There is an internal server error on Cloudflare's network Crossing the sertões (Backlands) and the Promise of a Miguel Gomes Film Portuguese director Miguel Gomes1 has been working on the film adaptation of the Brazilian literary classic Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) written by Euclides da Cunha2 in 1902 - a must-see work whose potential has been expanded throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.  Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) brings us closer a settlement in the interior of the Northeastern Sertão - located about 400 km from Salvador of a fratricidal war between its inhabitants and the Brazilian army The destruction of the settlement cost the lives of some twenty thousand sertanejos (backwoodsmen) and five thousand soldiers the Canudos War has generated a dispute of narratives which come both from representatives of those involved in the struggle and from those who sought to study and update it Os Sertões is a common referent in all these discussions Its existence has ensured that the conflict continues to echo today a scholar of Euclides da Cunha’s work says that the book “is an instigator of Brazilian memory that reminds us of what we have done and continue to do with the majority of our compatriots “3 125 years after the beginning of the conflict Miguel Gomes offers us a new opportunity to reflect on the colonial past that concerns us The power of this classic of Brazilian literature can impose itself on anyone who challenges it The Angolan writer Ruy Duarte de Carvalho summed up what he found in Os Sertões: “fantasy and critical reason a dialectic between discovery and concealment everything is a miracle.” (p.288)  This miracle is also due in large part to the transformation that the impact of the violence and injustice exerted on the population of Canudos caused in Euclides da Cunha which prompted him to write an avenging book the writer “took a turn” in Canudos which made him “question the system.”(p.284) This transmutation of the author is one of the great challenges that the cinematographic adaptation of Os Sertões poses considering that Euclides da Cunha will be “the protagonist of the film with his narrative presented in an off-screen voice”4 He will be the mediating figure of the diegesis which offers us the possibility of seeing recreated his “fluctuating states of mind which go from dramatic rapture to ironic dryness from fury to fatigue” as identified by Miguel Gomes.5 the director has already revealed that he “will not orthodoxly follow the words of the author” because such an option “would ignore the fact that more than a century has passed since the book was written; that the author of the film cannot be the author of the book; and that soon there will be a Portuguese (several in reality) walking through the Sertão the film “will only make sense if its author can add his own impressions (true or illusory) to those of the author of the book.6 The title of the transposition of Os Sertões to cinema will be Selvajaria (savagery) The script is the result of the joint work of Miguel Gomes Although the writing of the script is still open they tried to elaborate a “version that would find equivalents to the mechanisms and structures of the book “7 and that in the following year they rethought the film narrative in a more radical way “adding elements that were not part of the book but that came to us through what we observed and experienced during the seven weeks spent in the Sertão It became a golden rule for us: alter the backlands of 1902 from the Canudos of 2019.”8 What are the sensations or commotions that Miguel Gomes has already experienced in Canudos and will still experience We cannot ignore his condition as a foreigner in a territory with deep colonialist marks that still affect a large part of the current population living under severe economic and social inequalities we will witness an equivalent process in the director?  What is certain is that Selvajaria will produce yet another representation of the Northeastern Sertão and its people through an external gaze it is important to remember that Euclides da Cunha also saw the Sertão from the same perspective mentioning it at times as another country when compared to São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro “the sertanejos still talk as if Rio as Isabel Lucas refers in her report “Brasil Miguel Gomes will arrive from another city and will take with him the European canons with which he doesn’t deal in a conventional way as we can see by observing his cinematography and that he won’t do now in the face of a very rich opportunity to decentralize them from literary territory to cinematographic landscape there is no film adaptation of Os Sertões as such although the universe presented in the book is a reference for Brazilian cinema which approached it mainly through the Canudense conflict and Antônio Conselheiro the leader of the faithful gathered in the settlement For essayist and cinema professor Sheila Schvarzman who researched the influence of the themes in Os Sertões on Brazilian cinematography Although Brazilian cinema has many documentaries about Canudos the same does not happen regarding fiction - there is only the feature film by Brazilian director Sérgio Rezende Guerra de Canudos (1997) as a cinematographic adaptation of the conflict and the short film A Matadeira by filmmaker Jorge Furtado managed to summarize the main narrative of the book in fifteen minutes Video frame recorded by Maureen Fazendeiro in Canudos The epic story of Canudos has become one of the most important identity representations of the cultural and sociological richness of the Northeastern Sertão a place of arid and desert nature that writers such as João Guimarães Rosa Graciliano Ramos and José Lins do Rego transmuted into the literary territory and and Ruy Guerra into the diegetic landscape of films that became classics of the first phase of the Brazilian Cinema Novo Glauber Rocha - a native of Vitória da Conquista in the interior of Bahia - understood that the aforementioned writers denounced misery from a social point of view and that it was up to the cinema to show those conditions of misery from a perspective that would spark political debate the representation of the countryside and its territory and the deaths and conflicts that resulted These identity clippings were later too often stereotyped in other films and audiovisual productions over the years and reinterpretations of the Sertão have emerged many of them by the hand of filmmakers from the region or surrounding states directed Cinemas Aspirins and Vultures in 2005 the Minas Gerais directors Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato in the film Acidente Pernambuco filmmakers Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles presented the most recent cinematic update of the sertanejo imaginary in the consecrated Bacurau Sheila Schvarzman speaks of “a new cinematographic Sertão” without “all the clichés that the South is used to receiving and creating about it does not try to value the sertanejo and his world nor focus on the misery produced by the outside world (the South with the post-modern varnish of motorcycles and cell phones…”11 Movies and books talk about the various backlands usually summarized in the definition of the Northeastern Sertão This plurality results from its vast territory which extends across the Brazilian states of Alagoas left us some of the most beautiful definitions made about a territory that is difficult to synthesize: “The Sertão is the size of the world” (Rosa p.73) “Sertão is this: you push back but suddenly it comes back around you from the sides (…) The Sertão is without a place” (Rosa, p.354) Land of colonels and other legacies of colonialism the name Sertão (wilderness) is associated with this idea of a non-place and is generally attributed to vast and wild spaces with few population settlements and no major roads to civilization The name refers to the colonial era and to the unknown the use of this geographical term carries an implicit appropriation intention that has been objectified in various ways.  the colonizing waves tended to develop a process of transformation that sought the extinction of the Sertão as such “First was the great concessions of sesmarias (sesmarias law) defining the most durable feature of our narrow feudalism” (Cunha 2000 p.83 ) writes Euclides in Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) where he also adds that the region was the “theater of the missions” the only one compatible with the economic and social situation of the colony (…) The bandeirante (slavers and fortune hunters in early Colonial Brazil) uncovered unbridled lands that were not populated and left perhaps more deserted…” (p.75) Euclides da Cunha also reports that the “countryside villages were formed from old Indian villages snatched in 1758 from the priests’ power by Pombal’s severe policy”.12 They were The wealth was concentrated in a few farms where the rural production was concentrated the fruit of the labor force of the poorest people: mestizos were incorporated into national life by the “calculated solicitude of the Jesuit and the rare abnegation of the capuchins and franciscans.” (p.81) In post-monarchy Brazil13 the large landowners maintained a dominant power in the national