Daniel Arrieta    Department   Kyoto University of Foreign Studies  Department of Hispanic Studies, Faculty of Foreign Studies    Position   Associate Professor
Language	Spanish
Publication Date	2014/12
Type	Academic Paper
Peer Review	Peer reviewed
Title	Brazil's and Argentina's National Identity as a literary construction through the characters of the gaucho and the bandeirante
Contribution Type	Single author
Journal Type	Another Country
Publisher	History and Culture. International Review UNESP-France
Volume, Issue, Page	pp.105-119
Total page number	15
Details	An important part of the literary works about the Brazilian bandeirante and the Argentinean gaucho was written after their lifestyles' extinction. However, two literary myths were generated related to the creation of the modern state and the establishing of their national borders, especially in the XIXth century. The epic view and the supposed democratization of the bandeiras' participants, plus the romantic and Eurocentric characterization of the Argentinean gaucho in the literature, give a very simplistic and folkloric image of their roles as explorers in search of riches and slaves, in the case of the bandeirantes, and their interaction with Indians at the border, in the case of gauchos. This work aims to show the similarities and differences between both processes of literary mystification in the historic context where they are produced, reflecting about the degree of success in the construction of a national identity.