although their music had little in common with real rural folk music. In the 1930s and after, groups like “Los Huasos Quincheros”, “Los Cuatro Hermanos”, “Ester Sore”, “Silvia Infantas y los Cóndores”, and “Francisco Flores del Campo” kept this style alive and became very popular. During the 1940s and 1950s, this refined version of folkloric music became a national emblem, mainly for its aesthetic and as a spectacle to celebrate patriotism. One of the characteristics of the folkloric trend is its use of patriotic themes and a romantic, idealized view of rural life. That idealized view would be questioned in the following decades by Victor Jara, Violeta Parra and the other musicians that formed the “Nueva Cancion Chilena” movement. La Nueva Canción Chilena The Nueva Canción (New Song) is a movement that appeared in the mid 1960s and involved not just Chile but the rest of Latin America and Spain. The movement incorporated strong political and social themes and was used as a tool for expressing political and social conscience. The Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) broke with the prevailing folkloric styles of its time, which presented an idealized view of the rural world and ignored the situation of marginalized workers on the “Fundos” (large estates) and in isolated rural areas of the country. In a period of political struggle across Latin America, the “Nueva Canción” became associated with political activism and reformers like the Chilean Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity government. It soon emerged in other countries like Argentina, where the movement was called “Nuevo Cancionero” and was led by Mercedes Sosa and Armando Tejada Gómez among others. The foundations of the movement were laid through the efforts of Violeta Parra to revive over 3,000 Chilean songs, recipes, traditions, proverbs and folkloric characters, like the payadores (improviser-singers). Violeta Parra, and artists like her, acted as a vehicle for a folkloric tradition that otherwise would have remained unknown for many Chileans in the cities. Violeta Parra and her brothers paved the way for other key Chilean folkloric artists like Rolando Alarcón, Payo Grondona, Patricio Castillo, Homero Caro, Tito Fernández, Kiko Álvarez, Patricio Manns and Víctor Jara. Jara emerged as one of the major voices of the Nueva Canción and began its traditions of criticising government officials and policies. Since September 1973, the new military government of Augusto Pinochet threatened Nueva Canción artists, driving them underground during the 1970s.