A rainha destronada:discursos das elites sobre as grandezas e os infortúnios da Bahia nas primeiras décadas republicanas

Abstract

After the establishment of the republican order in Brazil, in 1889, the confederated States started some tough political and symbolic struggles among them in order to ensure shares of the power in the new political system. The elites of Bahia, which had been enjoying a privileged situation during the period of Monarchy, experienced a great chock from this new context, when other regional groups raised up in the national scenery. It is discussed, in the present work, how, during the so called First Republic (1889-1930), mainly in the 1910 s and 1920 s, Bahia reacted to the occurring changes, by conceiving the invention of a local identity that sets against the narratives of identity proceeding from other parts of the country, seeking for presenting itself as a preeminent participant in the nationality sense build-up. It concerns to notice the elites declaiming the Bahia's greatnesses, shown through many idealizations about the past historical traditions and through a set of speeches that emphasized the people attributes and the land potentialities. It is also intended to focus on elites complaints about the misfortunes experienced by Bahia in the republican period, moment in which they felt intentionally left behind in the game for the national political power, investigating a certain claiming for a bigger range of action in the national context. By analyzing books, papers and magazines of that time, with a special spotlight to the magazine Bahia Ilustrada, it is aimed to recompose some of the discourses on the greatnesses and misfortunes of Bahia , produced during the First Republic times, which were determining to the configuration of a local identity, besides an undeniably political aspect that they display.