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FRANCISCO QUIROZ CHUECA
work of the Mestizo author (1908-1912), José de la Riva Agiiero discovered in
Garcilaso the iconic image of the Mestizo that must epitomized the Peruvian
national identity.’
In 1921, the first centenary of the independence of Peru was celebrated
and, as expected, the country was wondering about the practical results of the
separatist movement of 1820-1826. In particular, the fundamental changes
in the political, social, economic and cultural aspects were of interest, while
the governor of that time, Augusto B. Leguia, pretended to be carrying out a
republican refoundation that he called the “Patria Nueva” more oriented to
North American interests in contrast to the previous British preferences of
the traditional oligarchy. A large historiography would seek to rethink the
separatist war but only a few authors would link this fact with its effects on
the Peruvian nation and national identity throughout the century.
Interestingly, among those who raised reflections on the first hundred
years of independent life in the country was a Peruvian entrepreneur. Pedro
Davalos y Lissén published a set of commentaries of his own and others
in four volumes entitled La primera centuria with an eloquent subtitle:
“Geographical, political and economic causes that have stopped the moral
and material progress of Peru in the first century of its independent life.” The
pessimistic tone shows the disenchantment of the power groups in terms of
the regime that led to the national disaster (war with Chile, 1879-1883) and
the “liquidation of moral and material values” of the country, concluding that
“the democratic theories were unrealizable in Peru.”'°
After a hundred years ofa representative and supposedly democratic republic,
the oligarchic regime contrasted sharply with the situation that the country
should have. This situation was posed by new commentators and analysts who
did not belong to the oligarchy and even some of them actually opposed it. This
was important because practically up to that time the oligarchy had almost
had a monopoly of political, social and historical opinion. The indigenism
and, above all, the critical thinking of José Carlos Mariategui appeared as an
alternative to the mainstream thought.
Peruvian conservatism did not take long to respond. Victor Andrés
Belaunde responded directly and immediately to Mariategui in his essay
Meditaciones peruanas. Belaunde’s option was clearly authoritarian. For him,
the trajectory of the country showed that only in times of rulers like Ramön
Castilla or Nicolas de Piérola had it been able to maintain order in a country
José de la Riva Agiiero: Estudios de historia peruana. La emancipacioén y la reptblica, in
Obras completas de José de la Riva-Agiiero, Lima, Pontificia Universidad Catdlica del Peru,
Instituto Riva Agüero, 1971, Tome VII.
Pedro Dävalos — Pedro Lissön: La primera centuria. Causas geograficas, politicas y
econömicas que han detenido el progreso moral y material del Peru en el primer siglo de su
vida independiente, Lima, Libreria e Imprenta Gil, 1919-1926, Tome IV, 89-90.
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