Commemorate Camões and rethink the nation: Joaquim Nabuco's speech during the celebration of the tercentenary of the death of Camões in Rio de Janeiro (1880)

Abstracts

O presente artigo analisa os eventos realizados em comemoração ao tricentenário de morte de Luís de Camões, no Rio de Janeiro, em junho de 1880, com destaque para o discurso pronunciado por Joaquim Nabuco no momento da festa. Busca-se investigar a fala de Nabuco considerando-se as relações culturais e políticas em curso entre Portugal e Brasil, naquele período, destacando-se o fato de que as comemorações do tricentenário enfatizaram, na ação de seus organizadores, um ideal de identidade nacional brasileira definida como fundamentalmente lusitana. A contribuição de Nabuco para a composição dessa representação da Nação é o objetivo deste artigo.

Camões; tricentenário de Camões; relações luso-brasileiras

ARTICLES

Commemorate Camões and rethink the nation: Joaquim Nabuco's speech during the celebration of the tercentenary of the death of Camões in Rio de Janeiro (1880)

Giselle Martins Venâncio

Departamento de História e Programa de Pós-Graduação em História. Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Centro de Estudos Gerais, Instituto de Ciências Humanas e Filosofia. Campus do Gragoatá. Rua Prof. Marcos Waldemar de Freitas, bloco O, sala 501, Gragoatá. 24210-380 Niterói - RJ - Brasil. [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the events held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1880 to commemorate the tercentenary of the death of Luis de Camoes, emphasizing the speech given by Joaquim Nabuco. The aim is to investigate Nabuco's speech in light of the cultural and political relations between Brazil and Portugal at that time, highlighting the fact that the tercentenary celebrations emphasized an ideal Brazilian national identity defined as fundamentally Lusitanian. Nabuco's contribution to the development of this representation of the nation is the aim of this article.

Keywords: Camões; Camões' tercentenary; Luso-Brazilian relations.

The tercentenary of the death of Camões in Lisbon and in Rio de Janeiro: some brief considerations

On that memorable day, 10 June 1880, three hundred years after

the death of the glorious Epic, and when the population of this

Capital loudly commemorated this notable event on the old Rua da

Lampadosa, now Luís de Camões, the foundation stone of the beautiful

temple [the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura do Rio de

Janeiro] was laid. There appeared at this great act the Emperor,

ministers, notable men of letters, the sciences, and the arts, the

Municipal Council who appeared in solemn formality with the

respective standard, a rare case (since it was a private building), which

gave the act an extraordinary importance, many important people,

Brazilian and Portuguese associations, represented by their respective

boards, and a large mass of people who watched the

majestic and moving spectacle.¹

... on a Sunday with the regattas in Botafogo, the most splendid and

dazzling maritime festival that Rio de Janeiro has seen - a luxury,

a vanity, an orgy of light and adornment. The people joined with

the Club, decorating all the balconies, illuminating the gardens; and

at night, the Venetian gondolas, the fireworks ... Botafogo Bay

appeared the stage for an immense fantastic play. (Revista Ilustrada, Rio

de Janeiro, 19 June 1880)

The texts in the epigraph report the events experienced by the population of Rio de Janeiro in the week around 10 June 1880, the date when the tercentenary of the death of Camões was commemorated. In addition to the events mentioned above (referred to by Sandmann, 2003), others were added, such as the exhibition held in the National Library of Rio de Janeiro.²

The commemoration of the tercentenary of the Portuguese author intensely mobilized the cultural and intellectual space in Portugal and in Brazil at the beginning of the 1880s. In Portugal the event was experienced as an important moment in the (re)writing of national memory, in Brazil the tercentenary of Camões was commemorated as a good indication of the importance of Portuguese culture for the country.

