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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. + A4 +
