TO BrazHomepage or LATweb ¤ January, 2008 ¤ OSU Libraries Catalog
Five
Modern
Times
~~ republic, 20th and 21st centuries ~~
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Sessions: » 14. Old
Republic »
15. Vargas
» 16. Third Republic
» 17. Military
» 18. Current Republic
Please also consult the »
online reference library collection
14. First or Old Republic, 1889-1930 (Maps of Brazil in 1892 and
1899)
Focus: The Republic initially replaced a government run formerly by an imperial
elite with one operated by an elite of military officials. However, tensions
within the armed forces and with civilian politicians did not allow the military
to consolidate its control. Moreover, the armed forces had no significant
economic or financial expression. The government of the Republic, therefore,
devolved upon economic and civilian political elites. These had their most
defined and powerful representation in the coffee barons and governors of São
Paulo. The sugar plantation owners of the Northeast were an exhausted power;
however, in Minas Gerais a remnant of that state's economic and political
prowess survived.
The effective power of the First Republic
devolved, therefore, upon these two states together with the federal government
in Rio de Janeiro, giving primacy in the Republic to the region of the
Southeast. By the beginning of the twentieth century, presidential election and
succession had become a "gentleman's agreement" within the Republican Party
whereby the governors of São Paulo and Minas
alternated with each other every four years in the presidency. This quadrennial
"fixing" of the executive office was called the "política de café com leite,"
meaning the "politics of coffee with milk," the mixing of interests from
paulista coffee plantation with mineiro dairy farms. Both the banality and
cynicism of the phrasing expressed why the First Republic was designated an
"Old" one, a decrepit constitutional farce. The functioning of the Old Republic
depended essentially on the nature of the expenses and risks in the cultivation
and international marketing of coffee. Essential to these operations was
the need to control and manipulate federal taxes, finances, and subsidies.
International diplomatic negotiations during the early administrations of the
First Republic defined the national boundaries of Brazil with its South American
neighbors, establishing the modern contour of the country known today.
Coffee cultivation came eventually to employ wage, not slave, labor,
which was based on immigration. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish immigrants
that flooded into Brazil not only re-Latinized the country, primarily the
Southeast, but also modernized it. They did so in the sense that they were the
nucleus for mass consumption stimulating commercial and industrial production
that produced or attracted investment capital further resulting in economic
development and urbanization. Moreover, particularly Italian immigrants,
brought with them vanguard ideas in Europe regarding the syndicated, or
unionized, organization of labor. Extremes of social development and decay
haunted the First Republic from its beginnings. A specter of uncontrolled
monetary policy that has shadowed all modern Brazilian history rose with the
very birth of the Republic. The "Encilhamento" (Portuguese terms refers to the
start of a wild horserace) of the early 1890s consisted of an economic boom that
mounted due to expanding credit and a bust that followed from devaluing
currency.
The impoverished Northeast became the prey of religious psychological
hysteria and desperado banditry. An expression of the former was the community
at Canudos, in Bahia, established by the self-designated prophet Antônio
Conselheiro. An expression of the latter was the Robin Hood-like bandit leader
in Pernambuco, Lampião, with his band of leather-clad cowboy desperados, the
cangaçeiros. The stark reality of Canudos and the brutal repression of it by
the republican government attracted the attention of the writer and journalist,
Euclides da Cunha. In his work, Os sertões (The Backlands), he produced a
classic of Brazilian social literature. The greatest writer in Brazilian
literature also appeared at this time, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.
In novels and short stories, he captured with riveting psychological
insight and relentless irony the society of turn-of-the-century Rio de Janeiro.
The contrasts of modern and archaic Brazil rapidly manifested themselves
in the newly established Republic. They found cultural expression in the Semana
de Arte Moderna (Week of Modern Art) in São Paulo
in 1922. This inaugural articulation of high modernism in Brazil
anticipated a flowering of Brazilian culture, a "renaissance in the tropics,"
that endured until 1960 and the founding of the futuristic Brasília.
Modernist style and nationalist/native content penetrated and renewed all of the
arts: painting, printmaking, sculpture, building architecture, landscape
architecture, popular music and dance, classical music and ballet, poetry,
fiction, theater, cinema, photography, and scholarship; and prompted extensive
public and private patronage.
The impetus to the establishment of the Republic by
the Positivist military gave a new character and dimension to education in
Brazil. Not only were technology and science favored but also education for as
much of the population as possible was emphasized. The importance of public
education in São Paulo resulted not only from a
need for commercial and technical expertise but also from a concern to socialize
the mass of Italian and other non-lusophone immigrants in the Portuguese
language and absorb them into a paulista and Brazilian identity. First and
second generation Italian immigrants became some of the greatest contributors to
the nationalist cultural renaissance that began in the Brazil in the nineteen
twenties. The Constitution of 1891 dis-established the Catholic Church,
secularizing public education. The "Escola Nova" (New School) movement
emphasized such education, finding adherents especially among a steadily
emerging urban middle class.
