Fantasmas nacionales: La construcción de la nación venezolana en Falke de Federico Vegas

Abstract: The presence of ghosts can shape how nations are understood. This article analyzes how the appearance of three ghostly presences, namely those of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, the Independence heroes, and the writer Rómulo Gallegos, continuously shape the Venezuelan nation in the novel Falke (2005) by Federico Vegas. By exploring what each of these ghosts represent and signify, one can understand how two different ideological dynamics have shaped Venezuela throughout its modern history. While one of these dynamics, repeated through political discourse, elevates the nation's heroic past, the other seeks to contravene this view through old literary positivist patterns. Still, both represent the deterioration of the nation.