História, ficção e regionalismo: a escrita da história em David Carneiro (1941-1952)

Abstract

The first decades of the 20th century were marked, throughout Brazil, by a significant increase in the publishing sectors, as well as in the interest in reading itself. In a context of the formation of the Republic and, especially during the Vargas era, of political centralization, the production of historical narratives with a nationalist and identity appeal found acceptance among readers. Writers and historians began to develop texts whose narratives referred to the consolidation of borders, reinforcing regional characteristics from a perspective of national unity. Turning to the past, whether through history or historical literature, was the means found by intellectuals in the first decades of the 20th century for an effective social construction of the country's regions. Through writing, these intellectuals worked to think about the historical processes that culminated in the formation of the Republic, linking them to the actions of their ancestors, responsible for the conquest of territories and land occupation. From the process of institutionalization and professionalization of the historical discipline in universities, which took place between the 1930s and 1970s, academic historians began to emphatically criticize history produced outside the academy. In this research, we seek to shed light on the circumstances that led to the emergence of a methodological tension in historiography in Paraná of this frame. To this end, we analyzed the performance and historical production of the historian, writer and museologist, David Carneiro and his relationship with other intellectuals, institutions and media outlets, from a historiographical perspective, highlighting factors that contributed to this epistemological generational tension, opposing the generation of intellectuals / historians of which David Carneiro was part of with a new generation of historians, with specific training in the area and linked to academia. If in a certain context - the first decades of the 20th century - the authority of the historian's discourse was closely associated with his social status and his political activity, from the institutionalization of the profession the university began to establish itself as an emanator of the legitimacy of the historian's discourse.