The growing economic, social, political, and cultural imbalances of the
Old Republic, thrown into cathartic climax in the wake of the Great Depression
of 1929, brought about that regime's demise in the Revolution of 1930 and the
emergence of the "Vargas Republic." He would replace the elected governors of
the states with personally appointed executives dependent on him, the
"intendentes" or intendants. They were more firmly under his authority than the
old barons of the Empire. While many socio-economic aspects of Brazil had
changed in less than half a century after the abolition of slavery, its deeply
rooted pattern of politics and government by a tightly controlling central
authority endured.
Handout: Article on national origins of immigrants post-1890
Transparencies: Canudos settlement; modernist painting, architecture, and
sculpture
Recording: Villa-Lobos, Bachiana brasileira, No. 5
Videos: Canudos and Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol
Internet: » History
of Brazilian Population, 1550 to 2000 » Palácio
Catete, presidential palace, Rio de
Janeiro » Digitized, full-text retrieval of
Reports and
Documents of Federal Ministries, 1889-1960; of
State Governors, 1889-1930 » Centrifegal forces against the Republic: I)
Historic Photos of
Naval Uprising against the Republic, 1893-1894; II) the prophetic
denunciations of
Antônio
Conselheiro, Canudos and
Belief in
Sebastianismo
(Sebastinism), analyzed by Euclides
da Cunha in Os Sertões
and in relation to the
Chronic Drought
(Sêca) of the Northeast 1 2
3; III)
Padre Cícero 1
2 of Juazeiro (do
Norte), the making of a national saint; IV) the impoverished banditry of
Lampião
and His Band 1
2 and the
Cangaceiro, a
cowboy outlaw; and V) the guerilla defiance of the
Coluna Prestes emerging from
Tenentismo and the
1922 Uprising at
Fort Copacabana
» Anália
Franco and aid to homeless
children »
Settlement of Brazilian
National Boundaries (1902-1912) with
Map of Brazilian Settlements and Boundaries by Date and
Recorded
Voice of Rio Branco (click "sons" and then on menu "vozoteca" followed by
"políticos" in scroll box) »
Field Marshal Cândido Mariano Rondon,
the
Indian Protection Service, and the
Opening of Telegraph
Lines through the
Upper Amazon »
Maps of Rondon-Theodore Roosevelt Expedition in Amazon, 1913-1914 (with zoom
and navigator viewing tools) »
Rubber from Amazonas,
closing phase of national economy based on large scale commodity exporting » Immigration
to Brazil by nationality from 1884 to 1933 and a gallery of
Immigration Images by nationality » Centripetal force of the Old
Republic: Café
com Leite
» Joaquim
Maria Machado de Assis 1 2,
novelist of turn-of-century Rio de Janeiro »
Images of Rio de Janeiro at turn-of-century, with
Augusto Malta, photographer of Rio de Janeiro in early 20th century with
Examples of
Photos
»
Mayor (Prefeito) Francisco Pereira Passos and Reorganization (1902-1906) of the
Transportation, Sanitation »
Muncipal Theater and
National
Library »
Elite Fashion from French
Models »
Inventors:
Alberto Santos Dumont (aviation) »
Medical scientists:
Oswaldo Cruz and Carlos Chagas with findings on
Chagas Disease (Trypanosoma cruzi) and
Development of Public Health
(Sanitarista) Movement (click "era Vargas" then scroll to "relação
textos" then "movimento sanitarista") »
"Escola
Nova" Movement for Reform of Basic Education (click "era Vargas" then scroll
to "relação textos" then "reformas
educacionais")
» Emergence of modernist art in the
Week of Modern Art, São Paulo, 13-17
February 1922 » Mário
de Andrade, the paulista "renaissance man" of Brazilian modernism, and some
of the many
Paintings and Caricatures of him »
Oswald
de Andrade, poet of
modern Brazil and his
Manifestos » Vanguard painters in São
Paulo:
Tarsila do Amaral and
Emiliano di Cavalcanti »
Apotheosis of musical nationalism: recording of Bachiana
Brasileira, No. 5 » Most classical of Brazilian composers,
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri
1
2
» Most prolific of composers,
Francisco Mignone
» Soprano Bidu Sayão
» Pianist Guiomar
Novaes,
who introduced to US concert audiences the "Grande Fantasie triomphale sur
l'hymne national brésilien" by the American composer, Louis
Gottschalk, who spent the last part of his life in Brazil, with
Recordings of Music
» French
Poet Paul Claudel and Composer Darius Milhaud in Brazil »
The early "soul" of Brazilian popular music,
Ernesto de Nazareth or
Nazaré 1
2
with comparison of his
music to that of Scott Joplin
» "Showman" Pixinguinha » Humberto
Mauro 1 2
»
Beginning of
Advertising »
Renaissance in the
Tropics, Brazilian Culture from 1922 to 1960
15. Second or Vargas Republic,
1930-1945
Focus: The demise of the café com leite regime of
the Old Republic brought to the center of the Brazilian political stage the most
consummate, enduring, and influential politician of modern Brazilian history,
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, governor of Rio Grande do Sul. His political roots
were nurtured in the classical circumstances of a "marcher" region, that is, an
area whose population and leaders were strengthened by continuously meeting the
challenges of frontier battle. The only Brazilian state with significant and
belligerent international neighbors, Rio Grande do Sul possessed a regional
gaúcho cattlemen's culture that had defended itself against Argentine (Jesuit
missions), Uruguayan (banda oriental), and Paraguayan (War of Triple Alliance)
hostility since the mid-eighteenth century. It had even defied the Brazilian
central government for over a decade in the Farrouplihas uprisings during the
Regency, distinguishing itself as a República Gaúcho (Gaúcho Republic).
