In Russia and Argentina modernism arrived well before the advent of socioeconomic modernization, and found societies with restricted civil liberties, only nascent middle classes, and virtually non-existent public spheres. Despite these factors, within a span of some fifty years, Petersburg and Buenos Aires turned into vibrant literary capitals rivaling London, New York, and Paris as centers of literary modernism. This dissertation offers a new understanding of the period by exposing the critical role of publishers and cultural patrons in this extraordinary cultural advancement. I argue that they were able to reformulate their countries’ historically ambivalent positions vis-à-vis Western European civilization by working closely with avant-garde literary groups and viii promoting their literary works that combined sometimes contending, sometimes complementary cosmopolitanism and nationalism. My analysis of the interrelated processes of the development of print culture, national identity, and the literary public sphere in Russia and Argentina is informed by Benedict Anderson’s thinking about nationalism and print culture, Pierre Bourdieu’s treatment of publishers as key participants in cultural production, and the concept of the public sphere as seen by Jürgen Habermas. Close reading of select literary works of the 1920s shows that Russian and Argentine “peripheral” experiences, once transformed into artistic creation, became consonant with cultural practices of international modernism precisely because they combined both cosmopolitan and nationalist tendencies. Each of the writers considered—Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Arlt, Veniamin Kaverin, and Konstantin Fedin—was able to formulate highly original and yet unmistakably national response to modernity. Following the writers’ trajectories from early literary experiments to the works of the late 1920s, when they renounced their youthful deviations and joined the literary (and sometimes even political) establishment, I show how these literary texts renegotiated the issues of national identity by reworking diverse and often “foreign” literary traditions into authentically Russian and Argentine prose. / text

Este trabalho orientou-se por uma pergunta: qual era o público literário (leitor e consumidor) de Alexandre Dumas, Manuel Antonio de Almeida, José de Alencar e Fagundes Varella e de suas respectivas produções literárias que foram difundidas no Brasil entre 1850 e 1860? Para responder a esta pergunta, o trabalho buscou identificar e caracterizar como grupo social uma fração do público literário brasileiro destes escritores e de seus folhetins, publicados na forma de romances e crônicas. Eles circularam no Gabinete Português de Leitura do Rio de Janeiro (Dumas) e em dois jornais do Império - Correio Mercantil-RJ (Almeida e Alencar) e Correio Paulistano-SP (Varella). E nestes espaços sua presença foi considerada bastante expressiva a ponto de existir, em um país marcado pela escravidão e analfabetismo, uma fração de público para eles. Essa fração não representava apenas a elite, advinha também de outros estratos sociais, que carecem de investigação sociológica. Diante da variedade do sistema literário brasileiro, extraímos dele somente alguns momentos que, uma vez compreendidos, apresentam elementos constitutivos de uma fração do público literário no Segundo Reinado no Rio de Janeiro e em São Paulo. / The research question guiding this study was: who was the literary public (both reader and consumer) of the works of Alexandre Dumas, Manuel Antonio de Almeida, José de Alencar, and Fagundes Varella that were published in Brazil between the years of 1850 and 1860? To answer this question, this study attempted to identify and characterize as a social group a fraction of the Brazilian literary public who consumed the writings of the aforementioned authors, which circulated as feuilleton (novels and chronicles). Such writings circulated at the Gabinete Português de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro (Dumas) and in two newspapers printed during the Empire - Correio Mercantil from Rio de Janeiro (Almeida and Alencar) and Correio Paulistano from São Paulo (Varella). Their presence was of such importance that a fraction of the literary public existed in a country marked by slavery and illiteracy. This fraction did not represent the elite only, it included other social groups requiring investigation. In relation to the diversity of the Brazilian literary system some elements were extracted in this investigation. Once understood, they present constitutive elements of a fraction of the literary public in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the Second Empire of Brazil.

Este trabalho orientou-se por uma pergunta: qual era o público literário (leitor e consumidor) de Alexandre Dumas, Manuel Antonio de Almeida, José de Alencar e Fagundes Varella e de suas respectivas produções literárias que foram difundidas no Brasil entre 1850 e 1860? Para responder a esta pergunta, o trabalho buscou identificar e caracterizar como grupo social uma fração do público literário brasileiro destes escritores e de seus folhetins, publicados na forma de romances e crônicas. Eles circularam no Gabinete Português de Leitura do Rio de Janeiro (Dumas) e em dois jornais do Império - Correio Mercantil-RJ (Almeida e Alencar) e Correio Paulistano-SP (Varella). E nestes espaços sua presença foi considerada bastante expressiva a ponto de existir, em um país marcado pela escravidão e analfabetismo, uma fração de público para eles. Essa fração não representava apenas a elite, advinha também de outros estratos sociais, que carecem de investigação sociológica. Diante da variedade do sistema literário brasileiro, extraímos dele somente alguns momentos que, uma vez compreendidos, apresentam elementos constitutivos de uma fração do público literário no Segundo Reinado no Rio de Janeiro e em São Paulo. / The research question guiding this study was: who was the literary public (both reader and consumer) of the works of Alexandre Dumas, Manuel Antonio de Almeida, José de Alencar, and Fagundes Varella that were published in Brazil between the years of 1850 and 1860? To answer this question, this study attempted to identify and characterize as a social group a fraction of the Brazilian literary public who consumed the writings of the aforementioned authors, which circulated as feuilleton (novels and chronicles). Such writings circulated at the Gabinete Português de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro (Dumas) and in two newspapers printed during the Empire - Correio Mercantil from Rio de Janeiro (Almeida and Alencar) and Correio Paulistano from São Paulo (Varella). Their presence was of such importance that a fraction of the literary public existed in a country marked by slavery and illiteracy. This fraction did not represent the elite only, it included other social groups requiring investigation. In relation to the diversity of the Brazilian literary system some elements were extracted in this investigation. Once understood, they present constitutive elements of a fraction of the literary public in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the Second Empire of Brazil.