Esquelas transatlánticas. El mito de Bolívar en las culturas políticas de la monarquía Española (1824-1850)¹

The article studies the instrumentalization of the image of Bolívar as a mythical reference in the political cultures of Spain –antiliberal absolutism, progressivism, republicanism, moderantism– during the twenty five years that followed the Spanish-American emancipations (1824-1850). It argues that this process of mythification, which also affected the general image of the Spanish American “Creoles”, occurred from the very end of the independence processes and, with greater intensity, from the death of the character, whose biography would consolidate from then as a space for ideological dispute and identity claim within the Spanish public debate. The paper will address the heroization, enmification and historicization processes to which the Bolivarian icon was subjected, circulating through a whole range of historiographic, journalistic, fictional, parliamentary and essayistic narratives.