The Mensú by Rafael Barrett vs. Pynandí by Juan Natalicio González: The dispute for the town through the memories and forgetfulness of a Paraguayan history in construction

Abstract

With this article we want to recover the alternative memories of untold stories and the thinkers who make the nationalist historical narrative more complex. We propose to focus on the dispute over the Paraguayan people and their (in)ability to emancipate which emerges from the contrast between the figure of Mensú, slave of yerba mate plantations, of Rafael Barrett, writer and journalist of Spanish origin living in Paraguay, and the pynandí, farmer-soldier, of Juan Natalicio González, the Colorado ideologue. We intend to show how behind each of these archetypal figures hides an interpretation of the history, present and future of the Paraguayan people, according to two ideological positions and two divergent historical moments: the Barrett’s internationalist anarchism of the beginning of the 20th century and the González, Colorado agrarian nationalism, influenced by fascism, from the 30s-40s of the last century, prior to the arrival Colorado agrarian nationalism, influenced by fascism, from the 30s-40s of the last century, prior to the arrival of the dictator Stroessner to power in 1954. The Colorado ideologue has occupied the hegemonic place in historiography and the national imagination, by contrast of oblivion and concealment of the Barrett’s work.