El elogio del pueblo : a questão nacional na historiografia de José Victorino Lastarria

Abstract

This research intends to analyze the relations between historical narrative and national identity in the writings of the Chilean José Victorino Lastarria produced along the 1840’s. Thus, it is its purpose to uncover the conceptual elements through which the Chilean pueblo-nación emerges as the main subject from his historical narratives, conforming, in this sense, a speech on a nation-ness. By professing a philosophical conception of history, Lastarria attempted to narrate the genesis of the Chilean pueblo emphasizing the negative role that the Spanish Colonial System played on the development of its main characters. But unlike most of his contemporaries, to him, this nation was to achieve a full development of its original expressions only if it conserved the features of the three people which historically had conformed it: indians and Spaniards, in the first moment, and, then, also the mestizos. Hence, the research highlights the fact that Lastarria quite harshly denied any kind of speech that addressed conceptions that both the indians and the mestizos were the kinds of a degenerated racial lineage, naturally incapable of developing the aptitudes and values regarded as fundamental to live in a democratic republic.