political sphere it was the Republic of the Colonels or the Republic of the Oligarchs the old colonial aggregate remained unchanged which frustrated the expectations of those who longed to free themselves from Coronelism a colonialist heritage very present in the Northeastern Sertão such as the arrival of the telegraph to the country’s interior some of them controversial such as the separation of State and Religion the authorization of civil marriage and the expansion of tax collection These measures were especially poorly received in the northeastern interior where the population was mostly poor and religious The resistance to these measures was an essential contribution to the Canudos War to happen  In view of this historical evolution that “in the Sertão is where those who are the strong rule with their cunning…”(Rosa p.19) Did Miguel Gomes observe this dynamic in today’s Canudos What is “the apparently unchanging medieval reality “14 that he says he found during his visits to the territory What is his perspective on the colonist heritage described in Os Sertões The beato Sebastião a character in the film 'Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol' Tempo Glauber archive Sebastianism in the land of messianic hopes and “inhospitable” land that Euclides describes in the first chapters of Os Sertões without much sparing was also for Guimarães Rosa’s Riobaldo a territory where “living is very dangerous” and poverty have persisted cyclically for centuries Maybe that is why “the Sertão is where the thought of the people is stronger than the power of the place” - still in Riobaldo’s words (Rosa p.25) If we understand this thought as spirituality the sertanejo reveals himself to be especially mystical: beliefs and prophecies are possibilities for redemption and liberation.Nurturing faith and congregating the faithful into groups of followers all sorts of leaders emerged in the Sertão often transmuting themselves in the process: from counselors to preachers When congregations took on contestations in political dimensions they quickly came to be seen as a threat to the established order For the authorities and representatives of official Catholicism the religious leader then became an impostor The police or the army oversaw reducing the rebels - leader and followers.One of the necessary references to understand the messianic force in the Sertão - as elsewhere in Brazil - is another colonial heritage: Sebastianism Euclides da Cunha states that Sebastianism persisted (p.110) The peninsular heritage was “extinguished on the seashore by the modifying influx of other beliefs and other races in the Sertão it remained intact.” The populations that carried it inland “came full of that fierce mysticism in which religious fervor reverberated to the strong cadence of the inquisitorial fires plowing intensely in the Peninsula.” (p.109)The dissemination of this mysticism was harshly criticized by Euclides who described the “sertanejo” as a “primitive being carried away by the most absurd superstitions” and by “odd prophecies of insane messiahs” (pp although later in his book he recognizes in the Northeastern Sertão - in one of its many contradictions or transmutations - a framework of religiosity with very interesting aspects.Some of the groupings of believers around a religious leader reached the level of apocalyptic and sacrificial fanaticism which Euclides da Cunha classified as “brutal aberrations” He was referring to the Sebastião manifestations that became known as the “Tragedy of the Rodeador” in 1837.15 Both ended up being placated by army interventions that caused hundreds of deaths which were added to those resulting from rituals that induced human sacrifices Both anticipated what was to be the great disaster of the War of Canudos These movements were crucial to the way the government of the Republic and journalists of the time framed the settlement of Antônio Conselheiro whom they accused of instigating this type of fanaticism the cult of the saint-king in the Sertão represented an atavism associated with monarchy and absolutism and quickly configured itself as a political threat first to the country’s Independence and then to the Republic the thesis that in Canudos there was a Sebastian gathering of restorationist inspiration and product of the Portuguese superstitious heritage we must bear in mind that many of these considerations served the political game of the time and were not always faithful to the facts.However the various studies carried out on the essence of the Canudos settlement never proved its association with Sebastianism with a resonant contribution by Agostinho da Silva16 who referred to Canudos as “the last Sebastian revolt”.Today Sebastianism is part of the backland’s imagination It has been attenuated but remains alive in the Brazilian identity as a messianic myth associated with a sociopolitical ideal In Glauber Rocha’s 1964 film Deus e o Diabo na Terra (God and Devil on Earth) authoritarian leader or metaphysical rebel according to the perspective and some of the words of his sermons are those of Antônio Conselheiro author of the prophecy that “the hinterland will become a beach and the beach will become hinterland” as transcribed by Euclides in Os Sertões (p.132 ) and that became popular as “the Sertão will become the sea and the sea will become the Sertão” In Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) several chapters deal with the life of Antônio Conselheiro Euclides da Cunha positions him as a “living document of atavism” and ironizes: “the unfortunate man destined for the solicitude of physicians going to History as he might have gone to the hospice.” The “great man inside out” was a “natural representative of the milieu in which he was born” (pp.116-119) who did not fail to recognize the force of his preaching and the power to attract and regiment the faithful who followed him in his wanderings through backwoods lands until he settled in the settlement of Canudos.The young Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel (later Antônio Conselheiro) had a rigorous education with the purpose of following an ecclesiastic career Before dedicating himself to the pilgrimage he had several professions in various towns or villages - from a clerk Euclides points to these changes as a “slide into open vagrancy” (p to a “formidable fall” that made him “struck with shame to seek the backwoods where they did not know his name; the shelter of absolute obscurity.” (p.125)It is certain that at the beginning of his erratic wanderings the one with which he went down in history for having become “in a short time the unconditional arbiter of all disagreements or quarrels the favorite counselor in all decisions.” (p.126)  The evangelizing counselor was not initially opposed by the Church which encouraged the existence of lay preachers who would make Catholicism reach where it had not yet reached if they respected the injunction not to celebrate masses or sacraments Limitations that this preacher quickly ignored and purifying his transformation into a messianic leader His strength began to gather groups of the unfortunate Conselheiro summoned the faithful to build or rebuild cemeteries and churches he began to challenge the representatives of the Church and earned their distrust.The demonization of Conselheiro began with the official accounts that were published at the time expanded in a fanciful way by the main newspapers at the orders of certain representatives of the Church and influential politicians The dishonesty of some of these descriptions and connections - about Conselheiro and about the War of Canudos - has parallels in what we know today as fake news was a common practice of the press in the late 19th century the historical figure of Antônio Conselheiro continued to be constructed through the voice of the victors through the study and publication of his manuscripts Apontamentos dos preceitos da Divina Lei de Nosso Senhor Jesus Christo para a salvação dos homens of 1895 and Tempestades que se levantam no Coração de Maria of 1897 The manuscripts were discovered after the end of the Canudos War and it is not known that Euclides was aware of their existence at the time of the publication of Os Sertões which are now part of the archives of the Federal University of Bahia are the recent works developed by Walnice Nogueira Galvão and Pedro Lima Vasconcellos19.Contradicting Euclides’ description some of these researchers have identified in the manuscript’s characteristics of a coherent discourse with a revolutionary force that may also have driven the congregation of his faithful These documents testify that the preacher considered the experiences lived by the sertanejos and defended a form of a community organization that challenged the colonialist practices that were still in force it was a “Pre-Socialism that a prophetic Conselheiro established as the center and support point of Canudos’ social organization “20 there is still no consensus on the figure of Conselheiro The historical revision of his personality continues to be discussed by scholars and intellectuals at the International Literary Festival of Paraty (2019) in the edition dedicated to Euclides da Cunha: “In talking to people I realized that there is almost a division between Conselheiristas and Euclidianos and they are not very friendly with