Civilization over Barbarism in Juan Moreira

Abstract

This work has the intention of analyzing and discussing the construction of meaning that, from a certain notion of civilization associated with the political myth of civilization and barbarism, it became preeminent in the Argentine historical period constituting the modern national State between the middle and the end of the XIX century. Understanding that the role of the myth consists in assigning meaning to the organization of reality where it unfolds, the influence of this notion of civilization seemed to impregnate the cultural dimension of the time in general influencing ideas, arguments and political, economic and socials, as well as literary and artistic expressions. To expose this operative instance of the political myth and the notion of civilization that has become of it, the work of the period Juan Moreira, published in the newspaper La Patria Argentina, property of the Gutiérrez family, between November 28, 1879 and January 8, 1880. The possibility is thus raised that this work will express, both in its general sense and in the characterization of its characters and symbolic scenarios, multiple notions rooted in a preeminent idea of ​​civilization that could be thought of the era as universal and natural, as well as closed to other types of interpretations.