Em torno de Varnhagen. história e construção da nação no Brasil oitocentista

Abstract

The research deals with the national project developed by the Brazilian historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, mainly from Memorial orgânico, a work published in Madrid, Spain, between 1849 and 1850, the first part (1849) being partially published in 1851 in Revista Guanabara, a magazine from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Considering the Memorial as a political project written by a historian, it is important to understand Varnhagen’s conception of history and what he considered the necessary abilities for the historian, i.e., how the history of Brazil should be written in the mid-nineteenth century, and his political views exposed in the mentioned booklet. Produced in a context of centralization of imperial power in the Second Reign, the plan outlined in the Memorial aimed at politically and administratively organizing the Brazilian Empire in terms of territory and population, fundamental themes of the political agenda of that period. At the same time, half of the Eighties attended the attempts to professionalize the profession of historian in Brazil, especially from the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute (IHGB), an institution in which Varnhagen was a partner and where the image of Varnhagen as a nation’s historian was constituted. The reflections on the themes proposed in the work start from the contributions of different authors, among them Arno Wehling, Manoel Salgado Guimarães, Reinhart Koselleck and Temístocles Cezar, to think of historical experience as the basis on which relied the project of constructing a compact and civilized nation outlined by Varnhagen.