Mudanças históricas no espaço sul-rio-grandense e na figura do gaúcho na Trilogia do Gaúcho a pé de Cyro Martins

Abstract

This work aims to understand how the socio-historical changes that occurred in Rio Grande do Sul, in its constitution of space and figure of the gaucho, during the second half of the 20th century, are portrayed in the Gaúcho a pé Trilogy, by Cyro Martins, in light of Marxist criticism. To this end, the Gaúcho a pé Trilogy was treated as a series of historical novels. The theoretical contributions on the historical novel by György Lukács were listed, mainly who is the hero of the historical novel and the notion of Lukascian history; so were the ideas of Henri Lefebvre's theory of production of social space, that is, how this space constituted in the Campanha gaúcha is lived, perceived and conceived. In addition, the debate on regionalism within the field of literary studies was added to the analysis, as well as the relationship of breaking or continuity of “centauro dos pampas”’s myth and the approximation between literature and history. In this way, it is understood that the Gaúcho a Pé Trilogy can be read as a series of historical novels, in which the author's notion of history drives a credible portrait of the Rio Grande do Sul’s rural population’s path and its intense and gradual moral, social and economic degradation, as well as creating a space that contributes and feeds back History. Additionally, it is possible to perceive how it is possible to update Cyro Martins as a great commentator on the ills of the gaúcho people who were also updated in the 21st century.