De soldado Medeiros à Maria Quitéria: a construção de uma memória histórica nos séculos XIX-XX.

Abstract

This thesis has the central objective of analysing the construction of the historical memory of Maria Quitéria de Jesus throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, using a historiographical approach that integrates the analysis of iconographic and printed sources. The research seeks to understand how the trajectory of the Bahian combatant, who challenged gender norms by fighting for Brazilian Independence in Bahia, cross-dressed as a man and awarded imperial and military honors, was reinterpreted by various institutions over time. Using a methodological triangulation, which articulates different types of sources and analytical approaches, the interactions between textual and visual representations were examined, revealing how these reinterpretations were shaped according to the political and social agendas of different historical periods. From the First and Second Empires to the First Republic, through the Vargas Era and the Civil-Military Dictatorship, the research demonstrates how the history and image of Maria Quitéria de Jesus were reconstructed and circulated in these different contexts, which sometimes denoted her masculine aspects. sometimes feminized and even eroticized features. It was concluded, therefore, that the historical memory of Maria Quitéria de Jesus was constantly adapted and re-signified according to the political interests of each era, revealing a continuous process of symbolic reconstruction. With this, the surrounding uses of its history and image were able to reveal both the tensions between gender identity and the legitimization of political agendas, which revealed a field of dispute, sometimes of conformation over its national heroes and heroines.