There were music, hugs, tears mixed with laughter. Anecdotes and photos, pieces of a past for very close moments, brought to the present. There were evocations that were forming a possible portrait. As always to remember someone who has been very dear, a collage of shared moments was assembled. The tribute to Hugo Soriani, the general director of Page/12 And one of the founders of the newspaper, who died last April 11 at age 71, was a loving moment sustained by family, friends, companions of work and militancy, referents of politics, culture and human rights.
In the José Hernández Hall of the Colimada Book Fair, they met for this tribute on the Estela de Carlotto, León Gieco, Francisco “Paco” Olveira, Nora Veiras, Luis Bruschtein and Paula Spanish stage. From the screen, also Taty Almeida and Víctor Hugo Morales. And among the public, Cecilia Rosetto, Dolores Solá, Víctor Santa María, the deputies Eduardo Valdés and Aldo Leiva, Carlos Zannini, Ariel Basteiro, Jorge Taiana, Bernarda Llorente, Gabriela Alegre, Matías Barroetaveña, Marina Olmi, Tristán Bauer, Edgardo Esteban, Virginia Feinmann, Daniel Feierstein, Daniel Feierstein Rosario/12Pablo Feldman, among many.
He was receiving, as welcoming, León Gieco with his guitar and his harmonica. With issues such as “I am a poor hole”, “singing in the branch”, the “theme of mosquitoes”, “the landing”. And especially, the first who composed, “iron men”: “It is the song that Huguito listened to when I was imprisoned, I always told me“, revealed.
As a “friend of the soul,” according to León Gieco. As “a special person, who lived with dignity,” according to Estela de Carlotto. As “a fighter” and someone who “embellished journalism”, “a man who lived with a smile hanging in his mouth.” In one and many ways Hugo Soriani was remembered. Moments in the newspaper, in the bars he frequented, on the court -of River, of course -with mothers and grandmothers, with Cristina and Néstor Kirchner, with Pepe Mujica and Evo Morales, they spent in the photos of the screen.
Soriani’s wife, the doctor and plastic artist Laura Kornblihtt, and her son Jorge They received the declaration of interest from the Nation Congress, at the initiative of Deputy Gisela Marziotta, “for their journalistic work and literary work.”
“Listening to how his friends and colleagues remember him, I have the feeling that he would have wanted to go more to Page/12 To talk to him, “he said Estela de Carlotto. “I did not share a close friendship, but I was one of the heavy women that we would always turn to Page/12 asking: Can you publish this? Can they help us spread this one? “Recalled the president of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. Laura Carlotto’s reminder, Estela’s daughter, was the first to Page He published, in 1988.
“Hugo was one of those who knew how to receive us and listen to us, always with a lot of respect and warmth. He dedicated time and helps those mothers and grandmothers that we had lost our children and grandchildren. The newspaper was always with us, since we started this search and today, that we continue looking for,” he said.
Taty Almeida He sent a video lamenting not being able to be present, due to the superposition of activities with the celebration of the 48 years of mothers, which were completed on April 30. “Dear Hugo, you will always be present!“The president of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo said Founding Line, who pointed to Page/12 That “there is no way not to remember with a smile our dear Hugo, a companion.”
Gieco recalled the “Total sincerity, almost fascist” With that Hugo judged everything: “I was my best critic, the most implacable. He told me when something did not like or bored him, without turns: it is a plomazo, Leoncito!” And if he liked something, he was very excited. ”
“If it were here, I would be making observations, as I always did!” Daughter -in -law With humor, remembering the moments when Together with Victoria Ginzberg and Ernesto Tiffenberg They thought the newspaper edition every day. “I would be saying: are they going to do? And if we argued, as we did many times, before admitting that I was wrong, I would be telling us:”I’m not foolish … that’s how you say“The director of Page/12. Nodded, also smiling, another friend and partner of the newspaper, Carlos González, whom everyone knows as Gandhiorganizer of the act.
Spanish Paula It was spinning a family story in which the newspaper and militancy inevitably linked: “My mom and Hugo met in the last round of Thursdays in dictatorshipon December 8, 1983. We had returned from exile only two days ago. And he also had come out of jail for days, “he evoked.” They were presented by a common friend, and did not separate anymore. Just a month later, he came to the birthday of my little brother, so the crush must have been great, I was already knowing the family. On April 10, 87 we went to live together, and that was always the anniversary date. And on May 26 of that same year it was born Page/12so since then, everything that happened to Pageit happened to the family. In 1996 our little brother, Joaquín, was born, who was the light of his eyes. Him He transmitted the passion for River which in turn had transmitted to him the captain. ”
Paula highlighted the “passion for the laburo and for the life” of his father, the intensity with which he lived that life, his sense of humor, He remembered imitating Sandro -Otra great passion. Also “his listening and genuine interest capacity for the other“That they made him always achieve” that everyone told him his stories. ”
“I am and we are here Celebrating the life of a fighter“He began synthesizing Luis Bruschtein. “I feel joy of having had a fighter in this fight against wind and tide that was to get a newspaper, someone like Hugo,” he said. He remembered him as “a guy who did not like to lose his ball”, and that “still cornered, he threw a joke”; “A guy who He cultivated friendship“;” a great observer who had his oracles, the young men, whom he interpreted. ”
He talked about “the tragedy” that the years in jail meant for a whole generation, and the ties that forged that tragedy: “Hugo loved his prison companions, I called them ‘My Prison’ And he always followed by those people who had fought with him, “he described, bringing to the table one of the thousands of anecdotes that Hugo always told. In this case, one that involved Eduardo Jozami, and that of course ended up with a humor:” If I were telling it Hugo, they would be fainting of laughter, “Bruschtein said.
The priest in option for the poor Paco Olveira He chose to write a letter and read it in public; It was the way he found, he said, not to break through the emotion. He remembered his books –Captain’s letters y The days were like that, where he made way to The prison, politics, journalism, football and rock from the last page- y The dedications that he wrote in them. “It was hard for me to read the two books, and not precisely because of boring. It is that I endure less human cruelty. And I hurt so much the setback, it hurts not to learn from history,” he said. Excited, on behalf of his family he said, finally: “Thanks for housing us“.
Víctor Hugo Morales’s farewell came from the screen: “Hugo Soriani embellished our professionHe made her more pleasant. Embellished literature with its Captain’s lettersthose that his father sent him when he was imprisoned during the dictatorship. He was a man who worked for human rights and for journalism until the last moment of his life. And all this did with humor, always. I remember Hugo Soriani with a smile. I don’t have Soriani’s face in my memory without seeing him laugh“He portrayed it.
“In his last days, the quality with which he was saying goodbye was exciting: the full awareness of his departure and the courage to leave To the soriani, With greatness, with a smile and with a deep love for journalism. He died doing journalism, “he reviewed too.
Two years ago, in this same room and together with many of those present, Hugo presented his book Captain’s letters. The closure of that presentation had been particularly exciting: With Gieco singing “like the cicada”Hugo raised his hand to ask: “Come sing with me, they won’t leave me alone!” to his prison companions among the public. In his tribute he turned to that beautiful scene in the memory of the screen. And they came up again with him and with León ‘Los Prestos’, next to the family and friends of the beloved Hugo Soriani.
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