Brazilian Historiography in the 20th Century

Brazilian Historiography in the 20th Century

Thiago Lima Nicodemo, Mateus Henrique de Faria Pereira, and Pedro Afonso
Cristovão dos Santos
Subject: History of Brazil, 1889–1910, 1910–1945, 1945–1991, 1991 and After, Intellectual His­
tory
Online Publication Date: Sep 2020 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.802

Summary and Keywords

The founding of the first universities in the first decades of the 20th century in Brazil
emerged from a context of public education reforms and expansion that modified the rela­
tionship between intellectuals and the public sphere in Brazil. The representation of na­
tional pasts was the object of prolific public debate in the social sciences and literature
and fine arts through social and historical essays, pushed mostly from the 1920’s to the
1950’s, such as Gilberto Freyre’s, The Master and the Slaves (Casa Grande e Senzala,
1936) and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s Roots of Brazil (Raízes do Brasil, 1936). Just af­
ter the 1950s, universities expanded nationally, and new resources were available for aca­
demic and scientific production, such as libraries, archives, scientific journals, and fund­
ing agencies (namely CNPQ, CAPES and FAPESP). In the field of history, these effects
would have a greater impact in the 1960s and 1970s with the consolidation of a National
Association of History, the debate over curricula and required content, and the systemati­
zation of graduate programs (thanks to the University Reform of 1968, during the mili­
tary dictatorship). Theses, dissertations, and monographs gradually gained ground as
long social essays lost their prestige, seen as not befitting the standards of disciplinary
historiography as defined in the graduate programs such as a wider empirical ground and
more accurate time frames and scopes. Through their writing in more specialized for­
mats, which moved away from essays and looked into the great Brazilian historical prob­
lems, historians played an important role in the resistance against the authoritarian
regime (1964–1985) and, above all, contributed to a debate on the role of silenced minori­
ties regarding redemocratization.

Keywords: Brazilian historiography, 20th-century Brazilian history, historical research, historical professional
scholarship, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Gilberto Freyre, Brazilian Social Essay, Military dictatorship in Brazil
(1964-1985)

At the Beginning of the 20th Century

The creation of universities in Brazil since the 1930s and the establishment of historical
scholarship as an academic discipline represent a culmination of significant changes in

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Brazilian Historiography in the 20th Century

institutions and in public opinion regarding the legitimation of scientific discourse since
the crisis of the Monarchy and the first republican times. It is not by accident that the pe­
riod of around sixty years, between 1870 and 1930, is characterized as a moment of tran­
sition in Brazilian historiography, pointing toward a writing of history considered fitted to
“modern” 20th-century historiography scholarship standards. Of course, 20th-century his­
tory of historiography narratives are made of choices and exclusions, of attempts to es­
tablish genealogies linking great authors of the past to present practices, and of di­
chotomies (such as “modern” and “not modern”). The challenge of analyzing this moment
of Brazilian historiography thus involves accounting for those social and political changes
without constructing (or repeating) a teleology that leads unequivocally to the history
taught in universities, leaving aside (or behind) the continuing writing of history outside
these institutions. The historical output of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is heavi­
ly influenced by serious changes in the public sphere catalyzed by the Proclamation of the
Republic (1889), and by new demands of “scientific” parameters in the production of
knowledge. The differences lay mainly in discursive and generational terms: the authors
of historical studies who started their work in the context of the Monarchy crisis and the
first republican years sought to differentiate themselves from previous generations, dis­
playing their current knowledge in scientific discussions, usually around racial and evolu­
tionist themes, typical of the tropical Belle Époque.1 The abolition of slavery in 1888, the
growth of the coffee business, intense European and Asian immigration (primarily for la­
bor in coffee plantations), the rubber boom in the north of Brazil, and the growth of cities
are all among the factors that alter the national landscape between the late 19th and ear­
ly 20th century. New ideas, practices, work conditions, and demands fall on Brazilian his­
torians of the time.

However, we should not see those changes in Brazilian historiography as conditioned

solely by Brazilian social and political internal factors. Looking broadly to the global his­
tory of historiography of the late 19th, early 20th century, we see trends like the ones de­
lineated in this article in different contexts around the world. The trends we wish to high­
light include initiatives devoted to historical sources; debates surrounding the scientific
character of historical knowledge (as ideas associated with Positivism, for example, were
appropriated in different contexts); the use of categories such as race and environment to
explain history; the development of national histories that sought to expose the particu­
larity of the Brazilian nation (as ideas linked to historicism were also appropriated in
Brazil); and methodological debates regarding the objectivity of historical knowledge
(whether in public articles or private correspondence between authors). Therefore, the
authors mentioned in this first section exemplify one or more instances of such traits that
ran through a significant part of the Brazilian historiography between, roughly, 1870 and
1930, as Brazilian historians of this period transformed, in their practices, their local his­
toriographical heritage and gave particular meanings to global discussions with which
they came into contact by different means (traveling, international correspondence, read­
ings of foreign books and magazines, among others).

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Brazilian Historiography in the 20th Century

(1933-1942) [History, dialectics, and dialogue with the sciences: the genesis of Formação
do Brasil Contemporâneo, by Caio Prado Jr.], 1st ed. (São Paulo, Brazil: Intermeios, 2018).

(49.) Mateus Henrique de Faria Pereira, Pedro Afonso Cristovão dos Santos, and Thiago
Lima Nicodemo, “Brazilian Historical Writing in Global Perspective,” History and Theory
54 (2015): 84–104; Brazilian Historiography: Memory, Time and Knowledge in the Writing
of History, special issue, Historein 17, no. 1 (2018).

(50.) Paulina L. Alberto, Termos de inclusão: intelectuais negros brasileiros no século XX

[Terms of inclusion: Brazilian black scholars in the 20th century] (Campinas, Brazil: Edi­
tora da UNICAMP, 2017); Alex Ratts, Eu Sou Atlântica: sobre a trajetória de vida de Beat­
riz Nascimento [I am Atlantic: on the life story of Beatriz Nascimento] (São Paulo: Impren­
sa Oficial, 2006).

(51.) Margareth Rago, A aventura de contar-se: feminismos, escrita de si e invenções da

subjetividade [The adventure of including oneself: feminisms, self-writing, and the inven­
tions of subjectivity] (Campinas, Brazil: Editora da Unicamp, 2013).

(52.) José Roberto do Amaral Lapa, A história em questão: historiografia brasileira con­
temporânea [The history in question: Contemporary Brazilian historiography] (Petrópolis,
Brazil: Vozes, 1976); and José Roberto do Amaral Lapa, História e historiografia: Brasil
pós-64 [History and historiography: Brazil post-64] (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Paz e Terra,
1985); Carlos Guilherme Mota, Ideologia da cultura brasileira (1933-1974). Pontos de par­
tida para uma revisão histórica [Ideology of Brazilian culture (1933-1974). Starting points
for a historical review] (São Paulo, Brazil: Ática, 1977).

(53.) Thiago Lima Nicodemo, Pedro Afonso Cristovão dos Santos, and Mateus Henrique
de Faria Pereira, Uma introdução à história da historiografia brasileira (1870-1970) [An
introduction to the history of Brazilian historiography (1870-1970)] (Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil: FGV Editora, 2018).

Thiago Lima Nicodemo

Department of History, Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Mateus Henrique de Faria Pereira

Department of History, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto

Pedro Afonso Cristovão dos Santos

Department of History, Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana

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