Lisandro Alvarado
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Lisandro Alvarado (September 19, 1858 – April 10, 1929) was a
Venezuelan Venezuelans (Spanish language, Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the Citizenship, citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connect ...
medical doctor A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...
,
naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
,
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
,
ethnologist Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scien ...
, and
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
.


Biography

He was born in the city of
El Tocuyo El Tocuyo is a fertile valley and city in west-central Venezuela at elevation. It is located in south-central Lara (state), Lara State about 60 km southwest of Barquisimeto. The town of El Tocuyo was founded by Juan de Carvajal in 1545 on ...
, in Morán Municipality ( Lara). His parents were Rafael Alvarado and Gracia Benigna Marchena. In the school La Concordia (of El Tocuyo), run by Egidio Montesinos, he received the influence of literary classics and knowledge of Latin, aspects that would be decisive in his intellectual life. In 1871 he traveled to Trujillo to finish the baccalaureate. Soon, the lack of resources on the part of his family forced him to drop out of school and work as a pharmacist at
Barquisimeto Barquisimeto (; ) is a city in Venezuela. Barquisimeto is located in the Central-Western Region, Venezuela. It is the capital of the state of Lara (state), Lara and head of Iribarren Municipality. It is an important urban, industrial, commercial a ...
. However, in 1878 he moved to
Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern p ...
to begin medical studies. During this period he was in direct contact with the intense political life of the moment, characterized by the predominance of
Antonio Guzmán Blanco Antonio Leocadio Guzmán Blanco (28 February 1829 – 28 July 1899) was a Venezuelan military leader, statesman, diplomat and politician. He was the president of Venezuela for , from 1870 until 1877, from 1879 until 1884, and from 1886 until 1 ...
. Intellectually he was able to know the doctrinal framework of
positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...
, represented in the teachings of Adolf Ernst and Rafael Villavicencio. In this sense, Alvarado was confronted with his religious and traditionalist vision of life with the new scientific ideas of the late nineteenth century. At first, positivism influenced his research in the field of ethnography, history, language, as well as his interest in various ancient and modern cultures. In this period Alvarado shared his scientific knowledge with César Zumeta, Luis López Méndez and José Rafael Revenga, giving information about his first works around 1882. Despite his first inclination towards the positivist doctrine, contact with Cecilio Acosta, allowed Alvarado to connect to neoclassical tendencies other than positivism. In 1881, through Acosta he was able to meet
José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; 28 January 1853 – 19 May 1895) was a Cuban nationalism, nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in ...
in Caracas, who had an important influence on his vision of life and science. In this sense, once he obtained his doctorate in medicine, Alvarado settled in Ospino ( Portuguesa). He traveled the country on donkey, in canoes and on foot, which allowed him to come into direct contact with Venezuelan reality: the landscapes, the vegetation, the wildlife, the customs and popular traditions, the different dialects, including the numerous indigenous people he met and whose language he could study first-hand. He traveled to Europe as a consul and medical delegate. In 1891 he returned to the province and began the publication of a set of research papers. In this period he wrote several studies: Neurosis of famous men of Venezuela (''Neurosis de hombres célebres de Venezuela'') (1893) and On the civil wars of the country (''Sobre las guerras civiles del país'') (1894). He also published a series of works related to linguistics and lexicography, the first being ideas on the evolution of Spanish in Venezuela (''Ideas sobre la evolución del español en Venezuela'') (1903), followed by Glossary of indigenous voices in Venezuela (''Glosario de voces indígenas en Venezuela'') (1921), phonetic alterations of Spanish in Venezuela (''Alteraciones fonéticas del español en Venezuela'') (1922, reworked in 1929) and finally his Glossary of the Spanish bass in Venezuela (''Glosario del bajo español en Venezuela'') (1929). In 1920 he returned to Caracas to work in the Directorate of Trade Policy (of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). In recognition of his extensive work in research, he was incorporated as an individual number in the Academy of Medicine (Academia Nacional de Medicina de Venezuela) in 1905, the Venezuelan Academy of Language in 1922 and the National Academy of History of Venezuela in 1923. His complete works in eight volumes began to be published in 1958; however, there is still an unpublished collection of his manuscripts in the custody of the National Academy of History. He was a grade 30 Mason. Since May 14, 1980 his remains rest in the National Pantheon of Venezuela.


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarado, Lisandro 20th-century Venezuelan physicians Linguists from Venezuela Venezuelan writers 20th-century Venezuelan historians Venezuelan naturalists Members of the Venezuelan Academy of Language 1858 births 1929 deaths Burials at the National Pantheon of Venezuela 19th-century Venezuelan physicians 19th-century Venezuelan historians Members of the National Academy of History (Venezuela) People from El Tocuyo