Η ΕΙΚΟΝΑ ΤΟΥ ΓΚΑΟΥΤΣΟ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΡΓΕΝΤΙΝΗ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ (1830-1940). ΙΔΕΟΛΟΓΙΚΕΣ ΧΡΗΣΕΙΣ ΚΑΙ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΕΣ ΠΡΟΣΕΓΓΙΣΕΙΣ

Abstract

Maria Damilakou, The image of the gaucho in the argentine society (1830-

1940): ideological uses and historiographie approaches

This article attempts to show the different images of the gaucho, symbol of the argentine pampa, that predominated the local society as long as to associate them to the different interpretations of the historical past and the process of construction of the argentine national identity. This process required contacts, confrontations and interchanges among different social groups and sectors, such as the lower classes, the intellectual and political elites, the marginal rural element and the new coming immigrants. The construction of the gaucho's image was a long process, extended from the first half of the 19th century until the peronist years. From the «heroic son of the earth» who stood up the Spanish conquerors during the Revolution of 1810, he became the «barbarian of the desert» through the discourse of the illuminated elite that, during the second half of the 19th century, undertook the national organization of the country, its fast modernization and the creation of «obedient citizens». During the same period, the popular culture provided a different aspect of the gaucho, especially through the figures of Martin Fierro and Juan Moreira: the gaucho now became the center of a large cultural phenomenon that was picturing the rural way of life, codified common experience and expectations and became a form of resistance to the process of modernization. Later, in the 1910s, the image of the «obedient» Martin Fierro was adopted by the cultural nationalism of the period and used as the symbol of the argentine national identity and as the incarnation of the argentine essence and soul. At last, the leftwing forces adopted the gaucho as the symbol of the oppressed social groups, whereas the nationalist movements of the 1930s used his image in order to support their revisioned interpretations about the national historical past.