Barros Arana, Diego

Diego Jacinto Agustin Barros Arana ( August 16, 1830 - November 4, 1907 ) - Chilean historian, teacher and diplomat. It is considered the largest Chilean historian of the XIX century ^[3] . His main work, Historia Jeneral de Chile (Russian: “The General History of Chile”), is a 15-volume work that has covered more than 300 years of the country's history ^[4] .

This person has a Spanish last name; here Barros is the name of the father, Arana is the name of the mother.

Barros Arana was of Basque origin, born in a wealthy family of a merchant. His mother died when he was only four years old, so his aunt, who was a zealous Catholic, was engaged in his upbringing. He studied at the National Institute, where he studied Latin, French, philosophy, grammar and Holy Scripture, but not the history of Chile, which was then not yet separately taught; he began to study history on his own, reading the works of contemporaries and predecessors. At the end of university studies, he became interested in French literature and even made several translations into Spanish, but subsequently turned to historical work.

Since the 1850s, he was actively involved in politics, adhering to liberal ideas and, despite his education, opposing the Catholic Church. Due to his participation in the conspiracy against President Manuel, Mont was forced to flee to Argentina, where he got the opportunity to work in local archives and libraries, and then to Europe. Barros Arana returned to Chile in 1863, was appointed rector of the National Institute, began his teaching career, was appointed dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Chile several times, and was rector of this university from 1893 to 1897. In 1897, he was forced to resign as rector, and then the institute itself due to a conflict with the Ministry of Education over the adoption of the law on freedom of exams (which allowed him to take entrance exams at the university at his school, and not at the university), of which he was an adversary.

After these events, Barros Arana joined the diplomatic service and was sent to Argentina with the important mission of establishing borders between Argentina and Chile in Patagonia. In 1902, he participated in the International Congress on Education in Santiago.