LA VIDA DE DOMINGUITO: CITIZENSHIP, FATHERHOOD AND WAR IN DOMINGO FAUSTINO SARMIENTO

This article examines La vida de Dominguito (1886), by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the biography of his adopted son, Domingo Fidel Sarmiento, who died in the Paraguayan War. La vida de Dominguito is linked to the last period of Sarmiento’s intellectual and political life, and reveals the centrality of the Paraguayan War in the Argentinian process of national consolidation. This article considers La vida de Dominguito in relation to Sarmiento’s biographies, autobiographies and pedagogical texts. His son’s biography reveals the challenges in the process of national consolidation, the central role he adjudicates to the military and lettered elites and the tensions of his democratic ideal of education. The analysis focuses on the representation of his son’s precocious access to citizenship through three different channels: the vote, the military and education. Finally, it reflects on the historical and political signification of paternity, childhood and filiation.

Keywords:
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento; La vida de Dominguito; Citizenship; Fatherhood; Paraguayan War; Social Thought