(“Save the Homeland with the law, and forget about the people”: Political speech of the Provisional Government of Francisco García Calderón through the newspaper “El Orden”, February-November 1881)

Abstract

This article will contribute to identifying the political discourse of the provisional government of Francisco Garcia Calderón Landa in the city of Lima (February- November of 1881). Most of the Investigations on the “Government of Magdalena” focus their analysis on the figure of Garcia Calderón and his policy of not giving up national territory during the Chilean occupation in Lima, leaving aside the importance of the press as a cultural and political communication weapon. In this specific case, the newspaper “El Orden” was the official way of communication of the Peruvian government, headed by Garcia Calderón.
The hypothesis of this investigation maintains that the provisional government tried to undermine the bases of the legitimacy of Nicolas Pierola’s government using a liberal discourse with republican Americanism edges. Therefore, the different stages through which the government’s discourse can be understood, where it was appealed to the courage to recognize the defeat against Chile. In this way, the long-awaited national regeneration could be achieved by delegitimizing the Pierola’s dictatorship and opposing the discursive axes of constitutionality-dictatorship and sensible peace-irrational resistance.