Mitificación de Pancho Villa: Un recorrido cultural y literario

Abstract

In this essay we analyze the process of mythification of the hero of the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa, based on Jan Assmann’s (1992) theoretical approach to myth. First, we summarize the "official myth" created by the political discourse, answering the following questions: who transformed Pancho Villa into a myth, how did they do it and for what purposes? We will apply the concepts of Assmann, who distinguishes between "cold" and "hot" memories. We continue with a brief review of the representation of Pancho Villa in Mexican literature, exploring his "foundational" or "counter-presential" function, and finally we present the analysis of two Mexican novels of the 1990s: Escuadrón Guillotina (1991) by Guillermo Arriaga and Columbus (1996) by Ignacio Solares, a section in which we will concentrate mainly on analyzing in what sense these works confirm or contradict the "official myth".

Keywords

• pancho villa
• mythification
• mexican revolution
• cultural memory