The Camões' festivities, as well as the Republican commemorations studied by Lucia Lippi, had a "unifying pedagogical function,"³ since they sought to minimize the differences existing between the commemorating groups.⁴ Differences which, in this case, consisted of overcoming the idea that Brazil should define itself by otherness in relation to Portugal, while the latter needed to characterize itself by the search for permanence, claiming the right which in the opinion of many Portuguese intellectuals had been acquired by a common history between the two countries, thereby giving Portugal the possibility of "leading wills, defining destinies and proposing paths outside its own territory."⁵ As André Burguière warns, commemorations are not "the best councilors of historic research,"⁶ precisely because the festivities obliterated differences, tensions and dissent, strengthening harmony instead. Historians have to purify events in order to investigate the movements which construct the approximations and distancing between the groups organizing commemorations, in order to better understand the representations in dispute which inform the commemorative process.

It is sought here to investigate the tercentenary of the death of Camões as an important event in the cultural and intellectual relations established between Portugal and Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, it is also important to take into account that although this event indisputably approximated Portuguese and Brazilian intellectuals, this did not occur in a harmonious manner. The analysis of the events involved shows fissures and dissent in the organization of the festivities and the interpretations of Camões' legacy, which allowed glimpses of the distinct projects of the nation being developed both in Brazil and in the Portugal in the final decades of the nineteenth century.

In Portugal, according to Maria Isabel João, it was Luciano Cordeiro, perpetual secretary of the Society of Geography and a journalist from O Comércio de Lisboa, who started the preparations for the festivities. Following his initiative, a group of individuals linked to the Lisbon press took responsibility for publicizing it, announcing in newspapers and magazine the idea that it was important to commemorate Camões, since it was a "festival of the nation" and not the "festival of a party, a school, or a partial communion."⁷ According to the journalists, the event "had the aim of establishing the convergence of all individuals around the Patria of which Camões was the symbol." Considering that "the work of heroification is inseparable from the production of a collective memory,"⁸ the commemoration consisted of the organization of a series of events and publications which evoked the memory of Camões, strengthening the author's production and the glorification of the history of the country. In Portugal it involved various publications, paintings, commemorative coins, festivals in schools, civic processions, speeches which were afterwards published, a wide variety of events which attracted a wide variety of individuals from across the political and social spectrum (João, 2002, p.524).

Despite this patriotic mobilization, the union around Camões as a representative of the pantheon of nation heroes led to his use in competing projects for the nation, as evidenced during the commemorations. The expanse of these festivities was so large that it led Oliveira Martins to state in 1880: "Camões is at the same time an infinity of types for an infinity of creatures dragged by the Centenary."⁹

Opposing forces came together in tribute to Camões. However, they used distinct justifications which converged with their projects for the nation. Portuguese monarchists and republicans prepared their discourse. From the point of view of the monarchists, Camões had expressed three elements which had characterized nationality: tradition, language and territory, aspects which were valorized in this writing.¹⁰ In the eyes of the republicans, evoking the poet was remembering the past as a form of overcoming the difficulties of a 'vile sadness and erased' present - in the much repeated words of Camões himself -, and of encouraging spirits for political changes (ibid.). Analyzing various Portuguese commemorations at the end of the nineteenth century, including the tercentenary of the death of Camões, Fernando Catroga calls attention to the fact that

with some rare exceptions, Portuguese civic festivities, especially after 1880, were commemorations and celebrations used to fight an inveterate feeling of decadence. From this also arose the yearnings for regeneration, an objective which helps to understand why the Republicans, even before achieving political power (1910), managed to become the ones promising a 'New Patria,' hegemonizing a good part of the expectations sown by this ritualized dialogue between the promises of the future and the re-readings of the past.¹¹

Above all, Camões and Os Lusíadas were for the Portuguese republicans a slogan of the struggle against national decadence and a justification for the return to more genuinely Portuguese values linked to heroism, expansion, growth and the development of the Nation.

