Mundial Magazine (Paris, 1911-1914): publishing company, cultural modernity and intellectual journey of Americans across the European continent

Abstract

The magazine Mundial Magazine edited in Paris, managed to publish from May 1911 to August 1914 with the literary direction of the writer Rubén Darío. It was an editorial initiative of the Uruguayan book entrepreneurs Alfred and Armand Guido (Guido Fils) and the Spanish illustrator Leo Merelo. In its pages it managed to gather the collaborations of Spanish and American autors presenting bibliographic novelties, articles of literature, sciences, theater, political news, fashion. It counted on a careful illustration and careful distribution by the rest of the countries of Europe. “Work of culture”, its purpose will be to bring together the literary novelties of and for the Spanish-speaking world, the LatinAmerican colony resident in Paris: readers of Spain and Spanish America, the “nobility and beauty of expression”, the “beautiful” and useful “, the” enjoyable and curious “(MUNDIAL MAGAZINE, 1911). The edition of this magazine came to express the attraction exercised by Paris in American writers, a city that represented the cultural capital of Latinos in Europe. His notes, columns and collaborators allow us to understand how the relationships that led to the formation of that “Hispanic American generation” of Paris residents were formed. The conjunction of factors-particular choices, national situations, professional destinies-that had brought writers from different countries of Hispanic America into contact in a foreign setting, would serve to outline the distinctive features of this transatlantic promotion. In this work we propose to look for the selection of sections and topics, the inauguration of practices, sensibilities and modern aesthetics. Within these topics, the journey through the European continent - initiatory, intellectual - emerges as a space of meaning: a set of practical knowledge that will allow its protagonists to organize them in a precise manner, facilitating their movements and records through the achievements of the technological modern(transatlantic, automobiles, daguerreotypes).