Corregidor Zañartu: authoritarianism and lineage

Abstract

National -the nation- identity is, in Anderson's words, an imagined political community, built from particular ideological operations at specific historical moments. It is in this sense that we can trace the footprints of accounts that have been hegemonic on those narrations, unveiling the instrumental and arbitrary nature, and the constant construction of them. This article reviews, through an 18th century's character and his updates in Chilean literature, how two basal elements of traditional Chilean identity: authoritarianism and lineage, were constructed and naturalized.