each other.”Returning to the Apontamentos Antônio Conselheiro left nothing on record that pointed to political ambitions to defeat the Republic which did not meet the demands of the poor population and was in opposition to the monarchical regime - divine in his view Conselheiro was especially opposed to tax increases and the separation of Church and State measures that he criticized - openly - in his sermons.Euclides da Cunha also puts the regime transition into perspective as an excluding change: “Living four hundred years on the vast coast where reflections of civilized life hovered leaving a third of our people in the centuries-old penumbra in which they lie at the heart of the country” (p This is a surprising observation for the staunch republican that Euclides was and it shows how the war dealt a heavy blow to his confidence in the new regime.A considerable number of those “left in the shadows” followed Antônio Conselheiro to Canudos in 1893 The settlement grew so fast that it left some of the region’s villages uninhabited becoming in four years the second largest community in the Sertão of Bahia Such movement and popularity initially channeled the attention of regional elites and authorities but soon became a national issue and was seen as a threat to the Republic the Belo Monte (Beautiful Mountain)  Based on the analysis of the Apontamentos of Antônio Conselheiro Pedro Lima Vasconcellos defends that Canudos was built so that “it would embody principles and values that would make possible the eternal salvation so longed for the attention to the poorest and most abandoned the support to the destitute people - (all) nourished by prayers and rules where a more solidary organization would allow a better life with communal lands and production shared among all.But for Euclides “without the revealing whiteness of its whitewashed walls and plastered roofs It was confused with the ground itself” the condition of invisibility that was imposed on the settlement and its inhabitants What he saw or did not see in the place served him to immediately associate it with a “decrepitude of the race.” (p.142): “Decapitated by its prestige all the conditions of the lower social stage.” (p.145)And who was this population he pointed out that “the battered grenadines of the black Creole women; the straight hard hair of the cabalas; the scandalous truffles of the African women; the brown and blond locks of the white women a flower or a headdress… “The men the beautiful leather armor for the cheap uniform of American denim (…) and less numerous also brought about conversions in Euclides da Cunha who as he gets closer to their reality and witnesses the massacre perpetrated by the military begins to understand the mystical and religious dimension of the Canudos inhabitants recognizes their social condition of excluded people and dismisses the political threat to the Republic Canudos ceases to be a speculative territory and configures itself through the design of Belo Monte.Video frame recorded by Maureen Fazendeiro in Canudos The conversion of Euclides da Cunha makes him see other perspectives when Euclides da Cunha went to Canudos as a war correspondent for the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo a military graduate of the Military School of Rio de Janeiro a follower of the ideals of the French Revolution Ariano Suassuna wrote about this: “Euclides da Cunha - deformed by the Rua do Ouvidor and the Palace which in his time was the Catete Palace as today is the Alvorada Palace - left São Paulo for the Northeast as a crusader for the positivist Republic and for the city which then wanted to be French as today caricaturedly wants to be American barbarism and backwoods fanaticism - and which our future singular truth of nationhood”.22But in his brief passage through the war scene Euclides knew the force of the barbarity inflicted on the population of Canudos by Republican troops with the certainty that it was a crime of nationality In his reflection on the government’s posture towards the events Euclides indicates in his book that the principles of civilization that justified it “were European and not Brazilian”.Throughout the book and his trip to Canudos He calls him brother/patriot and recognizes his legitimate values leveraging an embryonic approach to what would become the Brazilian identity “That rude society misunderstood and forgotten was the vigorous core of our nationality.” (p.79) wrote Euclides formulating the great legacy left in Os Sertões (Rebellion in the The Backlands) for the construction of a more plural perspective on Brazil starting from its sociocultural singularities Euclides da Cunha recognizes that they inverted the entire psychology of war: they were hardened by setbacks in a slow metamorphosis…”(p.34)How to film this today Miguel Gomes recognizes that this is his main challenge: “Is he [the sertanejo] today as he was described a hundred years ago Sometimes I think so; sometimes I think not.”23 Independently of the metamorphoses operated Miguel Gomes has already announced that the local inhabitants will be the protagonists of Selvajaria “The film will not have professional actors the cast will be formed by the population of Canudos “20 which may offer the locals the possibility of self-representation.  the director also pointed out the intention to propose to the population of Canudos to interpret the participants on both sides of the war the sertanejos conselheiristas and the army troops Regarding the representation of the conflict we already knew that Miguel Gomes intends to establish “a close collaboration with the descendants of those who lived through the war “24 and that the battle scenes should occupy approximately twenty minutes of the film following the “comic-burlesque dimension that the book offers” and that particularly interests him25 In the several chapters of Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) dedicated to the War of Canudos Euclides gives a detailed account of the advances and retreats of the army troops and the counterattacks of the sertanejos The latter was described in a tone of realism-fantasticism which highlights how intangible the conselheiristas were to the government troops: “the jagunço began to appear as an entity apart half man and half gecko; violating biological laws in stamping out inconceivable resistance; hurling himself like a specter; lighter than the rifle he dragged; and thin rough like the epidermis of mummies…” (p.375)These sophisticated guerrilla tactics disconcerted the government troops who upon arriving in the Northeastern Sertão were faced with a hostile environment and “They found themselves in a strange land The exact feeling of going to a foreign war invaded them The complete separation dilated the geographical distance; it created the nostalgic feeling of long distance from the homeland.” (pp.396-397)Many of the soldiers deserted “pages of hellish protest written on the walls of the houses where they passed (…) a reflection of hardships (…) those rough chroniclers the real outline of the greatest scandal of our history….” (p fearing that the conflict will spread to the rest of the country from Rio Grande to Amazonas…” (p “The Republic was in danger; the Republic had to be saved This was the dominant cry over the general shaking” (p 275) writes Euclides as he introduces the fourth military expedition that advances toward Canudos in late June 1897 to end a siege that had already lasted (except for brief periods of high fire) since November 1896.During those months of conflict “nonsensical versions and heroic lies” (p.279) as well as outdated and nationalistic information circulated in the main newspapers on-the-spot reporters and regularly updated news - thanks to the recent installation of the telegraph - this did not guarantee that a reliable account of events prevailed.Narratives justifying the military defeats were disseminated The theory that the sertanejos did not act in isolation was a war front from which they themselves could not defend themselves It was insinuated that Conselheiro would be supported by local bosses who provided him with resources and that the sertanejos were an “educated 279) The idea that war was the confirmation of the monarchists’ strength became widespread the “sertanejos” counted on organic protection which Euclides defined very precisely: “all of nature protects the “sertanejo” It is a bronzed Titan making the march of armies falter.” (p 187)The last survivors of Canudos taken prisoner The most famous photograph that Flávio de Barros took during the last days of the War of Canudos (September/October 1897) and whose originals are preserved in the Historical Archives of the Museum of the Republic The Canudos War was the first major internal conflict in the country recorded through the lens of a camera the army busied itself in beheading large numbers of prisoners on whom “they invariably imposed upon the victim a viva to the republic It was the prologue of an invariable cruel scene.” (p 430) One of the historical photos by Flávio de Barros author of the only known images of the war testifies to the state of the prisoners who survived they were “Three hundred women and children and half a dozen useless old men” (p 461) who finally abandoned the camp that had grown to 25,000 inhabitants.Antônio Conselheiro His head was cut off and taken to Bahia so that it could be studied in the expectation that science would answer unfathomable questions and the settlement was decimated.At the end of his avenging book Euclides recognizes the “fragility of the human word” to describe the details of the violence experienced and asks: “to whom do we owe precious clarifications under this dark phase of our history?” (p 456) “Canudos had very appropriately there was no fear of the tremendous judgment of the future the correction of the constituted powers would not arrive.” (p.434)Over the ruins of Belo Monte a new Canudos was rebuilt the town was submerged by the Cocorobó dam ordered built in the 1940s by President Getúlio Vargas The traces of the historical facts were covered by water thus preventing it from becoming a pilgrimage destination the one that will be the setting for Selvajaria.