Vargas became so politically effective
because he allied ferocious political roots with guileless geniality, timely
compromise, and delphic ambiguity. He courted the Left and then the Right.
However, he secured his hold on power by alluring the masses and preying on the
fears of destabilizing extremes in the political spectrum. His overthrow in
1930 of the corrupt regime of the Old Republic developed into his own fascist
regime of the Estado Novo (New State) from 1937 to 1945. In alliance with Minas
Gerais, Vargas swiftly put down an uprising of São Paulo in July, 1932 against
him. He further strengthened himself by favorably responding to: 1) corporate
needs for development and protection of national businesses and emerging
industries, 2) large agricultural interests for protection from market risks and
seizure of land holdings, and 3) worker demands for unions, a minimum wage,
social security, and safe working conditions. Employment and wages increased as
European powers prepared for war with increased import of Brazilian raw
materials. By entering World War II on the side of the United States, he
strengthened himself with the Brazilian armed forces and American military
power. To strengthen US-Brazilian ties against the Axis powers, on the eve of
the war President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Nelson Rockefeller to head a
cultural exchange program, the Office of Inter-American Affairs, to give greater
exposure of American culture in Brazil and of Brazilian culture in the US.
Federal authority was national authority so that cultural nationalism
had powerful political, even socio-economic, implications. The radio and
recording industries emerged in Brazil in the decade of the twenties, expanding
in the thirties due to technical advances and the consuming power of a growing
number of wage earners. The promotion and diffusion of Brazilian cultural forms
was widely encouraged, samba and other forms of Brazilian popular music and
dance flourished. A golden age of samba composition and performance occurred,
the classics of the genre emerging at this time. Samba schools and Carnaval in
Rio de Janeiro, the federal capital, came to be officially encouraged.
Criticism, however, of the government in the mass media was not allowed, and
federal censorship was strict and regularly applied. Primary education and
literacy were supported yet were also convenient as vehicles for propaganda.
Growing literacy and education prompted development of publishing industries.
During this period some of the most original and evocative of Brazilian writers
and poets appeared, especially in São Paulo,
Minas Gerais, and the Northeast. The political power lost to these areas now
manifested itself in cultural voices. There was a counterbalancing of national
with, even as, regional culture. Regional novels were also vehicles of social
protest as seen in the works of Graciliano Ramos and José
Lins do Rêgo. Steeped in the culture of Pernambuco and the Northeast, Gilberto
Freire pioneered scholarship in Brazilian social history, especially with his
masterpiece, Casa grande e senzala: formação da família brasileira sob o
regime de economia patriarcal, 1933 (The Mansions
and the Shanties: The Making of Modern Brazil).
Transparencies: Vargas in public and private
Recordings: Early samba school Carnival parades, phonograph records, radio, and
films
Video: Scenes from film, Prison Memoirs, about novelist Graciliano Ramos,
jailed under the Estado Novo
Internet: » Getúlio
Vargas 1 2
3 »
Audio Clips of Vargas
Speeches (click "sons" then on menu "vozoteca" followed by "políticos"
in scroll box) » The two periods of
Vargas Era,
1930-1945, 1951-1954 »
Estado Novo, 1937-1945
»
Maps of Rio Grande do Sul
1 2
3
4
»
Gaúcho Culture »
Caudilhos 1
2
(Note: "Caudilho" is the Brazilian equivalent of the Spanish American
"caudillo.")
» Variety and significance of
Immigration
to Rio Grande do Sul »
Labor and Social Reforms and
Development of Labor Movement (click "era Vargas" then scroll to "textos"
then to "movimento operário") »
Women's Suffrage,
1932, and Berta Lutz 1
2, pioneer leader of women's movement in Brazil »
Estado Novo, 1937-1945
»
Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda (DIP - Department of Press and Propaganda)
»
Views of
São
Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
in the decade of the thirties »
Volta Redonda 1
2, pioneer steel mill of
Brazil »
Fordlândia, 1928-1945, Henry Ford
rubber plantation fiasco in Amazon
Photos
» Development of Federal
Highway Police »
Brazilian
Expeditionary Force in World War II
2
» The "brasilidade" of the Paintings of Alberto Guignard 1 (click "veja imagens" at base of page for gallery of paintings) 2 (web sites with additional images) » The artisan painters of São Paulo in the Grupo Santa Helena and paintings by Alfredo Volpi 1 2 » Revival and development of modern Brazilian printmaking, and the work of Oswaldo Goeldi 1 (click "veja imagens") 2 (gallery) » Origins of "samba" dance in "Umbigada/Semba" » Organization of a Samba School » Golden Age of samba: Ary Barroso and 1939 recording of "Aquarela do Brasil" (scroll down to base of page and click on radio icon for music) and Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo and Carmen Miranda » Other Types of Brazilian Popular Music (Música Popular Brasileira=MPB) » Caipira ("Country") Music » Sounds of Brazilian Instruments » Literary work of Graciliano Ramos » Cecília Meireles, poetry of romance and protest » Georges Bernanos and Stefan Zweig, European writers in exile in Brazil » Development of Brazilian Theater 1 2 and the Leading Companies, Actors, and Actresses of the early twentieth century » Transcripts of Radio Programs of "Almirante" » Interaction of Education, Culture, Propaganda, and Censorship for state control » Anísio Teixeira and Public Education 1 2 » Founding of the Univesidade de São Paulo (USP) 1 2 » Scholarship of Gilberto Freire (also Freyre) » Nelson Rockefeller and Office of Inter-American Affairs cultural programs in Brazil » Walt Disney Comics in Brazil and Disney with Carmen Miranda
16. Third or Nascent Democratic Republic,
1945-1964
Focus: Battered by an array of political enemies arising from 15 years in power
and having become an incongruous anomaly of authoritarianism after the defeat
fascism in Europe, Vargas was forced from power by the military in 1945. The
constituent assembly of 1946 reconstituted Brazil in a unique new mold.