Nevertheless, the Camões commemorations in Portugal were not an isolated example of the cult of the past glories of the Nation. As is well known, the national constructions imagined by the men of the nineteenth century included, to a large extent, the placing of their heroes on pantheons. As Armelle Enders notes, "the decline of monarchs, but especially the strengthening of nations, stimulated in nineteenth century Europe the taste for great men and the interest in their cult."¹²

The glorification of Camões by large groups of Portuguese intellectuals had intense repercussions in Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro. In this city members of the Portuguese colony, particularly those who met in the Gabinete Português de Leitura, put themselves at the front of the commemorations, preparing the notion of a festive ideal in which Brazil appeared as a continuation of Portugal in the Americas (João, 2000). In the program proposed by the institution, the event included the laying of the foundation stone for a new building and a festive night in the D. Pedro Theater, with the presentation of a play by Machado de Assis, written especially for the occasion, an opera by Carlos Gomes, an exhibition in the National Library, as well as a regatta in the Botafogo Cove and a march by students (ibid.).

Joaquim Nabuco was chosen as the orator of the festivities in the D. Pedro Theater. The choice of Nabuco to lead the commemorations created conflicts among the members of the Portuguese colony, since there were those, such as Figueiredo de Magalhães, who considered the choosing of a Brazilian to pay tribute to the greatest name in Portuguese literature unacceptable. In a text published in Jornal do Commercio on 18 March 1880, Figueiredo de Magalhães harshly criticized the name of Nabuco and argued that his compatriots should have a leading role:

at the end of the nineteenth century a puffed up layman tried to strangle the credits of our academies ... The bulwark of letters in our patria, which still exists in the capital of this Empire, like a lost sentinel guarding the withdrawal of our literary legions, taking down the flag of his nation and capitulating due to the lack of disciplined artillerymen who could have given the salvo in the festivities of the centenary of Camões! ... I protest in the name of my patriotism, and the assassins of patriotic credit answer that there was no decent Portuguese who could have greeted Camões on his centenary.

All authorities and Portuguese associations which exist anywhere in Brazil are invited; all Portuguese whether great or ordinary; all our friends and all the admirers of our Camões without distinction of nationality. Let us all join the initiators of the festivities, once they do not want to besmirch the history of this centenary with the false supposition that in 1880 there was no Portuguese in Brazil capable of telling the world how much was and will be his immortal compatriot.

However, while this was the opinion of Magalhães, it was not shared by the entire Portuguese colony. Some considered the commemorations an opportunity to bring Portugal and Brazil closer together, a relationship which at that moment was suffering the consequences, at least in the city of Rio de Janeiro, of a growing popular process of anti-Lusitanism.¹³

From the point of view of the event organizers, Camões' tercentenary was a suitable occasion to unite Portuguese and Brazilians and to construct a more positive vision of the Portuguese in Brazil. The invitation of Nabuco was perhaps a strategy to effectively achieve this approximation. In the opinion of the members of the board of the Gabinete Português de Leitura, the choice of Nabuco was justified as it represented the desire for an approximation with Brazil which they so wanted. The explanation about the choice of the name of Joaquim Nabuco had been published in Jornal do Commercio (13 Mar. 1880), in the Requests section, which possibly shows a justification included in the newspaper announcement paid for by members of the board of the Gabinete Português de Leitura. The text states:

If it was the understanding of the Gabinete that it had to give proof, this would be in the invitation that it had the honor to send to one of the best talents of the new Brazilian generation, the illustrious writer who in the youth of his years had the illustrious glory of commemorating with the publication of his book Camões e os Luziadas the third centenary of the immortal poem. The principal role in the commemorations of the centenary given to the illustrious Sr. Dr. Joaquim Aurelio Nabuco de Araujo was not because of our respect for his talents, which is enormous, nor our estimation for his person, which is no less; it is because it belongs to him exclusively as the sole writer in the Portuguese language who had the glory to write eight years ago: "In 1859, in 1864 and 1865 Germany, England, and Italy celebrated with national festivities the centenaries of Schiller, Shakespeare and Dante, publishing today these notes, I do no more than what the men of heart did in these three countries when, leaving the countryside they came to the cities to cover with garlands the statutes of the poets. I pay tribute to an always growing admiration of Luiz de Camões upon the third centenary of his poem." Sr. Joaquim Nabuco only should not have expected that the invitation would be objected to on the part of those who ignored this honorable page of their history. In relation to us, only one thing can be more agreeable than the honor of the invitation we sent: this occasion to give greater publicity to the name of the true precursor of this great movement...