***1 Taboo (2012) and A Thousand and One Nights (2015) he released Diaries of Otsoga co-directed with Maureen Fazendeiro The shooting of the adaptation of Os Sertões was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic The film’s budget was estimated in 2019 to be around five million euros The film will be financed mainly by European public and private institutions Selvajaria received the Campari Award at the 2020 Locarno Film Festival awarded as part of The Films After Tomorrow program which was intended to support productions that were suspended by the pandemic it also received support from Cineuropa’s cultural fund The production will be of O Som e a Fúria in co-production with RT Features (Brazil) and other production companies from France The film will be shot in 35 mm and in color.2 He entered the War College and managed to become first lieutenant and bachelor in mathematics He was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1903.3 In the text “Os Sertões para estrangeiros” - taken from the book Gatos de outro saco twelve deal with the author’s work Miguel Gomes’ statements published in the article “Sertões à portuguesa” by Gian Amato in Piauí magazine Statements by Miguel Gomes published in the article “Os Sertões por olhar de Miguel Gomes” Text by Miguel Gomes published by Folha de São Paulo *Note: the date of 2019 refers to the date of writing the text which was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic The new date for the start of shooting is given as 2023/2024 a crónica dos vencidos”  by Isabel Lucas (journalist and literary critic) was the first of 12 reports published in the Público/Ípsilon newspaper between 2019 and 2020 and which were recently collected in the book Viagem ao país do futuro “Os Sertões do cinema” - Anais do XXVI Simpósio Nacional de História - ANPUH Sheila Schvarzman is a professor of the Master in Communication at Anhembi Morumbi University 1759 the “Law given for the proscription denaturalization and expulsion of the regulars of the Society of Jesus” from Portugal and the colonized territories was promulgated It happened during the reign of King Joseph I under the guidance of his Secretary of State for Internal Affairs Brazil’s Independence dates back to 1822 and the abolition of slavery in the country took place in 1888 through the decree known as the Lei Áurea Statements by Miguel Gomes published in the article “Sertões à portuguesa” by Gian Amato in Piauí magazine were the first collective sebastian manifestation in colonial Brazil The historian Flávio Cabral wrote about it in his book Paraíso Terreal: A rebião sebastianista na Serra do Rodeador The Pedra Bonita movement is represented in the books: Romance d’A Pedra do Reino e o príncipe do sangue do vai-e-volta a novel by Ariano Suassuna published in 1971; O Reino Encantado by Araripe Júnior written in 1938 and 1953, respectively Agostinho da Silva (1906-1994) was a Portuguese philosopher Professor Emeritus of the Federal University of Bahia this researcher presented O Breviário de Antônio Conselheiro through which the contents of his manuscript are partially known Ataliba Nogueira (1901 -1983) was a jurist and professor graduated from the Law School of the University of São Paulo Ataliba Nogueira published Antônio Conselheiro e Canudos Pedro Lima Vasconcellos with a master’s degree in religious sciences is a professor in the Postgraduate Program in History at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) He coordinated the publication of the Notes in the book Antônio Conselheiro by himself in 2018 Ariano Suassuna (1927-2014) born in João Pessoa at his inauguration into the Brazilian Academy of Letters on August 9 is dedicated to Euclides da Cunha and Os Sertões  Pedro Lima Vasconcellos with a master’s degree in Religion Sciences is a professor in the Postgraduate Program in History at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) He coordinated the publication of the Notes in the book Antônio Conselheiro by himself in 2018 A large part of his speech at the inauguration of the Brazilian Academy of Letters is dedicated to Euclides da Cunha and Os Sertões In the text “Os Sertões para estrangeiros” - taken from the book Gatos de outro saco of the selection committee for The Films After Tomorrow award at the 74th Locarno Festival Published under a Creative Commons License “There is no therapy for the rage brought about by the clash of races suddenly fused into a single organism.” —Euclides da Cunha Courtesy of the Museum of the Republic and the Moreira Salles Institute At last year’s esteemed International Literary Festival in Paraty I happened upon a small photography exhibit mounted inside of a semitruck Titled Conflicts and organized by the Moreira Salles Institute the show presented a selection of images that tracked Brazil’s violent political conflicts and resurrections since the country became a republic One particularly gruesome photograph from 1894 showed an opposition rebel being decapitated during a civil war The executing soldier’s cold gaze meets the viewer’s eye as the blood gushes from his victim’s neck eerie scene in Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s excellent new film Bacurau is likely the best revenge thriller we’ll see this year—on par with last year’s Parasite foreign thrill seekers have paid for the right to kill everyone in Bacurau (The gunmen prepare by metaphorically wiping Bacurau off the map—through technology that blocks GPS and cell phone signals the town disappears from Google Earth.) But once the townsfolk understand what’s happening they unite and rise up against the invaders As one of the remaining killers wanders through Bacurau’s tiny museum a resident silently appears and chops him up with a machete The would-be conqueror’s blood spurts across the walls—right next to the above-mentioned photograph of decapitation Then the film’s bloodbath culminates with the local bandit carrying severed heads onto the main square—as Bacurauans record the scene on their cell phones That gruesome yet triumphant moment is further complicated by COVID-19: you cannot experience it with people from your own city in a movie theater and concerts that have been disrupted by the pandemic Though there are innumerable urgent crises at the moment—such as President Jair Bolsonaro undermining mayors who have attempted to enforce his own government’s guidelines about staying indoors and threatening to fire the Health Minister who declared the isolation measures—the deferment or neglect of so many new artworks during this time is a loss worth observing whose finances have been tenuous for years can withstand the economic ravages of the coronavirus is unclear Bacurau (available to stream on the distributor’s site) with an apocalyptic setting perfectly suited for these times offers a crystal clear critique of the era of Bolsonaro and cutting depiction of violence all bring to mind Euclides da Cunha’s Backlands: The Canudos Campaign (1902) which offers an eyewitness account of the worst civilian massacre in Brazilian history Spanning nearly seven hundred pages and mixing sociology the book provides a useful lens on the state’s continuous use of violence to maintain control of its population from colonization to its military dictatorship to Bolsonaro Understanding Backland’s renewed relevance under Bolsonaro opens up the experience of Bacurau horrifying evil—but an evil that must be understood in social and historical rather than biblical terms the Brazilian army that invaded Canudos viewed itself as a civilizing force far superior to those they sought to destroy Conselheiro opposed levying excessive taxes and pronounced his loyalty to the Portuguese crown; soon newspapers around the country described Canudos as an armed promonarchist outpost that also had offices in New York Authorities found this (and the bandits who lived among the villagers) to be a threat to the stability of the republic Brazil had only secured its independence from Portugal in 1889 with a military coup and was still jittery from various mutinies and rebellions across its vast territory A hundred soldiers marched on the town in November 1896 then a correspondent for A Província de São Paulo arrived in the region late into the campaign often reducing individuals to stereotypes: Big John the “strongly built but agile black man”; “a burly mameluco [Mamluk an Arabic designation for slave] with the body of a gladiator”; “a mestizo of unmatched bravery and ferocity.” Despite the failure of a second campaign in January 1897 the government was certain that victory was near Da Cunha reported how troops were feted with banquets in the nearby town that served as a base and that “energetic corrective measures were needed to drag [these backward heathens] out of the barbaric behavior that was a stain on our country.” When the soldiers return and Canudos resists the author denounces the army’s poor discipline and low morale His scorn intensifies in descriptions of the skirmishes he witnessed firsthand The officers fail to reign in the panicked soldiers the same race as the backlanders,” are “filled with irrational terror.” Others decapitate rebels and civilians “often the eager murderers,” with “the tacit approval of the leadership.