Cold War, Exile and Masonic Networks in Latin America: Preliminary notes on the Soarele Romaniei Lodge (Buenos Aires, 1952-1958)

Abstract

In 1952, Romanian exiles and emigres founded a lodge in Buenos Aires, within one of the Argentinean masonic organizations of that time. This group was composed of war veterans, people who had been through the First World War, the interwar period and the Second World War. At that stage western and eastern powers were disputing over Romania. It was a peculiar moment at an international level (the beginning of the Cold War), at a Latin American continental level (pan Americanism and anticommunism) and at an Argentinian national level (Peron’s first government). Within Argentina’s Freemasonry, this context seemed to have started a batch of new lodges; lodges of exiles? Cold War lodges? These preliminary notes are part of our current research on the sociological history of Latin America and the Atlantic masonic networks, from the Second Thirty Year War to the Cold War (1914-1960).