Obtaining public office required electoral favor based on political party
competition. In this sense competitive politics made the Third Republic the
harbinger of participatory democratic government in Brazil. While many parties
appeared across the political spectrum, the three main ones were the Partido
Social Democrático (PSD - Social Democratic Party,
a center-rightist party of traditional rural and emerging business interests),
the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB - Brazilian Labor Party, populist
center-leftist party based on government organized labor unions), and the União
Democrática Nacional (UDN - National Democratic Union), center-rightist party of
urban professional and business interests. True to his political habits of
playing on both the Left and Right and of laying present options for future
political maneuvers, Vargas sponsored the founding of both the PSD and PTB.
The course that the politics of the Third
Republic followed witnessed the gradual waning of parties of the center right
and the steady expansion of those of the center left and the left. Since this
growth occurred with support from communist and socialist parties, leftist
politicians alarmed the military as a threat to national security, the more so
in the midst of the cold war that grew from the late forties onward and after
the triumph of the Castro regime in Cuba in 1959. Elected to the presidency in
1950, Vargas again faced by 1954 the threat of military ouster. In a stunning
rebuke to such interference, he committed suicide before a coup could be staged,
offering himself as a sacrifice to nationalist and labor interests.
Economically the Third Republic
definitively concluded that Brazil's future was as a mixed industrial and
agricultural economy. Only one president during the period was relatively
effective in maintaining the political alliance of the PSD and PTB, operating
within the give-and-take of competitive party politics, and aligning this
balance with stunning industrial economic development: Juscelino Kubitschek.
Beyond accelerated industrialization, his administration further determined that
the Brazilian economy would also be a mixture of public and private capital and
that the latter would include both domestic and foreign sources. Taking office
in 1956 and relinquishing the presidency in 1961 to his constitutionally elected
successor, Jânio Quadros, he delivered his campaign promise of "fifty years of
progress in five." He indelibly marked this achievement by moving the federal
capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, allying the economic development of
modernization with the style of modernism.
Most
corrosive, however, to his achievement and his own political future was the wake
of inflation his government spending left, consequences that washed against
economic and political stability until the end of the twentieth century. The
destabilizing leftist politics of João "Jango" Goulart prompted the military to
oust him in 1964. The armed forces resolved not only to take power but to keep
it, convinced that the need for sound economic development could not be left to
the risky polemics, corruption, and demagoguery of politicians.
The constitution of the Third Republic represented a devolution of power
from an authoritarian federal government to the states. The Old Republic had
also seen the power of the states rise over the central government. Since the
appearance of the Regency after the First Empire there had emerged a cycle of
decentralization and recentralization in Brazilian government. Such openings
occurred not only politically but also economically and culturally. Over the
course of the Third Republic, Brazil developed not only state owned corporations
in numerous industries, but also began to be the recipient of increasing capital
investment from Europe as that continent's war-torn economies robustly
recovered. Automobile production in Brazil began during the Kubitschek
government with establishment of the Volkswagen Corporation, a private
enterprise. Auto production was considered a key industry because it could
stimulate the development of other manufacturing areas such as steel, glass,
petroleum, machinery, paint, concrete, asphalt, transportation, etc. Although a
robust middle class had now developed in Brazil, the pattern of change/no change
persisted in the country, many owning little, a few owning much.
The cultural dynamic of the period was exceptional not only for the
continued and renewed vibrancy of high modernism but also for the emergence of
popular and folk arts and crafts. Moreover, Brazilian culture attracted
increasing attention internationally, especially in the United States and
Europe. Brasília was a magnet of international
attention for its daring architecture (the lyricism of reinforced concrete) by
Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, its sculpture by Bruno Giorgi, and its
landscaping by Roberto Burle-Marx. Murals of Cândido Portinari adorned the
walls of the United Nations and the US Library of Congress. Beginning in 1951
the Biennial Art Festival of São Paulo brought the international art world
regularly to that city. Brazilian novelists, playwrights, poets, critics, and
publishers surpassed Portugal as the center of literary production in the
Portuguese language. The novels of Jorge Amado narrating provincial Bahian life
were translated into many languages. Most striking was the innovative yet
ambiguous fiction of João Guimarães Rosa.