… In spite of three centuries of underdevelopment the sertanejos did not rival our troops in acts of barbarism.” he expressed in his posture the typical ugliness of the weak.” The quintessential da Cunhian paradox mixes beauty and strength with a vision of a monstrous hunchback as the Mexican essayist Ilan Stavans notes in the introduction to the Penguin edition da Cunha admires the rebels’ refusal to surrender and describes scenes of them mourning their dead as if he had joined them acknowledging that pain and horror of death are shared by both sides carrying their dead in crude litters made of wooden poles tied with liana stalks,” he writes “They were honoring the martyrs of the faith They had spent the day searching for the bodies a sad task that occupied the entire settlement.” but returns to town when its residents plead with him to defend it Lunga and his small band of rebels bust out the dusty guns from the museum – relics to defeat high-tech invaders (who but also ruthless and uncompromising—a mix that captures the ethos and complexity of modern-day banditry the quarantine against COVID-19 in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas is being enforced by drug traffickers.) In one of Bacurau’s most provocative scenes the foreign attackers converse with the white Brazilian couple who are being paid to help them realize their mass-murdering plan The couple feels that they have little in common with Bacurau and the rest of Brazil because they hail from the country’s wealthy South “How could you be like us?” a foreigner jeers adding that the woman’s lips and nose “give her away.” The blunt scene reveals not just the prejudice against Latinos and other non-Westerners but also white Southern Brazilians’ sense of racial and cultural superiority over their Northeastern countrymen despite valorizing Canudos residents in certain moments da Cunha concluded that the Northeast’s inferior geology bred inferior men and that miscegenation put the Brazilian nation at risk He expresses his conviction that “civilization will advance across the backlands,” and that this will lead to “the inevitable crushing of the weak races by the strong.” He repeatedly frames the northeasterners da Cunha’s opinions on race were explicit—he regularly wrote in favor of genetic determinism Borrowing terminology from Darwinist science determinism spread thanks to European writers read in Brazil and the United States Among its adherents was the Brazilian anthropologist Raimundo Nina Rodrigues The preacher’s body was exhumed at the end of the war and his head was cut off and sent to a lab in Rio characterized the preacher as a megalomaniacal lunatic An author of early anthropological studies on Brazil’s Afro-descendant cultures—referenced by da Cunha in Backlands—Rodrigues nevertheless considered mestiçagem to be “a biological problem,” “a decadence” (“Miscegenation he attributed Conselheiro’s madness partly to his being a backlands mestizo da Cunha deprecates “the mestizo religion with its tendencies to idol worship,” contrasting it with Christian beliefs and region that recur throughout Backlands are inherent to Brazil In the early years of Brazilian independence and would often depict indigenous women in classical European styles This trend extended to literature as well: Iracema (1865) is the Brazilian equivalent of the Pocahontas legend during the military regime’s push into the Amazon with the creation of the Trans-Amazonian Highway that Jorge Bodanzky and Oswaldo Senna made the docudrama Iracema—Uma Transa Amazônica (1974) to expose the reality behind the myth portrays Iracema as an underage girl who makes her living as a sex worker She meets a white truck driver (Paulo César Peréio) in Belem and travels with him across the newly built highway bearing witness to an impoverished region whose economy almost exclusively relies on the exploitation of people and natural resources blue-eyed companion that she considers herself white Her lie—or self-delusion—is no less tragic than the fact that da Cunha was mestizo speak volumes about the contradictory relationships many Brazilians have with race Despite artists respectfully engaging with and centering nonwhite Brazilians in their work throughout the twentieth century—as in Oswaldo de Andrade’s landmark text which posited that true Brazilian culture is rooted in indigenous and Afro-Brazilian traditions—the state actively discriminated against a great number of its citizens The state and federal policy of branqueamento (whitening) subsidized the immigration of white European settlers to Brazil in the early days of the republic in the hopes that they would mix with the inferior races leading to the eventual wiping out of the latter The Brazilian language still uses “black” as pejorative in various phrases: “a coisa tá preta,” literally “the thing is black,” which means “it’s not going well;” or “serviço de preto,” literally “black service,” for a poorly done job Black Brazilians have also been habitually underrepresented in government the country was shaken by the murder of a notable outlier: the black politician Marielle Franco Franco was an outspoken LGBTQ and Afro-Brazilian activist who opposed big-money interests and defended those of poor communities in Rio de Janeiro The sluggish investigation into her murder rekindled a sense that there’s no justice for black Brazilians as the journalist Eliane Brum writes in her recent book violence hasn’t been only exercised by the powerful in the name of social change and used subversive tactics such as the breaking of farm tools While Brazilian cities are highly segregated (a fact visible even in the architecture) the quilombos currently awaiting recognition depend on Bolsonaro who has continuously supported the interests of agribusiness (with large land holdings historically concentrated in the hands of rich white landowners) against quilombo and indigenous claims Yet what struck me in Paraty was the black communities’ determination to state and defend their rights On a panel dedicated to contemporary resistance movements and black activism of the Forum of Traditional Communities representing Paraty “Our resistance is a daily reality to maintain our territories but we must also fight for our basic rights It is not enough to be recognized as a quilombo or electricity.” Cananéa expressed her hope that the recent recognition as a UNESCO patrimonial site of Paraty and of the region around Ilha Grande Bay—which includes indigenous land and a number of quilombos—will help raise awareness of these communities’ cultural importance “Euclides da Cunha spoke of sertanejos as a strong people Timeless stories from our 175-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day “An unexpectedly excellent magazine that stands out amid a homogenized media landscape.” —the New York Times the country still suffers from the same ailments AcknowledgementMarshal Rondon receives presents from the Indians of the river Guaraporé; behind him the protagonist in Grande sertão: veredas  (The devil to pay in the Backlands left us with a puzzle that until today devours us: “The Backlands are everywhere” with a little parcel of civilization surrounded by barbarity the endless Backlands are synonymous with the grandiose potential waiting to be discovered and conquered If the discovery of the theme of the Backlands is the merit of Euclides da Cunha the vision of the nation to be built in this “Huge Brazil” comes from Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon (1865-1958) “His legacy captures the patriotic and nationalistic themes of the incorporation and construction of the State the country of the future’ was the nation’s development slogan during the 20th century was partly born through the Comissão de Linhas Telegráficas Estratégicas de Mato Grosso ao Amazonas [Strategic telegraph Lines Commission from Mato Grosso state to Amazonas state] (CLTEMTA) recently published in Brazil by the publisher Companhia das Letras it is on the centenary of the famous expedition which began in 1907 by order of President Afonso Pena that the current federal government announced in its Program of Acceleration of Growth (PAC) the intention of paving he BR-364 highway in the state of Acre the highway that follows exactly the trajectory of the telegraph line initiated some one hundred years ago by marshal Rondon the Brazilian State intends to increase its presence in distant sites by taking the infrastructure to the Backlands Marshal Rondon did not think very differently “He had judged that to develop the structure was important exactly because it