Um passado republicano para chamar de seu: a reescrita da história nacional pela geração 1870 da Faculdade de Direito de São Paulo (1870-1880)

The resurgence of republican propaganda in the 1870s in the Brazilian Empireinitiates an effort toward national history. This paper analyses the contribution ofrepublican students of Sao Paulo’s Law School to the work of republicanization of thepast, made on the basis of a reframing of historical characters and events that, accordingto their interpretation, showed the antiquity and legitimacy of their reform project forBrazil’s political structure. The rewriting of history from a republican point of view wasdone through propaganda-related newspaper articles and used theoretical assumptionsthat changed the way in which historical knowledge is built.