Author | Alexandre Dumas |
---|---|
Original title | Montevideo, ou une nouvelle Troie |
Language | French |
Publication date | 1850 |
Publication place | France |
Montevideo, or the new Troy (French : Montevideo, ou une nouvelle Troie) is an 1850 novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is a historical novel about the Uruguayan Civil War, where the Uruguayan presidents Manuel Oribe and Fructuoso Rivera disputed the rule of the country. The name sets a parallelism with the Trojan War, as Oribe kept Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, under siege for many years (known as the Great Siege of Montevideo).
The plot of the book makes a summary of the history of Uruguay, from Spanish colonization to the Civil War. Juan Manuel de Rosas, Juan Facundo Quiroga, José Gervasio Artigas, Bernardino Rivadavia, and Giuseppe Garibaldi are thus treated as literary characters. [1] Dumas describes Artigas and Rosas as barbaric, and Montevideo as a source of civilization. A similar dichotomy between civilization and barbarism was the theme of Facundo , another antirosist book published by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1845. [2] Dumas described Rosas, who supported Oribe, as a coward who avoided the Argentine War of Independence and took control of Buenos Aires with a barbaric horde, and Montevideo as a heroic city standing against him. [3]
Dumas had never been to Uruguay, nor known first-hand about the war. His work was based on the reports of the antirosist Melchor Pacheco, who sought French support against Rosas, and thus twisted the information about Rosas' administration in order to get such support. [2] [3] It is likely that the similarities with Sarmiento's book were introduced by Pacheco's, as it would have been unlikely that Dumas had read the former's work. [4]
The book has been edited twice in Argentina, once during the 1960s and again in 2005. [1] [5] An English translation has been available for Amazon Kindle since 2019. [1] [6]
Justo José de Urquiza y García was an Argentine general and politician who served as president of the Argentine Confederation from 1854 to 1860.
The Argentine Confederation was the last predecessor state of modern Argentina; its name is still one of the official names of the country according to the Argentine Constitution, Article 35. It was the name of the country from 1831 to 1852, when the provinces were organized as a confederation without a head of state. The governor of Buenos Aires Province managed foreign relations during this time. Under his rule, the Argentine Confederation engaged in conflicts with Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, France and the United Kingdom, as well as other Argentine factions during the Argentine Civil Wars.
Juan Bautista Alberdi was an Argentine political theorist and diplomat. Although he lived most of his life in exile in Montevideo, Uruguay and in Chile, he influenced the content of the Constitution of Argentina of 1853.
Manuel Ceferino Oribe y Viana was the 2nd Constitutional president of Uruguay and founder of Uruguay's National Party, the oldest Uruguayan political party and considered one of the two Uruguayan "traditional" parties, along with the Colorado Party, which was, until the 20th century, its only political adversary.
Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism is a book written in 1845 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a writer and journalist who became the second president of Argentina. It is a cornerstone of Latin American literature: a work of creative non-fiction that helped to define the parameters for thinking about the region's development, modernization, power, and culture. Subtitled Civilization and Barbarism, Facundo contrasts civilization and barbarism as seen in early 19th-century Argentina. Literary critic Roberto González Echevarría calls the work "the most important book written by a Latin American in any discipline or genre".
José Fructuoso Rivera y Toscana was an Uruguayan general and patriot who fought for the liberation of Banda Oriental from Brazilian rule, thrice served as President of Uruguay and was one of the instigators of the long Uruguayan Civil War. He is also considered to be the founder of the Colorado Party, which ruled Uruguay without interruption from 1865 until 1958. He made a controversial decision to almost completely eliminate the native Charrúa during the 1831 Massacre of Salsipuedes.
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Juan Galo Lavalle was an Argentine military and political figure, from the Unitarian Party.
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The Treinta y Tres Orientales was a revolutionary group led by Juan Antonio Lavalleja and Manuel Oribe against the Empire of Brazil. Their actions culminated in the foundation of modern Uruguay. They became famous by the name of the Treinta y Tres Orientales when, in 1825, they began an insurrection for the independence of Oriental Province, a historical territory encompassing modern Uruguay and part of modern Brazilian Rio Grande do Sul State, from Brazilian control.
The Uruguayan Civil War, also known in Spanish as the Guerra Grande, was a series of armed conflicts between the leaders of Uruguayan independence. While officially the war lasted from 1839 until 1851, it was a part of armed conflicts that started in 1832 and continued until the final military defeat of the Blancos faction in 1904.
Brazil–Uruguay relations encompass many complex relations over the span of three centuries, beginning in 1680 with the establishment of the Colónia do Sacramento, to the present day, between the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Brazil and Uruguay are neighbouring countries in South America, and share close political, economic and cultural ties. The singularity of the bilateral relationship between the two countries originates from a strong historical connection, as both countries having been territories of the Portuguese Empire and sharing the same language – marked by important events, such as the establishment of the Colónia do Sacramento in 1680, the invasion of the Banda Oriental by Brazil in 1815 and the subsequent creation of the Província Cisplatina, and Uruguay's independence from Brazil in 1828. The bilateral relationship was further defined by the Uruguayan Civil War (1839–1851) and the Paraguayan War (1864–1870).
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The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of civil conflicts of varying intensity that took place through the territories of Argentina from 1814 to 1853. Beginning concurrently with the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818), the conflict prevented the formation of a stable governing body until the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853, followed by low-frequency skirmishes that ended with the Federalization of Buenos Aires. The period saw heavy intervention from the Brazilian Empire that fought against state and provinces in multiple wars. Breakaway nations, former territories of the viceroyalty, such as the Banda Oriental, Paraguay and the Upper Peru were involved to varying degrees. Foreign powers such as the British and French empires put heavy pressure on the fledgling nations at times of international war.
The Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata, also known as Paraná War, was a five-year naval blockade imposed by France and the United Kingdom on the Argentine Confederation during the Uruguayan Civil War. It was imposed by the Royal Navy and French Navy in 1845 against the Río de la Plata Basin to support the Colorado Party in Uruguay's civil war, resulting in the closure of Buenos Aires to maritime commerce. The Argentine government, led by Juan Manuel de Rosas, refused to drop their support for the Uruguyan White Party, which supported Argentina's resistance to the blockade. Eventually, both Britain and France ended the blockade, signing the Arana-Southern Treaty in 1849 and 1850 respectively, which acknowledged Argentine sovereignty over its rivers.
The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of internecine wars that took place in Argentina from 1814 to 1876. These conflicts were separate from the Argentine War of Independence, though they first arose during this period.
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The historiography of Juan Manuel de Rosas is highly controversial. Most Argentine historians take an approach either for or against him, a dispute that has influenced much of the entire historiography of Argentina.
The Great Siege of Montevideo, named as Sitio Grande in Uruguayan historiography, was the siege suffered by the city of Montevideo between 1843 and 1851 during the Uruguayan Civil War.
Ramón de Amaya was an Argentine-Uruguayan military man and politician, who fought against the English during the British invasions of the River Plate, and who participated in the Uruguayan Civil War.