promised to facilitate the efforts to mold the inhabitants of the northwest of Brazil into citizens of ‘his Brazil'” Does the dilemma of Guimarães Rosa concerning the Backlands follow us the geographic utopia saw the country as an immense pioneer front it appears enough to take the road a little further; progress would do the rest One needs to overcome the great frontier of inequality To recreate the idea of the nation based on collective interest” said President Lula in 2005 on re-launching the Rondon Project (created in 1967) “Social justice now represents that which the telegraph symbolized in the past when Rondon traversed the country at the head of the CLTEMTA.” And how he traversed Rondon and his men installed 1,500 kilometers of the telegraph line Cuiabá-Santo Antonio do Madeira fulfilling the presidential mission that had the objective of linking to the federal capital Alto Purus and Alto Juruá by way of the Mato Grosso State capital already in communication with Rio de Janeiro But national progress had never been hanging by a thread the most important telegraph stations did not send more than a few dozen telegrams and received even less was the importance of Marshal Rondon’s work and the everlastingness of his “heroic” fame “There was a complete movement of valuation of the Backlands that accompanied railway construction projects (it is worth remembering that this year is also the centenary of the start of the construction of the ‘Devil’s railroad’ Strongly associated to the presence of the State it brings together social players informed by scientific knowledge a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Home and a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) author of Um sertão chamado Brasil [A Backlands called Brazil] The start of the 20th century is marked by the discussion of the duality between the coast and the Backlands present even in the poetry of Catulo da Paixão Cearense and his romantic lament of the ideal threatened by progress: “People there is not oh no/ moonlight like the one of the Backlands” barbaric polarization did not prevail/civilization if one speaks of national grottos “The saying of cowboy Riobaldo was correct once the Backlands could be spoken of with respect to a specific region or even to the image used by the sanitation movements of which the Backlands begins beyond Central Avenue” also a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Home “This Backlands that is everywhere is therefore both that side associated to barbarism as a counterweight to civilization and that of another duality that of authentic culture in opposition to civilization of copiers of what was done in Europe.” This clash brought together figures such as Euclides da Cunha It is the intellectuals who spin upon their feet in order to remember the expression coined by Nicolau Sevcenko and go on to look towards the interior of the country “In order to see the Backlands with their own eyes railroads and surveys that profound ambiguity of the dichotomy of the Backlands versus the coastline in which sometimes one appears to be negative these three personalities searched to align their penetration into the Backlands as the discovery of authenticity to their yearning to incorporate these Backlands into the civilizing process” “The perspectives that positively valued or approached in an ambivalent manner that which is seen as a backward center and of resistance to progress sees the Backlands as the possibility of the development of an authentic national conscience” The Backlands becomes a key-theme in Brazilian social thinking and in the projects of constructing nationality “One can really affirm that the idea of the Backlands transforms itself into a metaphor for thinking Brazil” AcknowledgementMarshal Rondon at one of his camp sites Rio de Janeiro was as distant from the Backlands as it was from Paris or London The sensation was that there was a “defect” in the Brazilian nation that appeared not to possess points in common and in such a manner that it could turn itself into something new and modern” to discover the “Brazilian race” but the theories quickly came face to face with the “disagreeable” discovery that to be modern was to be white and European but the majority of Brazilians were not neither one thing nor the other and moved on to give value to “Brazil mameluco” (mixture of Indian and white) in which the union of races was that which made the Brazilian “above all Rondon and the author of Grande sertões: veredas had a military schooling at the Escola Militar da Praia Vermelha [Red Beach Military School] and contact with the positivist professor “His positivism advocated scientific neutrality observation and experimentation being valued Positivism developed a complete anti-metaphysical culture “Positivism and the geography in Rondon” “The oppositions between the coastland and the Backlands were not but sensitive to the solution by way of a national project that would effectively incorporate the interior of the country” As marshal Rondon was an orthodox positivist “that his work could be the propeller of the incorporation of the indigenous peoples into the Brazilian nation and the migration of Brazilians from the coast to fertile lands; in other words as well as emotional and affective unifications of his country and of his nation” The admiration of philosopher Euclides for the Marshal also included the vision that the ethnic and social raw material of the Backlands would be a factor of re-invigoration of the incipient Brazilian civilization especially because of their indigenous roots (in the case of marshal Rondon his relatives: his mother was a descendant of the Terena and Bororo Indians) This did not restrict itself to the anecdote as in the daily ceremonies of running up the flag with the national anthem in the background played by a gramophone (symbol of present modernism) to the “wrapping” of Indian babies with the national banner or the exposition of slides with photographs of patriotic symbols during evenings of civil holidays Rondon like practices of strong positivist features (Country The Marshal was severely criticized for his “respect” towards the Indians “Rondon and the positivists developed the theory that the indigenous populations were not racially inferior but simply lived at a stage before social evolution (but not racial)” at a time in which for many eminent Brazilians the scientific racism explained the “problems” of the non-whites of Brazil Whilst Rondon was in the Backlands implementing policies that did not attribute importance to race urban intellectuals such as Sílvio Romero wrote about the racial inferiority of the Indians’ such as the ones pointed out by Antonio Carlos de Souza Lima in his book entitled Um grande cerco de paz [A great ring of peace] which stated Rondon’s policy for the Indians as problematic and makes him responsible for the ethnicity to which they were submitted to the official signing of the Civil Code of State Paternalism in relation to the Indians Rondon’s objective was the transformation of the indigenous populations into Brazilians it is just to underline that the final target of assimilation was the disappearance of the Indians But also one must recognize the ambiguous nature of Rondon’s ideas” “Although he preconized the assimilation he also demanded from his commanders the respect for the social and religious practices of the Indians until they were ‘ready’ for positivism.” In 1942 Rondon showed himself to be totally co-opted by the new State idea of president Vargas to give value to the Indian as the National Brazilian symbol who represented a miniscule portion of the Brazilian population were suddenly invited onto the political platform where they have remained until today” analyzes the Brazilianist Seth Garfield in As raízes de uma planta que hoje é o Brasil [The roots of a plant that today is Brazil] Rondon was nominated by president Vargas to direct the National Indian Protection Council and it was during the Vargas government that the Day of the Indian was established dividing the lands of their reserves or residing with non-Indians as part of the March to the West” At the same time that marshal Rondon had been installing his telegram wires Oswaldo Cruz was called upon by the Mamoré Railway Company to attempt to realize a prophylaxis for malaria which had been killing off the railway workers in their thousands The scientific expeditions made by the scientist from Manguinhos and by his colleagues brought a new portrait of Brazil: sickness would be the central problem that hindered the nation “The debate about national identity in the country now would be done through the metaphor of illness” “The amplification of the feeling attributed to the word “sertão” [Backlands] was promoted superimposing upon the geographic and demographic criteria the ideas of abandon and exclusion A Backlands characterized by abandon and sickness An unknown Backlands  but which was and is almost the size of Brazil” © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved 43,000+ global companies doing business in the region. 