The hypnotic allure of bossa nova, combining Brazilian samba with
American jazz, brought together composer Antônio Carlos "Tom" Jobim with US
performers Stan Getz, Frank Sinatra, and the American recording industry. The
first relatively large commercial film production companies began to appear; and
Brazilian cinema was recognized with international film awards, most notably at
the Cannes Film Festival. Many stage, screen, radio, and emerging TV actors
were the products and beneficiaries of enhanced creative and professional
developments in playwriting, theater directing, and drama training. Also
notable was expanded interest in folk arts and crafts, encompassing a spectrum
of naïf, primitïf, and "Jungian" production.
Further Readings: | »
Textos dos "Anos JK", Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação
(CPDOC), Fundação Getúlio
Vargas (FGV)
Transparencies: Architectural landscape of skyscrapers of São Paulo; the
building of Brasília and the international triumph of Brazilian modernism.
Scenes of modernist buildings, gardens, and sculpture from works of Oscar
Niemeyer, Roberto Burle-Marx, and Bruno Giorgi
Photographs: From art books on same subjects as transparencies
Recording: Carlos Drummond de Andrade reading his poetry
Paintings: Primitif and naïf works
Realia: Sketches of Brazil and Brasília by President Juscelino Kubitschek;
Giorgi sculpture, Os Candangos = Os Guerreiros (miniature)
Videos: Tom Jobim, Gal Costa, and bossa nova in Los Angeles
» Import
Substitution 1 2
»
Petroleum Industry and History of
Petrobras » Brazil, the Cold War, and
the Treaty of
Rio de Janeiro, 1947 »
Suicide of Vargas »
Populism beyond Getúlio and the populist leaders,
Adhemar de Barros
and Jângo
Goulart »
Juscelino Kubitschek "JK" with
Folio of JK
Memorabilia »
Texts of Key Foreign Policy Statements »
Audio Clips of JK Speeches
(click "sons" then on menu "vozoteca" followed by "políticos"
in scroll box) »
Brasília: 1
2
» Other planned capital cities: Teresina, state of Piauí,
1852;
Aracaju, state of Sergipe, 1855;
Belo Horizonte 1
2, state of Minas Gerais, 1894;
Goiânia 1
2, state of Goiás, 1933;
Palmas,
state of Tocantins, 1989 »
Beginning of Opinion Polling
(click "Grupo IBOPE" then "IBOPE 60
anos") by
IBOPE (Instituto Brasileiro de Opinião Pública e Estatística) 1
2
» Modern
Brazilian Architecture and
Oscar Niemeyer » Emerging architectural profile of
High Rise Buildings in São Paulo
» Landscape architect,
Roberto Burle-Marx 1
2
3
4
5 6
» Interior designers and architects:
Joaquim Tenreiro and
Lina Bo Bardi 1
2 » Modern Brazilian
sculptors: Victor
Brecheret and
Hélio
Oiticica: 1
2
(sculptures at end of document) »
Cândido
Portinari, leading modernist painter, and his Murals
in the Library
of Congress and
Murals
for the United Nations and a
Tour of His Childhood
Home »
José
Pancetti (click on thumbnails to
enlarge), sailor-painter of the lyric of the sea »
Carlos Scliar » Writers of the
"Generation of '45":
João
Cabral de Melo Neto 1
2,
realist poetry about the presence of the past; and of
Manuel Bandeira,
lyric poet of the immediate » Novels of
Jorge Amado,
romance of the provincial » Fiction of
João Guimarães Rosa, epiphanies on the sertão
»
Growth of Photography and Photo Clubs and
Modernist Photography »
Rivalry of two generations of media lords:
Assis Chateaubriand and
Roberto Marinho »
Audio Recordings of Radio and TV Advertising Jingles (click "sons" then on
menu "vozoteca" followed by "jingles e reclames" in scroll box) » Further Synopses of Brazilian Films and Brazilian
Film Directors:
Nelson
Pereira dos Santos and
Glauber
Rocha »
Atlântida,
Brazilian film company, and the comic actors
Oscarito and
Grande Otelo » The
Vera Cruz film company and the
Chanchada film genre
» The transformation of Brazilian theater by playwright
Nelson Rodrigues, with
Plays
(click "Teatro") and
Images
(click "Frases e Fotos") »
The transformation of Brazilian theater direction by Polish emigrant,
Zibgniew Ziembinski » The seminal drama school and
theater of
Carlos Paschoal Magno (scroll to end of page) » Bossa
Nova development with
Sound Clips of
Bossa Nova Musicians (enter in the "search" box the name of a musician)
»
Tom Jobim 1 2 and
João
Gilberto and Vinicius de
Moraes with the music of "Girl
from Ipanema" »
Claude Nougaro
with lyrics of
"Bidonville (Berimbau)" and Baden Powell,
the French connection of bossa nova »
Orfeu Negro,
a French film production with
Bossa Lyrics » Bossa nova and the genre of "fossa" of
Maysa Matarazzo »
The French chanteuse, Edith Piaf, and the
Brazilian singer and actress, Bibi Ferreira
»
Elite Fashion Follows French and
American
Models »
Museums of Folk Art 1
2 » Folk Artists:
Heitor dos
Prazeres and
Mestre Vitalino 1
2
» Art at the
Museum of
Images from the Unconscious
and the pioneer work in art therapy of
Nise da
Silveira »
Carranca (also Mascarão)
Sculpture » Craft of
Lacemaking in Northeast »
Revival of Azulejo Craft and Osiarte Studio with
Examples » Literatura de
Cordel (also Folhetos) 1 2,
"washing line" or "string" literature of the Northeast, with
Block Prints and Poems (some with audio) »
Orlando and Cláudio
Villas Boas Brothers and
Indian Protection Service
17. Fourth or Military Republic,
1964-1985
Focus: Vowing to strengthen Brazil by stabilizing its economic development, the
Brazilian armed forces took power in March, 1964, alleging that leftist and
left-leaning politicians threatened development and security. The military
closed down the political opening of the Third Republic, reconstituting the
country on the basis of a series Institutional Acts that regimented political
parties, reduced electoral and legislative functions, censured the media, and
