Intellectual sociabilities and representations of the past in Misiones: local historiography during the territorial period (1881-1945)

Abstract

The present article analyzes the development of historiography in the National Territory of Misiones between 1881 and 1945, based on a periodization proposal that allows us to identify the moments prior to the professionalization of the discipline. The focus is on the representations of the past elaborated by chroniclers, travelers and local intellectuals, within the framework of national political projects and specific regional dynamics. It also considers the forms of intellectual sociability that allowed the circulation and legitimization of historical discourses, as well as the process of institutionalization initiated with the creation of the Centro de Estudios Historicos de Misiones (1938), transformed a year later into the Junta de Estudios Históricos. The research distinguishes three stages. The first, between 1881 and 1900, was characterized by chroniclers and travelers who, linked to the national state, constructed an image of Misiones as an empty, coveted and despoiled territory, founding an identity narrative associated with the Jesuit legacy. The second, between 1900 and 1938, shows the emergence of a local elite whose historical productions were articulated to spaces of power, Masonic networks and incipient institutional structures. The third stage, from 1939, marks the beginning of the institutionalization of history and its articulation with the provincialist discourse. Throughout the paper we analyze the social, political and symbolic conditions that made possible the consolidation of a regional historiography capable of disputing meanings about the past and projecting its own territorial identity.