A frontier of great mobility: connections between farrapos and Rio de la Plata leaderships in the Alfredo Varela Collection (1835-1845)

• Grant number: 24/02683-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2024
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Rodrigo Goyena da Silveira Soares
• Grantee: Carlos Eduardo Sant'Anna da Silva Porto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The proposed research project, based on the empirical basis of the Alfredo Varela Collection, seeks to undertake an analysis of the Farroupilha Revolution (1835 - 1845) based on the most recent debates of the so-called Global History. It aims to investigate how the rebels from Rio Grande do Sul connected themselves with caudillos from the Rio de la Plata region and how influential these contacts were for the development of the episode. This work understands the platine border space as an area of great circulation of individuals, ideas, and political projects. The initial hypothesis, therefore, is that, in a context of poorly consolidated national borders and identities, this environment allowed for the identification between movements on both sides of the southern limits of the Empire, only intensified as the civil war unfolded. With this bias, the project will seek to shed light, through the comparison of correspondences, official documents of the Rio-Grandense Republic, and journalistic texts from the period, on the materiality and solidity of these cross-border connections, as well as the points of convergence in the discourse and practice of the leaders on both sides. This operation will be carried out initially from sources attributed to important figures in this universe, such as Rivera, Rosas, and Pedro Ferré. Subsequently, through the search for keywords in the indexes of each volume in which the collection was published, it is intended to find and analyze other sources that refer to these meeting points. It is expected, in the end, that the research will contribute to a better understanding of the transnational communications that involved the Farroupilha Revolution, expanding the understanding of the episode beyond a simple regencial revolt, as it was crystallized by its more classical authors.