Constructing/Becoming History

Abstract

The analysis of historical discourse from the perspective of the conditions of its production and imposition allows the text to be located within the framework of the struggle for power, one of the privileged mechanisms of which is the elaboration and setting in circulation of senses. When studying the Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana written by Bartolomé Mitre (1887-8) from this standpoint, it is seen that the elaboration and proposal of the figure of a hero cannot be reduced to the operation of recuperating the past. On the contrary, it is a procedure that puts at stake the ability to construct history, taken as a capacity to make a version of the facts prevail, and, also, to become history, in that the imposed vision of what happened legitimates the place and the function of a faction of the leading class in the process of organization of the nation. Constructing/becoming history, especially in foundational moments, constitutes, in short, a mechanism through which, independently of any consciously developed projects, this class faction elaborates and imposes a definition of identity (nation), of organization of power (state) and of those `naturally called upon' to lead.