A biografia e a escrita de si

os usos políticos de um relato de viagem no Oitocentos

Abstract

In this article I analyze the relationships between the travel report, the signs of self-writing and the political uses of this type of record, through the work "Viagem de Cuiabá ao Rio de Janeiro, pelo Paraguay, Corrientes, Rio Grande do Sul e Santa Catarina", from 1847, by Henrique Beaurepaire Rohan. The objective of which is to narrate the military engineer's return to Rio de Janeiro, in 1846, after two years serving in the province of Mato Grosso. The memoir is marked by the description of the landscapes, social, cultural and political aspects of Paraguay, and it is configured as the engineer's first exercise in chorographic writing, a common genre among the Empire's military. In addition to the supposedly objective description, the text carries veiled intentions and signs of self that point to the construction of a “writing of self” (GOMES, 2004) and an “image for others” (POLLAK, 1992), which the author constructed possibly in search of political and intelectual recognition, mainly in the social and professional fields where he acted.