ABSTRACT
This article analyses the gaúcho as a social identity in Brazilian literature and political thought through the works of José de Alencar, Apolinário Porto Alegre, Euclides da Cunha, Alcides Maya, Roque Callage and, mainly, Oliveira Viana. The latter was one of the most important authoritarian theorists in Brazil from the 1920s to the 1940s, enthusiastically using the ethnic argument applied to Brazilian sociology. From the second half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth, regionalist literature contrasted the typical man from the extreme South of Brazil to other Brazilian and Hispanic people in order to affirm the superiority of the gaúcho, and his supposed avant-garde role in national affairs. This idea reaches its zenith in Viana's sociology works.
Keywords:
regionalist literature; political thought; social identity; Rio Grande do Sul; Francisco José de Oliveira Viana.