According to the members of the Board of the Gabinete de Leitura, Nabuco deserved the position of orator because he had been the first in Brazil to pay tribute to Camões by publishing in 1872 the book Camões e os Lusíadas.¹⁴ Those who defended his name justified the choice by saying that Nabuco had been the precursor of the movement to pay tribute to Camões.¹⁵Moreover, they legitimated it by saying that Brazilians and Portuguese were "people with a common origin, heirs of glorious traditions." They considered that this was the moment to reaffirm approximation and not to establish differences.

The reports published in Jornal do Commercio in the first half of 1880, expose the internal fissures and contradictions in the Portuguese colony of Rio de Janeiro during the organization of the commemorations.¹⁶ Nonetheless, despite the opposition on the part of certain members of the colony, the desires of the board of the Gabinete Português de Leitura prevailed and Nabuco was confirmed as orator. It was Nabuco who gave the speech paying homage to Camões on the night of 10 June 1880 in the D. Pedro Theater, in an event at which Emperor Pedro II was present, as well as numerous guests.

Nabuco's speech: commemorating Camões and defining the Nation

The archive of the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura do Rio de Janeiro holds approximately two hundred letters acknowledging the invitations they had received for the commemorations in the Imperial Theater of D. Pedro II on 10 June 1880.¹⁷ That night, before an enormous audience,¹⁸ Joaquim Nabuco gave his speech, which can be summarized in one of its most significant phrases: "Brazil and Os Lusíadas are the two biggest works of Portugal."¹⁹

Highlighting the importance of Brazil for Portugal and constituting an idea of a Brazilian nation which organized itself as the inheritance of the Portuguese tradition was undoubtedly the tone of Nabuco's speech.

Starting his analysis of Camões' poem, Nabuco asked: "What is the idea of the Lusíadas, if it is not the poem of the maritime discoveries and the territorial expansion of the Portuguese race? Is the discovery of Brazil not an integral part of this historical context?"

Defining Brazil as the most important part of the Portuguese Empire was the principal objective of Nabuco's speech, which seemed to agree with the ideas proposed by a significant group of Portuguese intellectuals of creating a Luso-Brazilian cultural community,²⁰ which was to be done through various strategies. In this project

it was important to recreate the memory of what over the centuries had been sedimented between counties which until then had very different experiences of life and culture. Their many roots would drink the sap which had fed them in the remote times of the adventure of the meeting with the unknown and the ties which, since then, had been tightened and strengthened in the lands on both sides of the sea.²¹

In his speech Nabuco point to the strong presence of Portugal in Brazil and the influence of Portugal on Brazilians. Commemorating Camões meant, without a doubt in his opinion, reinforcing the ties that united them. In Nabuco's words, if the Brazilian patria organized itself in some way that was distinct from the Portuguese patria, national identity in Brazil consisted of a filial feeling which linked Brazil directly to Portugal. According to him:

tonight I am Portuguese; it is enough to say that I animated with the small but robust Nation which founded Brazil and which for so long was the Patria Mother, with a feeling which, if not confused with patriotism, cannot but be confused with national pride.

In this "complex configuration of representations, images and ideas" which the intellectuals evoked as the "mystery of national identity,"²² Portugal represented, in Nabuco's conception, the place of origin, and thus the unavoidable reference for thinking about Brazil. It was this argument that Nabuco used to defend his position as orator of the festivities:

The honor of being the interpreter of the admiration of an entire century and two peoples united in the Centenary of a poet, is one of the privileges of which it is said it is better to deserve them than to possess them. - I confess that I accepted this place due to the debt of gratitude that we have with Portugal, and in which I, as a Brazilian, claim my share.

