Popular Music, Literature and Salvadoran Civil War

Popular Music, Literature and Salvadoran Civil War

The civil war in the Central American State of El Salvador lasted for 12 years. For nearly 50 years, the military of El Salvador was sitting on the government. The background of the civil war is much more complex than we think. The civil war broke out for getting liberation from the military government. But this civil war cost the lives of 75,000 Salvadorans. Researchers still don’t know the actual cause of the civil war. There is very little information on this.

Music and literature also played an important role in the liberation movement. Like in most civil wars, the leaders push their supporters using powerful music and literature. In this article, I will talk about all this. What was the popular music and literature during the Salvadoran civil war? Today’s article is all about answering this question. But first, I will talk a bit about the background regarding the civil war of El Salvador.

Background of the Civil War

This 12 year-long war (1980-1992) was fought between Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and the government of El Salvador. As mentioned earlier, more than 70,000 Salvadoreans lost their lives in this war. The cause of this war was immigration laws. However, like most civil wars, the conflict was more complicated than this.

The governments of the Soviets, Nicaragua, and Cuba supported FMLN. On the other hand, the US military was backing El Salvador’s government. The war ended with a peace accord. But in 2016, the supreme court of El Salvador ruled out the accord.

This was a brief background of the Salvadoran civil war. Before wasting any further time, let’s discuss popular music and literature.

Popular Music

In every civil war, the government tries to boost the morale of its people through music. The same happened in the Salvadoran civil war. During the 1980s, the most prominent musical group was that of Cutumay Carmine. There were also other influential musical groups like Los Torogoces de Morazai. The leaders of FMLN took the services of these popular music groups. They asked these groups to perform in the areas where FMLN was strong. The content of the music mobilized the people in the area very much. FMLN also recorded and distributed popular music among the people. This strategy helped them a lot in their uprising. This is because the people were with them. The government sponsored the violence against the general population in 1982. It was when the Los Torogoces musical group was officially created.

After some time, the leaders of FMLN “Atilio” and “Jonas” felt that this musical group was no longer impressive. This is when they decided to replace it with Yolocamba I Ta. FMLN wanted to introduce the national liberation movement at home, as well as in the international community. The role of all the musical groups was to keep people’s morale high. The primary goal of these musical groups was to keep militants motivated for the war.

Literature

Literature also played an important role in the civil war, along with the music. More and more literature came that the best assignment writing services helped in spreading the struggles of liberation. Some of the notable literature work within this context is as follows;

1. Establishment of Literary Workshop

In 1984, the poet Salvador Juárez established the literary workshop. The workshop was, in fact, an extension in Universidad de El Salvador. The young students of the university became a part of this literary workshop. These young people fought in this movement at the same time when they carried out writing extensive literature. The poets Amílcar Colocho and Arquímides Cruz died in this liberation movement. This group of young writers mainly practiced poetry. Some of their work has been released in the latest press releases. The focus of their work was that of liberation, love, and the future.

2. Circle of Writers

A circle of writers, namely Círculo Literario Xibalbá, appeared during the civil war. Like the literary workshop, it was also funded by Universidad de El Salvador during the 1980s. Several members of this group were assassinated for their publication. The notable members of this circle were Amilcar Colocho, Ernesto Flores, and Edagar Alfaro Chaverrí. The Amilcar Colocho published several poems on liberation. A poem, namely love, is as follows;

If the grass screamed at us, enough! -from below

-I would put out the flame that sustains us,

and our spirits would march downcast

by the side of the road

to look for another spring and other butterflies

All in all, music and literature played an important role in motivating people for the war. However, El Salvador lost 70,000 plus lives but managed to get freedom from dictators through this struggle.