The Mirror of History and Images of the Nation: the Invention of a National Identity in Brazil and its Contrasts with Similar Enterprises in Mexico and Argentina

Abstract

This chapter will examine the crucial role played by history writing in the configuration of a national imaginary and collective identity in Brazil from the second half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century and it will contrast this with similar efforts undertaken in Argentina and Mexico. In order to produce a full account of this enterprise we have chosen to take as our first point of reference the Exhibition of Brazilian History that took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1881. This imperial-era exhibition was intended to be a showcase for the nation, and established a general inventory of archival sources for the purpose of broadening knowledge of Brazil’s past, and in particular of ‘fatherland history’. This exhibition and the catalogue that accompanied it can be seen to have become something of an emblem of the transition between two generations of constructors of national history writing in Brazil: the monarchist historians and the republican historians. Our second point of reference will be the works of those Brazilian national historians who enjoyed great acclaim during the empire and at the start of the republican period, and who included Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Capistrano de Abreu and Joao Ribeiro. Their interpretations contributed to the establishment of the founding myth of Brazilian history: the myth of the ‘three races’.