Abstract

CABRERA GESERICK, Marco. Political uses of the battles of Santa Rosa of 1856 and 1955: or, how to fail at inventing traditions. Diálogos rev. electr. hist [online]. 2015, vol.16, suppl.1, pp.77-97. ISSN 1409-469X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/dre.v0i0.21993.

The use of the past has been a political tool used traditionally to shape or reshape a specific national identity. Based on the political need to create national narratives that could benefit or support the dominant political regime, political elites develop invented traditions that redefine the collective memory of historic events with the goal of manipulating o taken advantage of its message and the implicit values associated with them. In Costa Rica, the Filibuster War is recognized as the national narrative per excellence. This includes the Battle of Santa Rosa of 1856. A hundred years later, a second battle of Santa Rosa, from 1955, was used by the governing party to support a new national narrative that promoted a new national project. The attempt, though, failed. This article analyzes the concepts of collective memory and invented traditions in order to explain the circumstances of this failure.

Keywords : national identity; invented traditions; collective memory; national holidays; filibuster war; national narratives.

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