunista de Chile, ) is a communist party in Chile. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party () and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth ...

's youth section at the age of sixteen. During the 1940s he endured persecution, along with all the militants of the Communist Party, and was imprisoned in Pisagua under the so-called Democratic Defense Law (also known as ''Ley maldita'', or "cursed law"). In 1961 he was elected to Congress as a Deputy for

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

and

Quillota Quillota is a city located in the Aconcagua River valley in central Chile's Valparaíso Region. It is the capital and largest city of Quillota Province, where many inhabitants live in the outlying farming areas of San Isidro, La Palma, Pocochay ...

, a post he held until 1965, when he was elected Senator for

. He was re-elected to this post in March 1973, but was only able to further serve in it until Congress was disbanded following the September 11, 1973, coup d'état.Reseňa biográfica parlamentaria: Volodia Teitelboim Volosky
at ''Historia Política Legislativa del Congreso Nacional de Chile'' website (Accessed 27 Nov. 2013) During the military regime of Gen.

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

Teitelboim lived in exile in

, where he launched the twice-weekly radio program ''Escucha, Chile'' ("Listen, Chile").Teiteilboim
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' online (Accessed 27 Nov. 2013) Despite the risk, he clandestinely returned to Chile in 1988Teteilboim, Stalwart of the Chilean Communist Party, Friend of Allende and Award-Winning Writer
''The Guardian'' online, 13 Feb. 2008 (Accessed 27 Nov. 2013) and campaigned for a provisional government following the regime's having been handed a defeat in that year's national plebiscite. The following year he was elected president of the Communist Party, a position he held until 1994.

Literary work

Teitelboim's literary work, for which he was awarded Chile's National Prize in Literature in 2002, as well as the Literature prize of the 1931

Floral Games Floral Games were any of a series of historically related poetry contests with floral prizes. In Occitan, their original language, and Catalan they are known as ''Jocs florals'' (; modern Occitan: ''Jòcs florals'' , or ''floraus'' ). In French the ...

, is chiefly in the form of memoirs, biographies, and literary essays. His first book ''Antología de poesía chilena'' (''Anthology of Chilean Poetry'') was published in conjunction with

Eduardo Anguita Eduardo Anguita Cuéllar (Yerbas Buenas, Linares Province, Linares November 1914 - Santiago de Chile August 12, 1992) was a Chilean poet, who was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1988. Life Eduardo Anguita was raised in Sa ...

in 1932, and compiled the great poets of Chile. He would later say that it committed the errors of omitting

Gabriela Mistral Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (; 7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957), known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral (), was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Lite ...

and of accentuating the dispute between

Vicente Huidobro Vicente García-Huidobro Fernández (; January 10, 1893 – January 2, 1948) was a Chilean poet born to an aristocratic family. He promoted the avant-garde literary movement in Chile and was the creator and greatest exponent of the literary m ...

Pablo de Rokha Pablo de Rokha (born Carlos Ignacio Díaz Loyola; 17 October 1894 – 10 September 1968) was a Chilean poet. He won the Chilean Premio Nacional de Literatura (National Literature Prize) in 1965 and is counted among the four greats of Chilean po ...

, and

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

. His series of memoirs, ''Un muchacho del siglo XX'' (''A Boy of the Twentieth Century,'' 1997), ''La gran guerra de Chile y otra que nunca existió'' (''The Great War of Chile and Another That Never Existed,'' 2000) and ''Noches de radio'' (''Radio Nights,'' 2001) present from a political and social perspective the great arch of Chilean history during the 20th century. His best known capacity is that of a biographer, in which he wrote about

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

, Vicente Huidobro, and with the most critical acclaim, Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. In terms of membership in literary movements, he is generally located within the Chilean

Generation of '38 The Generation of '38 ( es, Generación del 38) was a Chilean artistic-literary movement that tried to portray the social decline of the time in its works. It became prominent in the cultural panorama of the 1930s. Historical context In 1937, after ...

List of published works

*Antología de poesía chilena (Anthology of Chilean Poetry) - 1935
El amanecer del capitalismo. La conquista de América
(The dawn of capitalism. The conquest of America) - 1943 *Hijo del salitre (Son of saltpeter) - 1952 *La semilla en la arena. Pisagua (The seed in the sand) - 1957 *Hombre y hombre (Man and man) - 1969 *El oficio ciudadano (The duty of the citizen) - 1973 *El pan de las estrellas (The bread of the stars) - 1973 *La lucha continúa, pólvora del exilio (The struggle continue, powder from exile) - 1976 *Narradores chilenos del exilio (Chilean storytellers from exile) - 1978 *Neruda - 1984 *La palabra y la sangre (The word and the blood) - 1986 *El corazón escrito (The written heart) - 1986 *En el país prohibido (In the forbidden country) - 1988 *Gabriela Mistral, pública y secreta (Gabriela Mistral, public and secret) - 1991 *Huidobro, la marcha infinita (Huidobro, the infinite march) - 1993 *Los dos Borges (The two Borges) - 1996 *Un muchacho del siglo XX (A Boy of the 20th Century) - 1997 *Notas de un concierto europeo (Notes from a European concert) - 1997 *Voy a vivirme (I am going to live myself) - 1998 *La gran guerra de Chile y otra que nunca existió (The great war of Chile and another which never existed) - 2000 *Noches de radio (Nights of radio) - 2001 *Ulises llega en locomotora (Ulysses arrives in a locomotive) - 2002

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Teitelboim, Volodia 1916 births 2008 deaths People from Chillán Chilean Jews Chilean people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Chilean people of Moldovan-Jewish descent Communist Party of Chile politicians Deputies of the XLIV Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Senators of the XLV Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Senators of the XLVI Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Senators of the XLVII Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Chilean male writers National Prize for Literature (Chile) winners Chilean expatriates in the Soviet Union People granted political asylum in the Soviet Union