102,000+ key contacts related to companies and projects Analysis, reports, news and interviews about your industry in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Crédit photo: Alessandro Di Marco/European Pressphoto Agency Miguel Gomes Filmmaker Born in 1972 in Lisbon (Portugal), where he lives and works. Poty started his career in drawing and then delved into engraving, which he mastered and went on to create the first course in engraving at Museu de Arte de São Paulo. Much of his work is biographical, ranging from boyhood memories near train tracks and wagons to impressions of Curitiba residents and the settings they inhabit.  Poty’s drawing and engraving work is straightforward and to the point. His trademark spontaneity has illustrated multiple Brazilian literary works, such as Euclides da Cunha’s .css-1msjh1x{font-style:italic;}Backlands and Guimarães Rosa’s The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. As could not have been otherwise, he portrayed the controversial Curitiba inhabitants featured in the tales of another Paraná icon, Dalton Trevisan.  Donated to the MON by Poty Lazzarotto’s family, the collection obviously also comprises finished works, drawings, woodcuts, lithographs, metal engraving, carved wood pieces and concrete blocks: thousands of pieces that clearly attest to the artist’s polyvalence.  Through Poty, we become aware of the art that was and is made in Paraná. Protecting not only this artist’s legacy, but his memory, is a duty, first and foremost. And that job has now been taken on and properly fulfilled by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. The works of the Poty Lazzarotto Collection were donated to MON, in 2021, by João Lazzarotto, the artist's brother. Gamblers at the bar, 1991 | Engraving | Lithogravure on paper, P.A | 36 x 29 cm Untitled, 1991 | Engraving | Lithogravure on paper | 21 x 19.5 cm Man on horseback,, 1989 | Engraving | Lithogravure on paper, A.L, 4/4 | 26 x 19 cm Human figure,, 1989 | Engraving | Lithogravure on paper | 26 x 19 cm Untitled, 12-1-1943 | India ink and watercolor on paper | 16.8 x 23.2 cm Untitled, 1942 | India ink and permanent ink on paper | 21.9 x 30.3 cm .css-aq2ifp{display:grid;grid-row-gap:var(--chakra-space-12);grid-template-columns:repeat(1 1fr));width:100%;}@media screen and (min-width: 992px){.css-aq2ifp{grid-row-gap:var(--chakra-space-16);grid-column-gap:var(--chakra-space-40);grid-template-columns:repeat(2 Collection and Research Tuesdays to sundays10 am to 5:30 pmPermanence until 6pm R$ 36 full priceR$ 18 half-priceFree admission on Wednesdays .css-j5jlo3{list-style-type:none;display:grid;gap:var(--chakra-space-10);}@media screen and (min-width: 992px){.css-j5jlo3{grid-auto-flow:column;grid-template-rows:repeat(5 The versatile Nicolau Sevcenko was one of the most famous Brazilian historians RENATA CAFARDO / AEIn the classroom: a rare ability to attract youths with his broad vision of historyRENATA CAFARDO / AE Nicolau Sevcenko loved Alice in Lewis Carroll’s book and referred to her as “our heroine and source of inspiration.” “Wherever she detected arrogance or disrespect she reacted immediately and confronted the offender on an equal footing fearlessly and without bowing down,” he said commenting on a new edition of Alice In Wonderland that he translated himself “Alice still is and always will be the best lesson in ethics Sevcenko was 61 when he passed away on August 13 He was irreverent and a nonconformist like Alice Without putting his academic career on the back burner (he was a professor in the History Department of the USP Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and at Harvard University in the United States) he was a risk-taker and sought out relationships between subjects and fields that on the surface appeared to have little in common He helped readers understand the world in his weekly column in the magazine CartaCapital and he spoke with young students in every field whenever possible Sevcenko was one of the most famous Brazilian historians “In the humanities at USP in the 1990s,” Flávio Moura a journalist with a PhD in sociology from USP recalled in his blog: Sevcenko “was a superstar.” “Students who were not officially registered for his courses stood in line to hear the professor speak He was a pioneer in a radical form of interdisciplinarity He was one of the greatest authorities on Euclides da Cunha and Lima Barreto He was the author of enlightening insights into the experience of the great cities although he was not an urban planner.” He was interested in studying and pondering fields as diverse as literature contemporary issues and other topics in the field of cultural history he moved to the city of São Paulo with his family of Ukrainian origin He collected metals for recycling and worked as an office boy to survive He completed his studies in history at USP in 1975 did post-doctorate work at the University of London and lectured at USP from 1985 to 2012 Starting in 2010 he had been a professor of Romance languages and literature at Harvard where he had made his first appearance as a visiting professor in 2004 his talks to American and Latino students extended beyond just literature to include bossa nova Jango and Lina Bo Bardi – and they were in Portuguese Since teaching was not enough to satisfy his intellectual curiosity edited or translated many academic books and articles In 1999 he won the Jabuti Prize for his book entitled História da vida privada no Brasil (History of Private Life in Brazil) wrote: “Nicolau’s books will be around forever They are classics that anyone who studies the history of Brazilian culture has read and will read and readers will always find the books enchanting.” The historian who looked into the past also pondered the major changes in today’s world “Technology must move out of the narrow scope of economics and be inserted into a broader sphere,” he suggested “as one of the basics for transforming the social realm.” which incidentally is one of the favorite themes of his books - a production that goes beyond a dozen went through big part of the Angolan territory working on coffee plantations and also in traditional agro-pastoral production      In the night of the proclamation of the Independence he filmed the Angolan flag replacing the Portuguese one he directed several films for television and for the Angolan cinema institute which would earn a diploma from the school in Paris where he obtained his doctorate in anthropology      The PhD in anthropology was obtained in 1986 at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences of Paris with a thesis on the fishermen of the Island of Luanda with a work that extends to the areas of anthropology and cinema revealing interests and subjectivities in a “half-scholar-poetic-traveled-fiction” he published: Vou Lá Visitar Pastores (1999) Observação Directa (2000) and Desmedida (2006) the Casino da Póvoa Literacy Prize (Portugal) worth 20 000 euros         The life of Ruy Duarte de Carvalho is intrinsically linked to Angola where he researched and wrote many pages about the kuvale people and their forms of organization when staying in the Namib Desert.  He had an analytical look at the thought of the world’s Westernization and the implications of the war (and the various ways to see Angola He was a lover of the wilderness that followed the San Francisco River the territories of Guimarães Rosa and Euclides da Cunha persisting in not giving to perks of any kind he was cremated after his death and his ashes were buried in the desert of Namibia people who came across him somewhere in an exploratory path and even words and expressions – scholarship and colloquialism together in a single phrase A work of great originality and talent that makes it clear that Ruy Duarte de Carvalho is one of the best Portuguese writers and therefore will remain firmly in the canon of Angolan and Lusophone literature His life and work are an example of rare brilliance and consistency Ruy Duarte de Carvalho has begun a journey of 6,000 miles through South Africa in 13 days from the interior to the coast by the other coast A trip alert to the history of the country’s various expansions and colonization which could be the origin of the book As Paisagens Efémeras Atas de Santa Helena and a possible movie Camões Institute sponsored it as part of a project to discuss the Westernization of the world and its effects Which relations between Europeans and local people have dictated the course of History Ruy Duarte de Carvalho and his young friends: Luhuna who collected materials of direct observation in a chamber; Miguel Carmo unerring in impressions and special navigation; and Matas enliving the conversation and managing the logistics of the trip      The trip through South Africa was surmised beforehand but started from a Portuguese stew in downtown Maputo “in Dockanema of Maputo it was the title of the cycle dedicated to Ruy Duardte de Carvalho who collects admirers in the Lusophone world      Ruy was happy and just shut up sporadically to fix a detail of the landscape and then say things like “in life you rather write or live to where he would always return despite living elsewhere was a recurring theme that connected us in that heart territory complicity a comitiva das 'paisagens efémeras' Critical trance of Africa’s modern History      We spent the night in Vinburg live and rule - a production of Southern Africa The house is a mausoleum of the Anglo-Boer Wars but glorious to the Boers was only the first because the one of 1903 led to the annexation of their republics of Transvaal and Free