HE NATIONALISM OF RICARDO ROJAS IN CENTENARY TIMES) (1900-1916)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the early works of the nationalist thought of Ricardo Rojas (The Nationalist Restoration, Silver Blazon and The Argentinian Heritage) in which we will see the emergence of new critical thinking “civilizing-racist” postulates, a characteristic of the Argentine nineteenth-century thought. Rojas will create a historical-cultural concept of nation where self-defining subjects previously brutalized (indigenous, creole and Spanish) will now be part of a multicultural and multiethnic concept of nationality, represented by the spirit of indianism. The author will pose the need to disseminate these ideas in order to remove Argentina from the “self-defining misplaced” in which it was inserted, resulting from the expansion of “cosmopolitan” and “exotic” ideologies. Rojas will play a fundamental role within the State as a planner of nationalist educational policies, as well as creator of his study materials. This is the reason why we must understand Rojas, as a hegemonic intellectual of great importance in the design state policies that tend to model and “nationalize” the early twentieth century multicultural population of Argentina.