responded to opposition with jailing, torture, and exile. Reducing political
activity, the succession of military presidents (five in all) concentrated on
extensive economic projects in the areas of energy, transportation, and industry
that were financed by state and private national and international capital. The
economy was managed by a trio of military officers, economic technocrats, and
orthodox politicians. Economic policy emphasized exporting as a way of
enhancing national income and investment capital. To guarantee the
competitiveness of Brazilian products abroad, the policy opposed unions and
their demands for higher wages. In this atmosphere, labor began to organize
itself from the grass roots up. This organization occurred clandestinely and
under constant threat of violence. Ironically and most significantly it thereby
escaped Vargas-like government control and political manipulation, and could
thus be formed and developed based on its own inherent needs. Metal workers in
the automobile industry around greater São
Paulo, and their leaders such as Luiz Inácio "Lula"
da Silva, spearheaded this movement.
In such an atmosphere of repression, a cultural movement of opposition
emerged, composed primarily of musicians, and was identified as "tropicalismo."
Although it continued the lyricism of bossa nova, it was more assertively
celebratory of native aspects of Brazilian culture--thus its emphasis on the
tropics. It had a carefree, youthful bohemian spirit that adopted the dress and
style of the international "hippie" movement. Its opposition to the military
government in Brazil reflected a worldwide phenomenon of youthful rebellion
expressed in urban riots in the US and student uprising in Europe, most notably
Paris, during 1968.
The opposition to the military by a youthful few grew progressively in
the seventies as the middle and working classes in Brazil suffered ever more
severe hardships from rampant inflation. Currency rapidly lost its value due to
rising prices. These rose due to accelerating costs during the seventies for
petroleum from abroad. At the time, Brazil could only provide a third of its
petroleum needs from domestic production, and oil was the key source of energy
needed for economic development. International banks increased their lending
rates to protect themselves from the rising petroleum costs. The increase in
international interest rates became the final blow to the military government,
and provoked a hysteria of inflation in the early eighties. The armed forces
realized that not only to maintain their national reputation but also to keep
internal discipline, they had to relinquish power to civilians. This transfer
occurred in 1985. Over the period 1987-1988 the country reconstituted itself as
a "New" or the Fifth Republic, the regime that continues to the present.
Transparencies: Tropicália sculptures
Video: Abduction scene from Four Days in September »
Synopsis of Film
Internet: 1964
Military Coup Leader Field Marshal Humberto Castelo Branco with
Coup
Preparations and
Institutional Acts (click
into "fatos e imagens" section) »
Doctrine
of Segurança Nacional (National Security),
1964 and
Defense Forces,
1997 »
Testimony of Photojournalism on the regime » National security and the
strengthening key economic sectors for 1) energy »
Itaipu
Hydroelectric Dam »
Brazil's Nuclear Power »
Proálcool, program to replace sugar cane alcohol
for petroleum; for
2) transportation »
Brazilian National Aviation Corporation
(Embraer) »
Trans Amazon Highway »
Urban Public
Transportation; for
3) communications »
Brazilian Telephone Corporation (Embratel); for 4) housing
»
National Housing Bank (BNH); for 5) exports »
Brazilian Agricultural
Research Corporation (Embrapa); and for 6) monetary policy
»
Central Bank of Brazil »
Jari Paper Cellulose
Mill Project (1967-1981) in Amazon 1
2
and David Ludwig
» Inflation:
Brazilian Currencies, 1942-1994
» Sound
Clips of Tropicalista Musicians (enter name of musician in "search" box) »
Novels of
Clarice
Lispector 1
2 » Development of
"Crônica" Literary Genre (also Feuilleton or
Folhetim) in Brazil by
Rubem Braga »
Films of
Carlos Diegues » Television
in Brazil »
Paulo Freire 1
2, literacy methodology for the
oppressed »
Dom
Hélder Câmara,
the "Red" archbishop
18. Fifth or New Republic, 1985-2003 (Map of Brazil
in 1994)
Focus: The new constitution of Brazil (1988) opened the country politically to
an unprecedented extent, once again decentralizing government from an
authoritarian center. For the first time in Brazilian history the franchise was
opened to those who could not read, a reduced but still significant portion of
the Brazilian population. Political organization and participation by repressed
or marginalized groups, including the unions, women, blacks, gays, evangelical
Protestants, and Afro-Brazilian religions, surged. Party organization from the
Third Republic re-emerged; but it was the opposition coalition organized during
the military regime, the Movimento Democrático
Brasileiro (MDB - Brazilian Democratic Movement) that initially became the
strongest party. It lost ground, however, to the surging strength of the
Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT - Workers Party) organized out of the labor
movement of Lula in São Paulo. The restoration of
democracy in Brazil occurred both in the wake and because of the economic
wasteland of the eighties. Only in 1994 did a policy emerge, the Plano Real
(the Real Plan), that finally defeated rampant inflation by creating a new
currency, the "real" (pronunced ray-AHL; plural, "reais" ray-ICE+SH).
