O presente artigo busca analisar a construção e o diálogo de ideias na política do Brasil Império, a partir do acervo específico da biblioteca particular de José Maria da Silva Paranhos, Visconde do Rio Branco (1819-1880), figura síntese da elite imperial. Considerando sua influência em processos como a construção da Paz Platina e a Lei do Ventre Livre, as marcas de proveniência e as anotações de sua biblioteca, hoje no acervo do Ministério das Relações Exteriores no Rio de Janeiro, serão interpretadas e relacionadas com sua atuação política, diplomática e jurídica, além de sua formação intelectual e diálogo com outros atores da época. Com isso, procura-se demonstrar um panorama da construção da história e dos eventos de seu tempo a partir de sua relação com os livros e de seu ex-libris a suas notas e correções.

In 1919, Ernest Denis founded the Institut d'études slaves. The Slavic world it sought to study and discuss was a radically-changing one. After the Russian Revolution and the fall of the German and Austrian monarchies, centuries oldtraditions in these empires collapsed with them, but the customs of the people that inhabited those lands remained. In the emerging nations, from the new model of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the construction of nation-States such as Poland, new institutions were crafted, sometimes in explicit dialogue with old traditions, as it was the case for countries like Hungary, that retained a monarchy although without an heir; sometimes with strong apparent ruptures, as it was the case with Soviet Russia.In 1921, under André Mazon, Antoine Meillet and Paul Boyer, the Revue of the Institut d'études slaves starts to be published. Discussing matters of all sorts in the Slavic world, from Linguistics to History and sometimes even Economics, and because of the relevance Eastern Europe achieved after the Russian Revolution, the Revue, alongside the Institut, starts to become a global Place of Memory, or Lieu de Mémoire, as defined by Pierre nora, 1 in the field of Slavic studies. The customs, the forms of speech, the institutions of the Slavic world, all come under this place of debate that is the Revue. So does Law, in the Arendtian definition, 2 as something capable of altering our surroundings and changing 132 CAIo HEnRIqUE DIAS DUARTE life in society. Memory, as a living and changing construct, relates to the human condition. Memory of language, of laws constructed by language and of the institutions constructed collectively by each society, which makes the Revue a receptacle of the legal discussions, not only when it explicitly deals with these questions in articles, but also in the publications it lists or even in its obituaries, that in one way allow us to see what is deemed relevant, what is considered and debated in the construction of law. From studies of the psyche of autocrats and the cultural influences of their aristocrats to the relation of given-names to property among peasants in the farthest corners of the Slavic world, those that wrote in the Revue give us detailed accounts of what constitutes the legal constructs institutions and customs as a linguistic game, telling us about the actors that construct, operate and are conditioned by legal norms, the performance of discourse and the usages of law. 3 With this in mind, this article will look at all the editions of the Revue that mention relevant legal aspects, trying to provide the reader with a history of how the legally-related discussions unfolded in its pages over the decades. It will mention the articles and editions using the following selection criteria: (i) articles that are explicitly about legal topics, (ii) articles that discuss the nature of the State, (iii) articles that encompass discussions on customs that are related to legal topics, such as naming customs, (iii) articles that discuss intellectual influe...

La diplomacia de Brasil es históricamente orientada por una grande articulación legal, desde el inicio de la consolidación de sus fronteras en el Tratado de Madrid (1750) con Alexandre de Gusmão. Pero la consolidación de sus principios norteadores, como el uti possidetis, se pasó de facto con la actuación del Vizconde de Uruguay y del Vizconde del Rio Branco tras la política imperial en el Plata entre los años 1850 y 1870, cuando actuaron como diplomatas y también Cancilleres en el Ministério de Negócios Estrangeiros. Este artículo buscará investigar los aspectos legales de la visión de Rio Branco sobre el planeamiento y la actuación política del Imperio de Brasil en el Plata. Para eso, será hecho un análisis de sus discursos sobre política exterior y el Plata en el Parlamento Imperial, de 1855 a 1875. Así se busca comprender la importancia de su actuación en la Cuestión Platina, que se dio en el apogeo del Imperio, cuando se pasaron las intervenciones en las repúblicas platinas y también la Guerra de Paraguay, firmando las concepciones de fronteras y de isonomía entre los Estados como fundamentales en la diplomacia brasileña. De tal forma, la metodología utilizada será la de, tras un análisis de los discursos del Vizconde como fuentes primarias, observar a los fundamentos y la articulación de la visión jurídica de la actuación de Brasil en el Plata en su diplomacia, considerando el Derecho como práctica en la estabilización de la región.