Ein Paradies auf Erden

A study on the political theology of the Latin American guerrilla movements of the 1960s has been published under the title »Ein Paradies auf Erden« in the »Studies of the Dubnow Institute« series. In it, the author Lukas Böckmann examines the iconography, political semantics, and liturgical symbolism of the Cuban Revolution and the Argentine guerillas in order to reconstruct the salvation history with which these revolutionary movements were charged. The monograph is now available free of charge as an open access publication on the website of the publisher Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and is also being published in book form.

In January 1959, the world was abuzz with news of the Cuban Revolution. Three years later, Ernesto »Che« Guevara sent a group of young men from Havana to South America to spread the revolution on the subcontinent. They went on to establish the Ejército Guerrillero del Pueblo, the People’s Guerilla Army, in northern Argentina, which attempted an armed insurrection. The operation failed and most of the organization’s members were arrested. It was later discovered that the self-declared revolutionaries had condemned two of their comrades to death and executed them in the jungle. Both of the victims were of Jewish background. Proceeding from these events, Lukas Böckmann examines the iconography, political semantics, and liturgical symbolism of the Cuban Revolution and the Argentine guerillas in order to reconstruct the salvation history with which these revolutionary movements were charged. He demonstrates that their political and military actions can be decoded as expressions of religious, especially Roman Catholic ideas. The work thus contributes an empirical dimension to the often overly theoretical debates about secularization and thereby opens up a broad view extending far beyond the case study in question.

The series »Studies of the Dubnow Institute« features dissertations and habilitations completed at or in close cooperation with the institute. These monographs therefore reflect the profile of the research conducted at the Dubnow Institute on Jewish lifeworlds in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of general and pan-European history, from a transnational perspective, and incorporating various disciplines. The series focuses on culturally mixed historical spaces, interactions between Jews and the non-Jewish world, the diversity of Jewish lifeworlds, and the reciprocal relationships between Jewries in East and West.

Studies of the Dubnow Institute, Vol. 37
Lukas Böckmann, Ein Paradies auf Erden. Politische Theologie und die lateinamerikanische Guerilla der 1960er Jahre 
401 pp, Hardcover with dust jacket
with 19 figs.
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2026
ISBN: 978-3-525-30370-2, Price: 65,00 € (D)

Open Access, free of charge