From Zumbi to José do Patrocínio: the construction of a national and Republican history in the first decades of the twentieth century

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the main elements of an intellectual debate on historical issues in two historical cultural and literary magazines published in Rio de Janeiro during the first decade of the twentieth century: the Kosmos magazine and the Brazilian Garnier Almanac. Determined to forge links between the past, the nation and the republican system, these intellectuals have chosen national dates and heroes to be revered. They have also incorporated in a positive way, although with limitations, the black and mestizo population to what was built as the "national history" and the Republican "civic culture". Our aim is to show that these intellectuals, albeit disappointed with "the republic that was not", did not give up with their commitment to the nation and their political intervention in that society in the first decade of the twentieth century.