Jorge Basadre Grohmann , was born in Tacna on February 12, 1903. Son of Carlos Basadre Forero and Olga Grohmann Butler. He began his training at the "Santa Rosa" high school, a Peruvian school that operated clandestinely in Tacna during the Chilean occupation; He moved with his family to Lima (1912), then continued his studies at the German school and at the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe national school. In 1919 he entered the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, where he would obtain the titles of Doctor of Letters (1928) and Jurisprudence (1935) . As a student, he participated in the famous University Conversation of 1919, along with other young intellectuals of the so-called "Reform generation". At that time he served in the National Library, first as an assistant and then as a curator, and taught history subjects in various schools in Lima. In 1925-1926 he was part of the Peruvian delegation sent before the plebiscite commission of Tacna and Arica. Pursuing a career at his alma mater in San Marcos, he was called to hold the position of director of the Central Library of the San Marcos University both in 1930-1931 and in 1935-1942 . Thanks to a scholarship granted by the Carnegie Foundation, in 1931 Jorge Basadre traveled to study library organization in the United States; He then took courses at the University of Berlin and carried out research in Spanish archives, remaining abroad until 1935. When the National Library burned down in May 1943, he was appointed by the government of Manuel Prado to take charge of the management of said establishment, promoting then its reconstruction and reorganization, during the following five years (until 1948). There he founded several publications, such as the magazine Fénix and the Peruvian Bibliographic Yearbook , and created the National School of Librarians, in 1944. He was also director of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Pan-American Union (1948-1950), and served as the Ministry of Public Education twice:1945 and 1956-1958. Later he retired to private life, devoting himself entirely to research, with the financial support of foreign and domestic promoters. He was married to Isabel Ayulo Lacroix. He died in Lima on June 29, 1980, at the age of 77 .
Academic life
Regarding the academic field, it should be noted that Jorge Basadre began as a professor at the University of San Marcos in 1928, teaching a monographic course on the History of Peru. The following year he assumed the titular chairs of History of Peruvian Law and History of Peru (Republic), which he would maintain until 1954, when he withdrew from professional teaching. In addition, he served as a professor at the Chorrillos Military School, at the Catholic University of Peru, and at higher education centers in Argentina, Spain, and the United States. He was general secretary of the XXVII International Congress of Americanists that was held in Lima in 1939; and from 1956 to 1962 he held the presidency of the Historical Institute of Peru (today the National Academy of History). He is a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language (since 1941) and of the Geographical Society of Lima (since 1946). Winner of the "Rafael Heliodoro Valle" prize that was awarded in Mexico in 1977 , and the national prize for culture in the area of human sciences, corresponding to 1977-1978. In 1965 Jorge Basadre received the magisterial palms in the degree of Arnauta.
Works by Jorge Basadre
Both in teaching and in research he displayed a fruitful task within the historiographical field. He fundamentally studied the republican history of Peru, introducing new methods and perspectives of analysis and always showing himself willing to renew his approaches. He has left an extensive bibliographical production. Main works:The multitude, the city and the countryside in the history of Peru , speech read at the opening of the academic year in San Marcos (1929); The initiation of the Republic (2 vols., 1929-1930); Peru:problem and possibility (1931; republished with an appendix in 1978); Meditations on the historical destiny of Peru , compilation of articles (1947); The foundations of the history of law (1956); Introduction to the documentary bases for the history of the Republic of Peru (2 vols., 1971); Chance in history and its limits (1973); Life and history, essays on people, places and problems (1975); Opening, selection of texts on topics of history, education, culture and politics (1978); Elections and centralism in Peru (1980). Apart from all this, his monumental History of the Republic of Peru (1939; successively modified and expanded until reaching the sixth edition, 1968-1969, with 16 volumes) has rightly been considered the most relevant work of Peruvian historiography of our century.