{{Short description|1973 poem credited to Víctor Jara}} {{Use American English|date=October 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}} {{Infobox poem |name = Estadio Chile |image = Cancha Estadio Victor Jara.JPG |caption = The eponymous stadium, where Jara wrote the poem and died |author = Víctor Jara |translator = Joan Jara |written = 1973 |language = Spanish }} {{quote box|source=Víctor Jara, "Estadio Chile" <br />(translated from Spanish)<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/>|quote=<poem> There are five thousand of us here in this small part of the city. We are five thousand. I wonder how many we are in all in the cities and in the whole country? ... How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror. Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying. To see myself among so much and so many moments of infinity in which silence and screams are the end of my song. </poem>}}
"'''''Estadio Chile'''''", or "'''''Somos Cinco Mil'''''", is the common name of an untitled poem and song credited to Víctor Jara and penned in the days prior to his death. Jara was tortured and killed by the Chilean Army over several days in Santiago's Estadio Chile (renamed Estadio Víctor Jara in 2004) during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état.
== History ==
Víctor Jara was detained in Estadio Chile among thousands of others during the 1973 Chilean military coup against the Unidad Popular government, of which Jara was an icon.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> Jara, a popular folksinger, sang for the other detainees to maintain morale.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> Along with Andean and Chilean folk songs, he sang a "manifesto" composed his second night there.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> The militia recognized him for his song and fame and removed him from the crowd.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> The guards tore off his nails, smashed his hands, and ordered him to play the guitar.<ref name="Los Poetas y el General"/>
He was found dead a week later with signs of brutal treatment and gunshot wounds.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> The "manifesto" survived through both the detainees who memorized the song and the scraps of paper containing Jara's handwritten lyrics.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> Jara's wife, Joan, presented her research into her husband's final days in her essays<ref name="Eclipsed Atrocities"/> and 1984 memoir ''An Unfinished Song''.<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry"/> The poem stretches the entrance to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago.<ref name="Guardian: dark days continues"/>
== Interpretation ==
In ''The Meaning of Human Suffering'', Dr. Joel Gajardo-Velasquez compares the final line of the poem to the message of the cross: that Jara was able to see "the ''new'' that will be born in spite of, and probably especially ''because of'', his personal tragedy", as "suffering without hope is death without resurrection".<ref name="Gajardo-Velasquez"/>
== Response ==
Naín Nómez placed the poem as the first in a series of semi-anonymous works distributed by hand and designed to challenge the new Chilean state of affairs after the 1973 coup.<ref name="Las Transformaciones"/><ref name="Exilio e Insilio"/> He cited the poem as an example of ''poesía de la conciencia'' outside of the avant-garde tradition.<ref name="Exilio e Insilio"/> In ''Resisting Alienation'', Christopher Michael Travis writes that the poem "poignantly understates the effect of 'Auschwitz' on artistic expression".<ref name="Resisting Alienation"/> Valerie Alia wrote in ''Media Ethics and Social Change'' that Jara's poem itself told the story of the coup and Jara's own unbroken spirit before his death.<ref name="Media Ethics and SC"/>
== See also ==
* Human rights violations in Pinochet's Chile * Human rights in Chile
== References ==
{{reflist|2|refs=
<ref name="20th c. LA Poetry">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury00step |url-access=registration |title=Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology |editor1-last=Tapscott |editor1-first=Stephen |year=1996 |page=[https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury00step/page/337 337] |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=9780292781405 }}</ref>
<ref name="Eclipsed Atrocities">{{cite journal |title=Eclipsed Atrocities, Review of Chile: The Other September 11 by Pilar Aguilera; Ricardo Fredes |last1=Desai |first1=Bindu |date=27 December 2003 – 2 January 2004 |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |volume=38 |issue=51/52 |pages=5355–5356 |jstor=4414433 |issn=0012-9976 }}</ref>
<ref name="Exilio e Insilio">{{cite journal |title=Exilio e insilio: Representaciones políticas y sujetos escindidos en la poesía chilena de los setenta |last1=Nómez |first1=Naín |date=April 2010 |journal= Revista Chilena de Literatura |issue=76 |page=110 |publisher=University of Chile |jstor=25676969 |issn=0048-7651 }}</ref>
<ref name="Gajardo-Velasquez">{{cite book|last=Gajardo-Velasquez|first=Joel|editor=Dougherty, Flavian|title=The Meaning of Human Suffering|url=https://archive.org/details/meaningofhumansu0000inte|url-access=registration|accessdate=5 October 2013|year=1982|publisher=Human Sciences Press|isbn=978-0-89885-011-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/meaningofhumansu0000inte/page/292 292]–293|chapter=Chapter 7: Suffering Coming From the Struggle Against Stuffering}}</ref>
<ref name="Guardian: dark days continues">{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/chile-coup-anniversary-victor-jara-murder |accessdate=5 October 2013 |title=Agony of Chile's dark days continues as murdered poet's wife fights for justice |last1=Watts |first1=Jonathan |last2=Franklin |first2=Jonathan |date=10 September 2013 |work=The Guardian |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131008061944/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/chile-coup-anniversary-victor-jara-murder |archivedate=8 October 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref>
<ref name="Las Transformaciones">{{cite journal |last1= Nómez |first1= Naín |title= Las Transformaciones de la Poesía Chilena Entre 1973 y 2008: Aproximaciones Generales |year=2009 |pages=11 |journal=INTI |issue=69/70 |publisher=INTI, Revista de literatura hispánica |jstor=23288687 |issn= 0732-6750 }}</ref>
<ref name="Los Poetas y el General">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWs4wT5kv-0C&pg=PA438 |title=Los Poetas y el General: Voces de oposiciâon en Chile bajo Augusto Pinochet, 1973–1989 |last1=Wyman |first1=Eva Goldschmidt |year=2002 |page=438 |publisher=LOM Ediciones |isbn=9789562824910 }}</ref>
<ref name="Media Ethics and SC">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fl8UgxrnHtoC&pg=PA44 |title=Media Ethics and Social Change |last1=Alia |first1=Valerie |year=2004 |page=44 |publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415971997 }}</ref>
<ref name="Resisting Alienation">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S64ps8ZvIv0C&pg=PA139 |title=Resisting Alienation: The Literary Work of Enrique Linn |last1=Travis |first1=Christopher Michael |year=2007 |page=139 |publisher=Associated University Presses |isbn=9780838756751 }}</ref>
}}
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Category:Chilean poetry Category:Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) Category:1973 in Chile Category:Chilean songs Category:1973 songs Category:1973 poems