voyage of a pamphlet. lorenzo ignazio thjulén and the language of revolution

Abstract

This work reconstructs the process of republishing, in the Mexico of 1834, of a rare dictionary, the 1799 Nuevo vocabulario filosófico-democrático. Indispensable para todos los que deseen entender la nueva lengua revolucionaria ["New Philosophical-Democratic Vocabulary. Indispensable for All Those Who Wish to Understand the New Revolutionary Language"], by the Jesuit Lorenzo Ignazio Thjulen (Gothenburg, 1746-Bologna, 1833), as well as the impact it had on the press and pamphlet-writing of the time. 1834 was a crucial year in the political history of the First Federal Republic, for it saw the confrontation between Valentín Gómez Farías' reform project and the anti-liberal reaction against it. Thjulen's dictionary, conceived and written within the Catholic counter-Enlightenment tradition, provided rationales for those challenging Gómez Farías' disentitling and anti-corporate project. Thjulen countered the language of revolution with the language of counter-Enlightenment, so the dissemination of his ideas in 1834 Mexico allows us to further understand the doctrinal and political tensions between liberals, conservatives, and Catholics during the first post-viceregal decades.