Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Maria da Glória de. Illustrious Brazilians in the tribunal of posterity: biography, memory and history experience in the 19th century Brazil. Varia hist. [online]. 2010, vol.26, n.43, pp. 283-298. ISSN 0104-8775.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-87752010000100015.

The article analyses biographic writings as a task of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro historiographical project in the 19^th century Brazil, based on Joaquim Manoel de Macedo’s speeches and Joaquim Caetano Fernandes Pinheiro’s biographic studies. According to them, biography served to reinforce the memory of illustrious Brazilians by sharing ambitions of truth and impartiality on past representation with historic writings. Otherwise, the evocation of a "tribunal of posterity", justifying the work of memory and the biographic writing, was bonded with history experience as a force of justice and morality.

Keywords : Historiography; biography; Instituto; Histórico; Geográfico Brasileiro.