Giuseppe Mazzini and the Emergence of Liberal Nationalism in the River Plate and Chile, 1835–60

This chapter examines the reception of the political and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini in the River Plate (Buenos Aires and Montevideo) and Chile, and its contribution to the development of native currents of liberal and democratic nationalism there. Focusing on the writings of the leaders of the Association of the Young Argentinian Generation – Juan Bautista Alberdi, Esteban Echeverría, Bartolomé Mitre, and Vicente Fidel López – it analyses the forms in which certain key concepts drawn from Mazzini's political vocabulary played a crucial role in the early elaboration of an Argentinian liberal nationalism. The chapter also stresses the importance of cultural intermediaries such as Giovanbattista Cuneo and Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose presence in the River Plate during the 1830s and 1840s was of decisive importance in the transmission of the programme formulated by Mazzini for his Giovine Italia movement. The chapter also explores the possible presence of Mazzinian themes and rhetorical patterns in the writings of the Chilean radical republican Francisco Bilbao, whose career as a publicist took place in three Latin American countries: Chile, Peru, and Argentina.