However, as Brazil restored its economic
development under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso during the nineties,
inequality in the distribution of the benefits of development persisted.
Although not publicly espousing a neo-liberal agenda, the Cardoso government
sold many state corporations to private Brazilian and international companies.
Such liberalization was encouraged as a means of achieving market efficiency,
but most immediately such sales garnered a large income for the federal
government to cover its fiscal needs and anti-inflationary policy.
Dissatisfaction over continued income inequality and unrealized benefits from
privatization resulted in the election to the presidency of Brazil in 2002 of
the perennial leftist opposition candidate, "Lula." He was the first labor
union organizer and leader, a self-made man rising from a childhood of poverty
in the Northeast, to become president of Brazil. His party, the PT, had
advanced throughout the country during the nineties by forming a majority
consolidated from those marginalized in Brazilian society because of race,
class, gender, or other factors. Another leader in this party, Benedita da
Silva, was the first black woman elected to the Brazilian Senate. (Her mother
had been a washer woman in Rio de Janeiro for the family of Juscelino
Kubitschek.)
Lula's election represented a stunning historical development. He broke
the pattern of an exhausted sequence of elites managing Brazil. There had been
a succession of presidents based on governing through military, political, or
technocrat elites: Generals Humberto Castelo Branco through João Figueiredo,
1964-1985; the civilian politicians José Sarney, Fernando Collor de Mello, and
Itamar Franco, 1985-1995; and the social scientist Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
1995-2003. Neo-liberalism, privatization, globalization, and post-modernism
surged and were then found wanting.
Brazilian society and the economy endured wrenching privations during
the last part of the twentieth century. Its major industries, banks, and state
corporations, however, fared relatively well--and possibly not surprisingly.
Its consumer public, the largest in Latin America, made it of continued interest
to international investment. The industrial and commercial sophistication of São
Paulo, the largest city in South America and one of the five largest
metropolitan areas in the world, reinforced Brazil's international attraction as
an investment magnet. Further strengthening this interest was the
dominant role of Brazil in the Common Market of Southern Cone Countries
(Mercosul=Mercosur). Brazil's state corporations maintained their strength
because, unlike Argentina or Mexcio, they rejected neo-liberal arguments for
privatization. Hence, Brazilian public corporations maintained a solid core of
capital not only from international investment but also from public funding.
Brazilian culture in terms of music and cinema maintained its world
position, albeit in competition with many other developing countries. Brazilian
literature in translation continued to appear in many countries, and telenovelas
(television drama series) from the Brazilian communications giant, TV Globo,
were dubbed into local languages and broadcast worldwide. The internal
cultural dynamics, however, that had nourished varied and original artistic
manifestations among earlier generations were now subsided. As in so many
countries of the world, a recent rich cultural flowering across all areas of the
arts was subsumed into a pasteurized global cultural hive of US or Americanized
media and marketing. Nonetheless while many aspects of "high" culture waned, a
creative vibrancy continued to sustain aspects of popular culture, especially
music.
The formulation of Brazilian economic policy has been orthodox yet
varying considerably from American assumptions and practices. On the one hand,
as all market-oriented economies, policy has concentrated on production that
results in profits with a sound currency, allowing investment for further
production. Production must also produce adequate jobs and salaries. The
consumption resulting from this is seen as a further stimulus to production and
as a political necessity to meet a priority social requirement, full
employment. However, other than rhetorically, this consumption is not
consistently reviewed in terms of direct basic human needs or environmental
consequences. The fundamental apprehension about consumption from a government
policy standpoint concerns inflation, the erosion of real investment and income
values. The standard vehicle for addressing this apprehension is monetary
policy controlling interest rates and the money supply. This is accompanied by
a fiscal policy balancing the federal budget and the balance of trade. These,
however, may often fall short due to political reasons responding to social
needs. Many of the micro economic techniques of Brazilian policy operate in a
macro environment considerably different from the US. Brazilian federal and
state governments significantly determine investment, managerial, and policy
operations for the private sector and a large public sector. There is a sense
in which one can say that Brazilian macro economic policy has considerable micro
economic practices.