Continuing he referred to those who criticized the choice of his name:

In the festivities, some are Brazilian, others Portuguese, others foreigners; we all have the right to shelter under the mantle of the Poet. The patria is an energetic feeling, disinterested, beneficial, even when it is fanaticism. This fanaticism allows much intolerance, except one which turns contradictory on itself: that of refusing the spontaneous concourse of foreign sympathy in the great expansions of our patria. If today is the day of Portugal, is it not better that its national festival be considered amongst us a family festival? If it is the day of the Portuguese language, is this not what ten million Brazilians also speak? In a more special meaning, however, can it be said that we Brazilian are the foreigners at the festivities? Many things would have to be forgotten to agree with this.

Nabuco uses the speech to answer his enemies and to reinforce his position as legitimate orator. In his speech he considers that the discussion about his nationality should use another interpretative key. Like all Brazilians he was an heir of Camões, since the poet was the greatest representative of the Luso-Brazilian family. In his opinion Brazil was eternally and necessarily linked to Portugal. According to him it was not only a question of language, or of common culture, which linked the two countries, but a feeling of belonging originating in the process of maritime expansion which was perpetuated in all Brazilians. Perhaps making reference to the feeling of decadence felt by Portuguese at the end of the nineteenth century, Nabuco states that Brazil would continue the Lusitanian legacy. Referring to the Portuguese language, he argues: "Portugal could disappear within centuries, submerged in the European wave, but it will have in one hundred million Brazilians, the same luminous and melodious vibration."

Finally, Nabuco highlights the importance of the commemorating centenaries in the consolidation of a common historical memory in Portugal and Brazil, stating that: "and for many centuries your centenary will bring together around your statues spread among the vast dominions of the Portuguese language, the two nations pay tribute to your glory...".

However, the centenary commemorations did not have this glorious destiny supposed by Nabuco. The fourth Centenary of Camões, at the end of the twentieth century, does not appear to have mobilized the same spirit of celebration present in the third Centenary. Although the National Library of Rio de Janeiro held an exhibition, which led to new publications, the commemorations were more modest than in the previous century. However, the process of the monumentalization of the work of Camões became even greater in the twentieth century, as well as its use as a reference for Portuguese and Brazilian literature. As a 'foundational fiction,'²³ Camões was included in anthologies and didactic literature, reinforcing the idea of the founding myth of the link between Portuguese and Brazilian cultural production.

In this process new memories of Camões were forged and diffused. The numerous layers of memory produced by critical fortune of his works played a fundamental role in the establishment of a literary canon in which Camões had a leading place. The various readings and interpretations possible showed the approximation - at certain moment more so and at others less - of Brazilian and Portuguese cultures.

As in the preface to Nabuco's speech, republished by the National Library of Rio de Janeiro on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the death of Camões, in 1980, Maximiano de Carvalho e Silva interpreted Nabuco's text as the foundations for the critiques prepared by Brazilians about Camões' work. In his text, Maximiano highlights that Nabuco's work is unknown among the specialized public and qualifies its reading in a process of the monumentalization, not just of Camões' work but also of Nabuco's. The author argues that:

Camonian studies of Nabuco, and the episodes involved in its production, demand even more attentive and careful re-examinations without which in the biographic tests related to the memorialist of Minha Formação, and in the essays about the evolution of Camonian investigations, due emphasis will not be given to one of the most important contributions to modern Camonology. Republishing these studies is thus contributing to a broader and correct vision of what has been the Camonian impregnation in the process of our intellectual development.²⁴

