Abstract

RINKE, Stefan. La visión europea de la dictadura moderna a principios del siglo XIX: El Dr. Francia en Paraguay. Bol. Inst. Hist. Argent. Am. Dr. Emilio Ravignani [online]. 2022, n.57, pp.49-61. ISSN 0524-9767.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.34096/bol.rav.n57.11491.

To the educated public of the early 19th century, Paraguayan leader José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia was a figure as mysterious as he was puzzling. The few travelers who came to know him expressed themselves ambivalently about Francia and described his government sometimes admiringly and more often disparagingly as a dictatorship. At the beginning of modernity, for those who dealt with the problem of dictatorship, Francia stood as a symbol of the change in meaning of the term "dictator" from a legitimate, temporary, and therefore positive ruler in an emergency to an illegitimate tyrant. How did European observers perceive Francia? What was the significance of Francia ruling in a region that had just broken away from Spanish colonial rule and declared itself a republic? What were the reasons for the assessment of Francia and what generalizations were associated with it for the entire region and with the dictatorship in general? This paper addresses this question based on published sources on the subject, from Rengger and Robertson to Caldcleugh and others.

Keywords : Paraguay – History 19^th Century; Dr. Francia; Dictatorship; Conceptual History; Perceptions; Europe and Latin America.

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