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Imagining El Ser Argentino: Cultural Nationalism and Romantic Concepts of Nationhood In Early Twentieth-Century Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2002

JEAN H. DELANEY
Affiliation:
Jeane H. DeLaney teaches history at St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges.

Abstract

This article reexamines early twentieth-century Argentine cultural nationalism, arguing that the movement's true significance rests in its promotion of a vision of Argentine nationhood that closely resembled the ideal of the folk nation upheld by German romanticism. Drawing from recent theoretical literature on ethnic nationalism, the article examines the political implications of this movement and explores the way in which the vigorous promotion of the ethnocultural vision of argentinidad by cultural nationalists served to detach definitions of Argentine identity from constitutional foundations and from the ideas of citizenship and popular sovereignty. It also challenges the accepted view that Argentine cultural nationalism represented a radical break with late nineteenth-century positivism. Positivist ideas about social organicism, collective character and historical determinism all helped paved the way for the Romantic vision of nationhood celebrated by the cultural nationalists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Ann Rodrick, Diego Armus, Kirk Jeffrey and the anonymous JLAS reviewers for their helpful comments. Special thanks go to Charles Hale for his insightful comments on an early version and for his unflagging enthusiasm for this article throughout the revision process.