The paper treats the theme of political representation in the First Brazilian Republic (1889-1930) starting from three important reflection matrixes on the subject: the liberalism, the positivism and the realism. One aims to reject the usual narrative of the first republican decades, based only on the diagnosis of political corruption, and to illuminate other important faces of the political scenery at the time. A despeito das diferenças significativas entre os modelos interpretativos em evidência, que constituem o cerne do artigo, eles convergem na expectativa de protagonismo do Estado na tarefa de unificação e criação do povo. In spite of significant differences among the interpretative models in evidence, that constitute the core of this paper, they converge in the expectation of protagonism of the State in the creation of the people and unification task.
First Republic; political representation; liberalism; positivism; realism