Museo Eva Perón

At her most combative, to the shock and disgust of neighbors, Eva Perón chose the upscale Botánico for the Hogar de Tránsito No. 2, a shelter for single mothers from the provinces. Even more galling, her Fundación de Ayuda Social María Eva Duarte de Perón took over an imposing three-story mansion to house the transients in their transition to the capital.

Since Evita’s death in 1952, middle-class multistory apartment blocks have mostly replaced the elegant single-family houses and distinctive apartment buildings that once housed the porteño elite (many of whom have since moved to exclusive northern suburbs). Fifty years later, on the July 26th anniversary of her death—supporting Tomás Eloy Martínez’s contention that Argentines are “cadaver cultists”—Evita’s great-niece María Carolina Rodríguez officially opened the museum to “to spread the life, work and ideology of María Eva Duarte de Perón.”

What it largely lacks is a critical perspective that would make it possible, again in Rodríguez’s words, “to understand who this woman was in the 1940s and 1950s, who made such a difference in the lives of Argentines”—a goal not necessarily consistent with her other stated aims. Rather than a balanced account of her life, the museum’s initial stage is a professionally presented chronological homage that mostly sidesteps the issue of personality cults that typified both Evita and her charismatic husband.

The Museo Eva Perón (Lafinur 2988, tel. 011/4807-9433, ievaperon@uol.com.ar, 10 a.m.–8 p.m. daily except Mon.) has a museum store with a fine selection of Evita souvenirs, and there’s a café-restaurant as well.