Nationally, the most striking challenge rising to face contemporary
Brazil is how to move a society in which for centuries the majority of the
population was property to one in which the majority owns property. How can all
be given an economic, social, and political stake in the country? How can one
move from centuries of elites and empires to a state of sovereignty for and from
all? Internationally, Brazil together with China and India has lead in forming
the "G-21,"a group of developing countries whose principal concerns are for
effectively free world trade. Such trade would remove the tariffs, subsidies,
and barriers by which European countries, Japan, and the United States, the
"G-8," protect their business sectors in agriculture and raw materials from the
cheaper products of developing countries.
The future of Brazil primarily involves a three-fold challenge: to
develop its natural resources, do so for all, yet preserve its environment for
sustained development and distribution into the future.
Further Readings: | »
chapters on São Paulo and Rio de
Janeiro in The Mega-citiy
in Latin America (Alan Gilbert), United Nations University Press, 1996;
»
"Planet of Slums"
(Mike Davis), New Left Review, no. 26, March-April, 2004
Reference Research Resources: | »
ECLAC maintains database
of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; |
»
Video: I Was Born a Black Woman, Life of Benedita da Silva »
Synopsis of Film
Internet: » Fernando
Henrique Cardoso,
President, (January, 1995 to December 2002) with
Video Interviews at World Bank 1
2 » Election
of Lula as President, 27 October 2002 and his
Inauguration, 1 January 2003 » Benedita
da Silva, first black woman senator in Brazil
»
Current Brazilian
Political Parties »
Armed Forces: Army (click menu
for "armas," "escolas," etc.) with the
Army of the
Amazon; and
Air Force with
Planes (click "aeronaves") »
National
Defense and Replacement of Armed Forces General Staff (Estado Maior das Forças
Armadas) by Ministry of Defense, 1999
» Report of 2003 by Amnesty International on
Human Rights in
Brazil and in
the US »
Landless Workers Movement and
Background of Land
Reform in Brazil with the
National Agrarian Reform Plan (click "obter" to download) and a
Description of a Land Occupation Settlement »
Brazilian Ministerial
Secretariat for Women »
Black Consciousness and Rights 1
2 3 »
Street Children 1
2
3 (relief projects
by city) »
Modern Enslavement
» Population of Brazil ranked
Relative to Other
Countries and Projected to 2015 »
São
Paulo in World Ranking of Metropolitan Areas
» Modern Art
Exhibitions at Stations (click station name on left menu to see art)
» Brazilian corporations, public and
private, with
Top 20 and
Largest 500 (by sector) »
Brazilian Stock Excahnge, Bovespa
(Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo)
»
Petrobras (petroleum
sector) and
Advances in Brazilian Deep Offshore Oil Drilling
» Furnas,
Hydroelectric Complex for Southeast 1 (for hydroelectric plants, click
"institucional" at main menu then "sistema")
2 (for projects, click "institucional"
at main menu then "vídeos") »
Banco do Brasil
(BB) Agencies Worldwide (finance) and the
BB Cultural Centers
in Brazil »
Brazilian Space
Industry Program 1
2
3
and the
Alcântara
Satellite Launch Center (with
Sounds and
Messages from the first satellites) »
Brazilian Automobile
Production in Relation to Other Countries »
Privatization Program, sale of state (public) companies to private sector
(click from list of documents and publications) »
Brazilian
Agribusiness 1 2 with
Map of Brazilian
Agricultural Frontier »
Cattle Ranching 1
2
3
4
5
6 »
Zebu (Indian Hump)
Cattle in Brazil » Some leading agricultural
products: Soybeans
and
Oranges »
State of Brazilian Rainforests and
Tropical Deforestation
» GIS
(Geographic Information Systems) in Brazil
»
Mercosul/Mercosur
»
The G-8 and
G-21 Countries »
Relationship of the
WTO and the
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) » Inequality of
Wealth in Brazil and
the
United States
»
Slums
(Favelas) in Brazil 1
2
3
4
5
»
Literacy Rates in Brazil (illiteracy no longer disqualifies for voting
franchise) » Decline
of Infant Mortality during lat decade of twentieth century (with data by
state) » Rock
in Rio Festival, 1985, the globalization of culture
and technology, and global imaging with a view by US
Satellite of Rio de Janeiro »
Contemporary
Brazilian Cinema and films of
Bruno Barreto »
Art Biennials of São Paulo, 1996, 1998,
2004
»
Panorama of
Contemporary Architecture and Design »
Novels of
Paulo Coelho »
Editora Record, a major contemporary publisher »
TV Globo
»
Telenovelas 1
2
3 (click at end of site for recorded BBC program on telenovelas) with
Images from Telenovelas » Leading telenovela scriptwriters,
Alfredo Dias Gomes and
Janete
Clair »
Brazilian Soccer Teams »
Brazil World Cup
(Jules Rimet) Championships with images of the greatest
goals and the
Fans of
"Pelé" »
Year 2000, Quincentenary
Commemoration of the Portuguese settlement of Brazil
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