History of conservatives and the right wing in Uruguay

On May 25, in the main auditorium of the Faculty of Information and Communication of UDELAR, in Montevideo, the book “History of Conservatives and the Right in Uruguay: From the Counter-Revolution to the Second World War"with the participation of the publication coordinators, Magdalena Broquetas (FHCE) and Gerardo Caetano, accompanied by the university rector, Rodrigo Arim, and from the executive secretary of CLACSO, Karina Batthyány.

Beyond the repeated invocation of the “end of ideologies” or the conception of politics as adapting to a “single way of thinking” that has become common sense, the use of the “right/left” dichotomy as a key to ideological and political identification persists among us. This occurs not only in popular speech or in the heat of social struggles, but also as part of a rapidly developing academic field of study in the region and the world. The incorporation of the category “right” by a historiography that, like Uruguayan historiography, tended to shy away from the term is itself telling in this regard.

This work, organized into three volumes, begins with this one, which traces the trajectories of conservatives and right-wing groups during the tumultuous period spanning from the beginning of the 19th century to the Second World War. From this perspective, it seeks to understand and critically examine the initiatives of the actors who converged in this complex space—at once political, ideological, and even cultural. It documents everything from the reaction of the counter-revolutionaries who confronted Artigas to the conflicts surrounding the principles of the French Revolution and the initial emergence of socialism and feminism, from those who opposed the reforms of the early Batlle administration to the processes that shaped Uruguay's experience of the fascist era. This perspective, which examines the Uruguayan process within a regional and transnational framework, offers a distinct and rarely explored mirror to the country's history.