„El pueblo canta en ellos y por ellos y con ellos.“ Nicaraguas ‚imagined culture‘ im Werk der cantautores Mejía Godoy. Interview mit Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy

Abstract

The brothers Carlos and Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy are the most famous songwriters in Nicaragua and representatives of the musical movement Nueva Canción Latinoamericana. During the Sandinist Revolution and the Civil War they dedicated their songs to the resistance against Somoza’s dictatorship and the interventions from the USA. One of their main aims was to strengthen the Nicaraguan national identity. The Sandinist party FSLN also recognized very early that the promotion of culture should play a key role in the rise of the Nueva Nicaragua. But how can you strengthen the culture of a country which has been oppressed for centuries by the Spanish and British colonialism and afterwards by the neo-imperialism of the USA? Was constructing an ‘imagined culture’ according to the theory of the renowned cultural theorist Stuart Hall the only way? Or did they just have to wake up the old and ‘sleeping’ culture by retelling narratives, myths of origins, symbols and rituals? This article tries to answer some of these questions and focuses on the role of the two songwriters Carlos and Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy in this process. A historical and political overview of the Sandinist movement and the Nueva Nueva Cancíon Latinoamericana gives a necessary introduction to the following e-mail interview with Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy.