In 1931, Victoria Ocampo founded Sur, a literary magazine and publishing house aligned with the anti-fascist cause, which —for almost two decades— was to be a major hub for intellectual exchanges in Buenos Aires.
The close ties that Victoria Ocampo had with José Ortega y Gasset, a Spanish philosopher and writer, were decisive for the magazine's identity. Ortega y Gasset had first travelled to Argentina in 1916 to give a series of lectures. Very soon after his arrival, he met Ocampo, with whom he would maintain a lasting friendship. When Ocampo told Ortega y Gasset about her publication project, he was in Spain running the journal Revista de Occidente, which he had founded in 1923. The idea for the name for Ocampo's magazine arose out of their close friendship and the spirit of creative collaboration: "It was chosen over the phone, across the Ocean. It seems that the whole Atlantic was needed for this baptism [...]." (Ocampo 1931, 14).
Sur was published approximately every three months from January 1931 to July 1934. Monthly issues followed from July 1935 to January 1951. From then until 1970, the magazine was published every two months. In the last period, until 1980, special issues were published without any real regularity. Sur brought together a local and foreign intellectual elite that undoubtedly contributed to the dissemination of literary culture in Argentina.