Historians and memory of historiography in Rio Grande do Sul: the posthumous edition of Terra Gaúcha, by Simões Lopes Neto

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the posthumous paratextual apparatus of Terra Gaúcha (1955), unpublished historical essay of regionalist writer João Simões Lopes Neto (1865-1916). What were the conditions (and limits) of the uses of the work and its author in the period of the edition? Therefore, we seek to combine an editorial history of the manuscript to a typology of the footnotes prepared by historians-editors. The edition of Terra Gaúcha aimed at legitimizing the positions taken by the group of marginal historians-folklorists in the Historical and Geographical Institute of Rio Grande do Sul - Brasil (IHGRS), creating a noble precursor and a memory narrative for its own writing history project. This operation allowed the scientific updating of the text, by including bibliographic and documentary footnotes. It also needed an ideological concession to the dominante historic theses about the social formation of Rio Grande do Sul. This partial authorization, however, turned out to strengthen the veto for a professional identity of historian to Simões Lopes Neto.