Imagining El Ser Argentino: Cultural Nationalism and Romantic Concepts of Nationhood In Early Twentieth-Century Argentina

Abstract

This article reexamines early twentieth-century Argentine cultural nationalism, arguing that the movement's true significance rests in its promotion of a vision of Argentine nationhood that closely resembled the ideal of the folk nation upheld by German romanticism. Drawing from recent theoretical literature on ethnic nationalism, the article examines the political implications of this movement and explores the way in which the vigorous promotion of the ethnocultural vision of argentinidad by cultural nationalists served to detach definitions of Argentine identity from constitutional foundations and from the ideas of citizenship and popular sovereignty. It also challenges the accepted view that Argentine cultural nationalism represented a radical break with late nineteenth-century positivism. Positivist ideas about social organicism, collective character and historical determinism all helped paved the way for the Romantic vision of nationhood celebrated by the cultural nationalists.