Arquivo de history | Page 6 of 6

Endless Injustices

In the study of history, more impressive than the conquests, wars, the development of civilizations and all the rest, is the almost unbelievable succession of injustices committed against great men. Minority are those who, honored, valorous, have earned for themselves a memory worthy of their own work. Worse than the persecutions that some have suffered so much in life, worse than contempt, public spurcation, poverty, life that presented to them as a sequence of frustrations, dislikes, one after the other, piling and swelling like they were trials, worse than all this is, after death, fall into oblivion, if not defamed, when they can no longer respond or, still : to prove how unworthy the human race is to them.

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History of Western Literature, by Otto Maria Carpeaux

História da literatura ocidental (History of Western Literature), this colossus of almost 3,000 pages, is simply an immortal monument erected in Portuguese and published in Brazil. The Austrian Otto Maria Carpeaux, who adopted our homeland and began to learn our language at the age of forty, gave the national letters what no Brazilian will ever give. We can say, without fear of error, that Carpeaux was the greatest Brazilian scholar of all time. And if we have in the garden this unique colossus, it is impressive that we Brazilians did not give the slightest value. Carpeaux’s words that preface the first edition of the work give an idea of the magnitude of this História da literatura ocidental:

All Romanesque and Germanic literature from Europe and its branches in North and South America were studied; Slavs and others from Eastern Europe; and, of course, the Greek and Neo-Greek literature. (…) More than 8,000 authors have been studied in short. But the work has no claim to be a complete bibliographic dictionary.

Modesty… The study undertaken by Otto Maria Carpeaux and published in 1959 is unique worldwide. That is what Olavo de Carvalho also says, in an excellent essay that prefaces the edition of Topbooks of Ensaios reunidos, another work by Carpeaux:

The man we are talking about is the author of the only history of literature ever written in which the succession of literary ideas and creations in the West, from Hesiod to Valéry, appears as a continuous movement that, beneath the bewildering variety of its manifestations, never loses the unity of meaning.

What to say? I think of Carpeaux and I am amazed at the silence. There is no talk of Carpeaux, there is no comment on the man of greatest relevance in national literary criticism. Today, we are already in a distance that allows us to judge impartially: Carpeaux, among all the critics, was the one who provided the greatest service to the national letters. Nothing in Portuguese compares to his História da literatura ocidental.

História da literatura ocidental is able to provide any student with comprehensive and accurate knowledge about the leading authors of more than twenty centuries of literature. It is been able to guide a study plan for decades. And is wrong who thinks that Carpeaux only presents the authors and inserts them in the context in which they produced their works; Carpeaux criticizes, transits with extreme cunning through the most diverse currents of thought, by the varied styles and varied aesthetic conceptions, analyzes biographies and traces the evolution of the authors, inserts the works in the context in which they were produced showing us, finally, the historical weight of each author according to his judgment.

But where are, for example, the translations of this immense work? Far, far away… I ask this and seem to dream. Carpeaux does not even appear consolidated in Brazil. He did not even attract the interest of biographers. I ask, what are we waiting for? that someone more relevant to write under the Brazilian sun arises? someone of superior culture? Oh, of course… then we will wait… we will wait, perhaps, for many centuries, perhaps forever and ever…

Otto Maria Carpeaux was a huge intellectual. He gave Brazil what we never had, what we always lacked. Can we ignore Carpeaux today? deny his História da literatura ocidental?

It is a choice. Yet it is, before us and very well built, the bridge to integrate our literature to all cultures of all times. But it is up to us to decide whether to cross it — or, of course, to continue as we are: irrelevant on the world stage.

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História de Dom Pedro II, by Heitor Lyra [2]

I said a few words yesterday about this book; insufficient, though. I emphasized my respect for the author, but I forgot the protagonist. I redeem myself on this note: Dom Pedro II is the greatest example of honor and prudence in the history of Brazil. He ruled for more than half a century, always being an icon of tolerance and detachment from power; Brazil was able, thanks to his temperament, to make an exchange of regime peacefully — how many countries can say the same? — and in return, he was expelled from the country as a thief, condemned to exile and sorrow, spending his last days in a bleak solitude. When he died, lonely, having a sachet with sand from Copacabana in his pocket, the military, led by abject Floriano Peixoto, denied him even a diplomatic representation at the funeral, which was monumental, but paid by France, gratefully, between other things, for being Dom Pedro II the first statesman to visit the country after devastated by the Franco-Prussian War. The poignant of the whole story is that the “grandson of Marcus Aurelius”, as Victor Hugo referred to him, resigned stoically in being the target of cruel injustice, believing the story would reward him. Today, we well know, the memory of Dom Pedro II is non-existent; our students learn only half a note about his life and his character. And there is one of the beautiful ironies of history, very well represented by the fire of the Museu Nacional: being the museum, the character; and the fire, the reward.

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História de Dom Pedro II, by Heitor Lyra

This is undoubtedly the best storybook I have ever read in my entire life. In this work, divided into three volumes that add up to just over 700 pages, Heitor Lyra traces, in a light, precise and passionate writing, the most glorious period in all Brazilian history. Who indicated it to me? The answer is for all those who bother me by asking: “How are you so smart and admire Olavo de Carvalho?”. This book, like many others, I only had access because of the teacher’s recommendation, which classified it as “wonderful”. If depended on the publishers, I would never have access to this work, only available in sebums and in very rare units. I remember that to gather all three volumes, I had to fish in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and São Paulo. Well, it was worth every penny. And I reflect: What do schools give young Brazilians to study the 19th century? — I do not remember what I studied myself… — Heitor Lyra had access to the best possible documentation on the period and especially on the greatest symbol of Imperial Brazil. The book, according to the author, “was written in Europe”, where he had access to the vast documentation of the emperor’s foreign correspondents and, moreover, had opened to himself the “priceless archive of the Brazilian imperial family”, arranged at the time at Castle D’Eu , in the care of Dom Pedro de Orléans e Bragança, grandson of Dom Pedro II. At the time, Heitor Lyra was the first and only historian that had access to this archive, which is now reduced to ashes after the fire at the Museu Nacional. I think, think and hesitate to put into words my frustration… What bothers me is not only not seeing new editions of this work and almost all the good history books I have had access to; is to contrast what I find in good books with the vague and stupid vision that I unconsciously nourished from the period; is to find out, suddenly, that I was unaware of almost all the great figures that my country has produced. So I reflect: Why do not we find Heitor Lyra, or Varnhagen, or José Maria Bello on Amazon? It seems to me that, blatantly, there was and there is an effort to tell an alternative history of Brazil.

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