A Construção da identidade mato-grossense na escrita de Virgílio Corrêa Filho: 1920-1940

Abstract

This research paper shows a historiographical analisys of a part of Virgílio Corrêa Filho´s work, considered one of most important historians from Mato Grosso. The works presented – Mato Grosso, Cuiabanas Monographs and “As Raias de Mato Grosso” – had been between the years of 1920 ande 1940, time when new identity references of nation and region were being built in Brazil. In Mato Grosso, this period was marked by intense introoligarchical fights and an economic rearrangement, over all, from the establishment of Brazil´s Northwest Railroad, occurred in 1914. Nationwide, the republic instituitions and their values were also being established. Thus, the interpretation of Corrêa Filho´s works become important, as it reveals the characteristics of the construction of the local identity from inquiries in the context of the First Republic, searching, to preserve, over all, the values of the social group that writer represented. In this direction, the writing of Virgílio Corrêa Filho tried to preserve the feeling called “cuiabanidade”, the cult to the bordering defenders and the integration of the history of Mato Grosso with the history of Brazil.