«Mesti ricordi, antiche storie» y prensa étnica en Chile. El caso del periódico santiaguino "L’Eco d’Italia" (1890- 1891).

Abstract

The present article aims to give a succinct assessment of the developing Italian identity in Chile in the course of the nineteenth century, through the analysis of journalistic and literary discourses that were published in "L’Eco d’Italia", which represents an example of ethnic press. On one hand we investigate the definition of the discourses on the Italian identity, which began to take shape in the last quarter of the 19th century, and on the other hand we evaluate the impact of language on the discourses, and therefore on the formation of the Italian identity in Chile. In particular, we discuss the figures of Adolfo Ghiselli and Carlo Piva, respectively the first director and the editor of the newspaper. Our analysis revealed the use of stylistic resources extracted from the Italian literature and inspired by classical authors of the Trecento who appealed to patriotic love and by the nineteenth-century tradition of Northern Italy.