This article is an introductory investigation concerning the thought of Brazilian historian Eduardo Prado. We analyze Prado's thought on the Brazilian Republic and its relation to the constitution of an ontology of the nation. As a monarchist intellectual, Prado saw the Republic as the demarcation of a decadent - but transitional - reality of Brazil, contrary to what would effectively define the country as a nation. In this definition of the nation, which he believed would be temporary, the author not only questioned what characterized the Brazilian Republic in terms of values, but also tried to think of an alternative future for Brazil, different from the supposedly decadent future to which the Republican rule would lead it.
Eduardo Prado; Brazilian historiography; national ontology; temporality; First Republic.