Uruguay is a prime example of how a peripheral country creatively digested foreign experiences and became not only Latin America’s first welfare state democracy, but also a pioneer of free, compulsory, and lay education. These achievements were the work of two political generations, positivist varelistas – after José Pedro Varela, founder of the Sociedad de Amigos de la Educación Popular (SAEP) – and Krausist batllistas – after President José Batlle y Ordóñez and the influence of Friedrich Krause’s liberal philosophy. In this presentation, based on archival sources, contemporary newspapers, official publications, and monographs by protagonists, Jens Hentschke (University of Newcastle) argues that one of their consistent reference points, largely ignored in historiography, was Belgium, a country founded almost at the same time as Uruguay and admired for its liberal constitutionalism. Uruguayan reformers’ fascination with Belgium, but also their risk awareness, increased when, from the 1860s, both countries implemented conflictual secularizing school reforms that aimed at belated cultural nation-building.

© Jens Hentschke

Termin und Ort

Dienstag, 11.7.2023
17.00 h
Konferenzraum
und via Webex

Sprache

Englisch / English

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