WITH A CRITICAL LOOK ON ARTIGAS

Bosquejo Histórico de la República Oriental del Uruguay. Cuarta Edicion Refundida y considerablemente aumentada por el Autor. Montevideo. Francisco Ybarra, Editor. 1895. Propiedad del Editor.

Quarto, (21 cm x 13 cm), 720 pp., (includes Half title, Title page, bl.), 1 sheet. Cloth binding with gilt titles. Fourth edition, enlarged and corrected by the author. Published after the ban dictated by the Uruguayan government.

The work was written when Berra was a young man of 21 years old, and in successive editions, he saved errors and improved its content until the definitive version, which is the one offered here. Although the book deals with the history of the Oriental Republic, it is easy to understand that it refers to our colonial life and the development of the emancipation process that marched towards the Argentine Republic. The study extends from the discoveries to 1830.

Born in San Miguel del Monte, this educator, journalist and public official emigrated to Uruguay as a child with his family; there he graduated as a lawyer. He has a large bibliographical work -highlighted especially in the pedagogical field-, although the most remembered title is the Historical Sketch of him, prohibited by the Uruguayan government due to his vision of the deed of Artigas, whom he describes as barbarian. Being Máximo Santos president of that republic, in 1883 he ordered by decree that this publication be kept away from teaching in public schools of the country's history, due to "inconvenience and detrimental". In those years, the figure of Gervasio José de Artigas was elevated to the pantheon of national heroes and Berro's gaze threatened the exemplary image of the eastern caudillo. The repercussion of it was so important that it provoked newspaper articles and even a book entitled Critical Judgment to the Sketch, by Carlos María Ramírez, which was answered by the author of the observed work.

Berra (1844 - 19065) returned to Argentina in 1884 and was appointed Director General of Schools in the province of Buenos Aires, serving as head of public education in Buenos Aires until 1902.