Maximiano de Carvalho e Silva's text is an important testimony for thinking about the use and appropriations of the works of Camões and Nabuco in the final decades of the twentieth century. From Carvalho e Silva's perspective, Nabuco had to be valorized because he had qualified Camões in relation to Brazilian intellectual development, inserting it in a tradition which began at the end of the nineteenth century in Brazil of commemorating Camões also as the "withdrawn patron of Brazilian nationality" (Sandmann, 2003).Although part of the Brazilian intelligentsia at that time was more concerned with creating an ideal of nationality shaped, to a great extent, by discourse in opposition to the intellectual production of Portugal - forging a distinct national identity, capable of shaping social consensus -, the speeches and the events of Camões tercentenary festivities were prepared in a field conditioned by the myth of the foundation of Brazilian national identity which was, in the opinion of its mentors, fundamentally Lusitanian in its origin. What was created as Brazilianness at this moment was also in a certain sense Lusitanian.²⁵ Commemorating Camões as the hero of Brazilian nationality because he was Portuguese, certainly incites questions.

If the national construction should result from a historic genealogy, established in the selection and succession of possible nations,²⁶ considering the Portuguese poet as the precursor of the national soul suggests some reflections on the referential frameworks to construct the past, the present, and the future of the Nation. It is true that the commemoration of the tercentenary of Camões did not happen without conflict, as stated above about the disputes over the name of the orator for the event. Some records suggest that some "particular dissidences about the flag" made themselves heard (apud João, 2002, p.217), though according to Maria Isabel João, "there prevailed the idea that historic and linguistic identity should give way to a joint celebration of the poet." As a result "the public powers of the Empire, the Brazilian parliament, the ministers, and the Emperor himself, understood the scope of the Centenary of Camões for the confraternity of the two peoples."²⁷

Undoubtedly shaped at the commemorations for Camões was shaped an ideal of the Brazilian nation in harmony with a feeling of belonging²⁸ to a wider cultural community which can perhaps be called Luso-Brazilian.

NOTES

Article received on 31 March 2011.

Approved on 2 February 2012.