State from Orange to the British colony of the Cape of the European arms of the industrial revolution The Boers didn’t like the British autocracy which degenerated the Dutch traditions and didn’t protect from the Xhosa attacks They had already founded the republic of Natalia after the battle of Blood River in 1838 (of which we saw the painting) where they defeated Dingane which they would eventually loose to the British      What matters is that a colonial society was already established and the country was occupied by white men The Boers declared the Republic of South Africa it was founded the Union of South Africa with the two Boer republics and two British colonies It would last until the end of the Apartheid in 1994      The big issues between the British and the Dutch were the diamond mines found in that territory composed by high-pressure minerals formed three hundred miles in the bottom of the earth There they made a king of reproduction of the mining life with bars and shops      Explanations about diamonds discovered there in 1867 in children’s games The man behind the mine is Cecil John Rhodes co-founder of the powerful De Beers Company He abandoned the cotton farm in 1871 to manage the mines in Kimberley with policies that served both the British Empire as the interests of miners it is said that the warrior Shaka Zulu was gay and with a lot of military strategy and fierceness he made the Zulu ethnic an empire that haunted the British colonial designs The expansion of the Zulu state and the social disruption caused by slave traffic from the south of Mozambique as well as droughts and famines between the end of the XVIII century and the beginning of the XIX originated massive population movements that convulsed southern Africa      “It was a time when adventurers expeditious diplomats founded republics and empires a bit around the world including California and Patagonia… for white men armed with its laws and ignoring all rights that do not emanate from them      History of disputes and occupations to which several torrents of immigrants expanded people coming from outside to occupy and control these territories according to their interests or submitting or to decimate those who were already here.” It is on his book: A Terceira Metade            The coast of Africa served to all movements and South Africa was great for Western expansion however its occupation is late due to several aspects: the desert the lack of trade conditions and slavery practices “When it was finally the object of the Westernization it offered the spectacle of a vast territory to be simultaneously affected by the expansion of whites and the Bantus,” who do not like being reminded that they were also invaders in turn triggered by the demographic explosion that the banana brought by the Malays that colonized Madagascar Contemporary occupations referring to current problems: the land belongs to all people have arrived each with its reasons and have to learn to coexist The various populations within the country do not prosper at the same time and this causes too many dependencies and exploitations Ruy explains in his travel notes: “Some groups and certain individuals within each group long before the others and always and still at the expense of others in a level of internal dynamic and external interface… one way or the other will be at the expenses of these We can speak about some indigenous peoples red skinned whose grandparents were pastors and that with the installation of the Dutch at the bay of the mountain leading to Cape Town to provide support for trade routes from India who did not like the installation of the Boers who ended the hunt by bringing the cattle Although South Africa is a melting-pot of “races” well marked where we can recover the remains of human occupation a production of a universal mixed race genetically and culturally is in progress affectionate and expanded by the white model and imposed on the world scale.” Whatever survives this it will only be in the form of crystallization and folklore aggravation because of the difference that will exist it is already being cultivated and that in addition to crystallized Right?” One more cigarette and the journey continues Port Elizabeth has whales and dolphins along the coast and trade areas looking like Disneyland Then there’s a great stretch of coast with Mediterranean vegetation until we enter the province of Cabo da Boa Esperança We go on straight to the extreme south of Africa where the Indian and Atlantic oceans mix crianças hotentotes  cabo das agulhas     The day after dinning in a Portuguese restaurant Cape Town comes framed by the mountain with the name of Mesa and Cabeça de Leão.In a pension a long conversation is filmed as basis of the neo-animist movement that Ruy wanted to create with our help In order to do that there was reflection matter and action We went up the coast with a scent of the Kalahari which will link to Namibia Immense valleys of green and brown vegetation Ruy identifies phynbos the characteristic vegetation of that side of the Atlantic (common in Patagonia and Lake Victoria) stops on the banks of the Orange River in Upington (name of the prime minister of the then British colony of the Cape) a city of many farm supplies that seems the most profound America We return to Johannesburg passing through the 40 kilometers of Soweto The gold extraction into the pockets of the state and enterprises remains unstoppable We subscribe how easy it is to make tourism in South Africa: roads He explains precisely how African tribal people migrated to cities in search of work establishing themselves in a new urban and scary environment which he calls a gift from Europe to Africa He says the world in which we’re born is our world Knowing the history of a place with depth enough to see its past in palimpsest beneath its present is important “But history is only alive if you give it a resting place in our consciousness.” This trip was this place article kindely provided by TAAG - Linhas de Aéreas de Angola she lived in Rio de Janeiro for half a year. She organized a collaborative book about the topic of Body in essays and artistic's studies (Este Corpo que me Ocupa 2014). As a curator she organized Roça Língua (S an encounter and book for portuguese speaking writers; the program Ephemeral Landscapes (2015) wich consists of an exhibition and a symposium in Lisbon about Ruy Duarte de Carvalho by us: African and African cultural production in debate" (2018) she collaborated in the Meeting Where I (We) Stand (Gulbenkian 2019); The BUALA cycle at maat Museum “and I am sparse in dense fluidity, Gestures of Freedom (2020). With Rita Ratálio practices and knowledge taking a stand against ecological violence and politics of abandonment (2020). She translated from french to portuguese A Crítica da Razão Negra Políticas da Inimizade and Brutalismo by Achille Mbembe and Afrotopia by Felwine Saar (Antígona) Burle Marx's deep connection to the issues of his era mobilizes researchers who discuss the importance and challenges involved in preserving his work Reproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE A Burle Marx project for the Copacabana promenade, Rio de JaneiroReproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE Reproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE Water garden at the Itamaraty Palace, in BrasíliaReproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE Burle Marx’s correspondence shows his concern for the preservation of the environment Reproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE Cariátide (Caryatid), bronze sculpture, 1990Reproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE Reproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art, Landscape, and Botany, MUBE Automotive paint on particleboard shows the landscape architect’s project for Flamengo Park in RioReproduction / Leonardo Finotti / Exhibition: Burle Marx: Art Marx’s concerns about the environment manifested themselves in other ways which have only recently begun to be revealed “His activity as a critic and environmental advocate,” says Dourado “is still little known.” Based on the landscape architect’s correspondence he underscores how Burle Marx publicly condemned politicians and business for advocating a model of “progress” based on the destruction of nature Evidence of this activity is his reaction to the forest burning promoted in southern Pará State with the objective of opening areas for pasture for an agribusiness project of Volkswagen Brazil In a letter sent in 1976 to Wolfgang Sauer the landscaper expressed his indignation: “You said that the fire used on the occasion burned exclusively shrubs In addition to ‘weeds,’ it must also have burned ‘noisy’ macaws large trees—without a doubt—and perhaps even some ‘treacherous’ Indians.” “50 years ago Burle Marx was already disputing the uncontrolled advance of agriculture and livestock farming over the natural landscape insistently arguing questions that we haven’t been able to resolve to this day,” the researcher adds Project Leaves in motion: The letters of Burle Marx (nº 12/50319-0); Grant Mechanism Postdoctoral Grant; Principal Investigator Vladimir Bartalini (USP); Scholarship Beneficiary Guilherme Onofre Mazza Dourado; Investment R$247,203.54 © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved.