ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to present some speeches elaborated by two Brazilian intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th century. The first of them is the monarchist Eduardo Prado; the second one, the republican Araripe Júnior. The option to present some ideas of these two authors is justified not only by their differences in the ways they understood Brazil and its approach to the United States, but also because Araripe Júnior was a reader and critic of the monarchist thought and, particularly, of Prado’s thought. Despite the differences between them, there was in common in both approaches a problem of moral and value order that should be resolved through a return to the Brazilian past or through its rupture with it: the effective development of an autonomy of the Brazilian nationality.
Keywords:
national identity; national self-determination; Brazilian intellectuals; the turn to the 20th century