Regional elites and national hegemony

Colombian Caribbean Literary press (1854-1886). Preliminars

Abstract

All along the XIXth Century, the cultural production of the Colombian Caribbean elites had as a basis a competitive regional language based on a unitary nation model. Its essential Caribbean dynamic as a “front door”, brings out the question about the scopes of the national imaginary under the center-periphery traditional system. This paper, as part of an investigation project, presents some preliminary reflections on the subject of the Caribbean and its role into the construction process of the “national identity” in the literary press during 1854 to 1886. In here, we offer a historical analysis of the national literary project against the regional literary interests as well as its idiomatic expressions.