Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz (February 14, 1898 – May 30, 1959) was an Argentine writer, philosopher, journalist, essayist and poet, friend of Arturo Jauretche and Homero Manzi, and loosely associated with the political group Fuerza de Orientación Radical de la Joven Argentina (FORJA). Scalabrini Ortiz was born in Corrientes, the son of the naturalist Pedro Scalabrini, who was the director of the museum of the city of Paraná, Entre Ríos. He studied in the Faculty of Exact Sciences and became a land surveyor; then he moved to Buenos Aires and got involved in the literary conflicts of the Boedo and Florida groups. In 1923 he started writing short stories, collected in a book, La Manga; he was then a journalist for the newspapers La Nación, El Mundo and Noticias Gráficas, and founded and directed Reconquista. In his youth, Scalabrini Ortiz participated in a Marxist group called Insurrexit; he also travelled to several provinces for work reasons, and at 26 he visited Paris, France, from where he returned disappointed by the xenophobic attitude of its citizens. Like everyone in Argentina, he felt the effects of the Great Depression, and then saw the coup d'état against president Hipólito Yrigoyen that began the Década Infame, marked by conservative rule perpetuated by electoral fraud. During the 1930s he wrote to denounce the exploitation of Argentina for the benefit of the oligarchy and foreign interests. From its foundation in 1935 onwards, he was linked to FORJA (Fuerza de Orientación Radical de la Joven Argentina, "Force of Radical Orientation of the Young Argentina"; the acronym also means "forge" in Spanish), an internal offshoot of the Radical Civic Union. Together with Arturo Jauretche, Scalabrini Ortiz is considered a pioneer of historical revisionism in Argentina, a fervently nationalistic and anti-liberal current of historiography that became especially influential in the 1960s. By 1942, Scalabrini Ortiz was jobless. He had to resort to a newspaper classified ad to earn a living, noting that he possessed an ample general culture, experience and knowledge in many fields. He finally returned to his original occupation as a surveyor, and continued working when he died in Buenos Aires in 1959, at the age of 61. An avenue in the city of Buenos Aires is named in his honor.

Works and quotes

Perhaps the work that better defines Scalabrini Ortiz is the "Five principles of inner cooperation" (Cinco principios de cooperación interna). These principles he describes in the following manner: In his journalistic articles and flyers, Scalabrini Ortiz tried to show the general public what he had learned by investigating. In one article he advised the reader: "These matters of economy and finance are so simple that they are within reach of any child. They only require knowledge of addition and subtraction. When you do not understand something, ask until you do understand. If you do not understand, it is because they are trying to steal from you. When you understand that, you will already have learned how to defend the motherland on the immaterial order of economic and financial concepts."