Alfredo Cayetano Vitulo, a historicist will in the density of the local. Marks of a memorial and historiographic intervention (1932-1964)

Abstract

The writing of history from locations far from the preeminent and specifically open to historiography refers to an issue, which has recently interested different historians. Intellectuals from regional and local spaces found a way of intervening in the memory of their respective communities solving past representations of demanding nature belonging to characters and episodes which many times put under tension already-stabilised recounts by means of “national history”. This paper deals with the figure of the historian Alfredo Cayetano Vitulo (1879-1964). Some perspectives of his memorial and historiographic work, and his networks of personal and academic relationships in pursuit of the building of the local and regional identity of Río Cuarto and the South of Córdoba are documented. In particular, what is rebuilt is both the negotiations and the historiographic discourse which are intertwined in the frustrated project of raising a monument to Rafael de Sobremonte, founder of his city and antihero in the “porteño” liberal historiography.

Keywords

• Local historiography
• memory
• intellectual bonds
• identity