• 1 SANDMANN, Marcelo Corrêa. As comemorações do tricentenário de Camões no Brasil. Revista Letras, Curitiba: Ed. UFPR, n.59, jan.-jun. 2003.
• ²
  2 Ver: CATÁLOGO da exposição camoneana realizada pela Bibliotheca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro a 10 de junho de 1880 por occasião do centenario de Camões. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional, 1880.
• 3 OLIVEIRA, Lucia Lippi. As festas que a República manda guardar. Estudos Históricos, Rio de Janeiro, v.2, n.4, 1989. p.175.
• 4 Há um importante texto de Lilia Schwarcz analisando as festas no Império. Entretanto, por tratar de aspectos mais associados a comemorações de caráter popular, a autora aborda questões distintas das aqui mencionadas. Ver: SCHWARCZ, Lilia. O império das festas e as festas do Império. In: As barbas do Imperador. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998. (2.ed.
• 5 RAMOS, Maria Bernadete; SERPA, Élio; PAULO, Heloisa (Org.). O beijo através do Atlântico: o lugar do Brasil no panlusitanismo. Chapecó (RS): Argos, 2001. p.17.
• 6 BURGUIÈRE, Andre. Histoire d'une histoire: la naissance des Annales. Annales Économies, sociétés, civilisations, v.34, n.6, 1979. p.1347.
• 7 Todas as citações sobre as comemorações do tricentenário de Camões em Portugal têm como referência JOÃO, Maria Isabel. Memória e Império: comemorações em Portugal (1880-1960). Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002.
• 8 RIBEIRO, Fernando Bessa. A invenção dos heróis: nação, história e discursos de identidade em Moçambique. Etnográfica, v.IX, n.2, 2005. p.258. Disponível em: ceas.iscte.pt/etnografica/docs/vol_09/N2/Vol_ix_N2_FBessaRibeiro.pdf; Acesso em: 30 set. 2010.
• 10 JOÃO, Maria Isabel. Percursos da memória: centenários portugueses no século XIX. Camões. Revista de Letras e Culturas lusófonas, n.8, jan.-mar. 2000. Disponível em: www.instituto-camoes.pt/revista/percursmemo.htm; Acesso em: 30 set. 2010.
• 11 CATROGA, Fernando. Nação, mito e rito Religião civil e comemoracionismo. Fortaleza: Ed. do Nudoc/UFC, Museu do Ceará, 2005. p.127.
• 12 ENDERS, Armelle. O "Plutarco Brasileiro", a produção dos vultos nacionais no Segundo Reinado. Estudos Históricos, v.14, n.25, 2000. p.41.
• 13 O antilusitanismo do Brasil, de fins do século XIX e início do XX, foi estudado por uma ampla gama de autores, desde Raimundo Magalhães Junior, que em seu livro O Império em chinelos assinala o clima antiportuguês evidenciado por insultos como 'galego' e 'marinheiro', frequentemente citados pelos jornais locais. Sobre esse tema ver: MAGALHÃES JUNIOR, Raimundo. O Império em chinelos Rio de Janeiro: s.n., 1957;
• TRICHES, Roberta Pedroso. A labareda da discórdia: o antilusitanismo na imprensa carioca. Disponível em: www.achegas.net, n.36; Acesso em: 5 dez. 2008;
• RIBEIRO, Gladys Sabina. "Cabras" e "pés-de-chumbo": os rolos do tempo. O antilusitanismo na cidade do Rio de Janeiro (1890-1930). Niterói: Ed. UFF, 1987;
• RIBEIRO, Gladys Sabina. Mata Galegos: os portugueses e os conflitos de trabalho na República Velha. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1990.
• 14 NABUCO, Joaquim. Camões e os Lusíadas. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Imperial do Instituto Artístico, 1872.
• 15 Certamente o fato de Nabuco ter publicado esse livro sobre Camões não justificaria a escolha de seu nome para orador da festa. Ao que tudo indica, o livro não teve grande repercussão. Foi, possivelmente, um texto de juventude e de pouca importância em sua trajetória bibliográfica. Na biografia de Nabuco, escrita por Angela Alonso, na qual a autora faz uma extensa e minuciosa indicação dos textos escritos por ele, nem consta essa referência. Ver: ALONSO, Ângela. Indicações Bibliográficas. In: Joaquim Nabuco São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2007. p.343-352.
• É possível, portanto, supor que tenha sido a posição política ocupada por Joaquim Nabuco em 1880 o que justificou a sua escolha para orador da festa. No período transcorrido entre a escrita do livro sobre Camões (1872) e a realização da festa (1880), Joaquim Nabuco tinha passado de jovem filho de um importante político do Império a indivíduo com trajetória política em ascensão. Em seu livro, Alonso destaca a atuação de Joaquim Nabuco na Câmara durante o primeiro semestre de 1880 momento de preparação para a festa do tricentenário de Camões, que se realizaria em junho daquele ano. Segundo essa autora, entre outras questões, naquele momento, Nabuco ocupou-se da discussão do orçamento da agricultura, da reforma de ensino, e "propôs moção para incluir a Câmara nas comemorações do terceiro centenário de Camões". Ver: ALONSO, , 2007, p.102. Embora esse período da trajetória de Joaquim Nabuco seja pouco tratado pela bibliografia especializada em sua biografia, é importante consultar: BEIGUELMAN, Paula. Joaquim Nabuco. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1999;
• SALLES, Ricardo. Joaquim Nabuco: um pensador do Império. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2002;
• MARSON, I. Política, história e método em Joaquim Nabuco: tessitura da revolução e da escravidão. Uberlândia (MG): Ed. UFU, 2008;
• e ALENCAR, J. A.; PESSOA, A. Joaquim Nabuco: o dever da política. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Casa de Rui Barbosa, 2002.
• 16 É importante destacar que a questão das polêmicas geradas no seio da colônia portuguesa foi destaque apenas no Jornal do Commercio Outros jornais que também noticiavam a festa, como, por exemplo, a Gazeta de Notícias, não se referiam aos conflitos entre os portugueses. Sobre essa questão, ver: VENANCIO, Giselle Martins. Uma festa luso-brasileira? As comemorações do tricentenário de morte de Camões no Rio de Janeiro em 1880. In: GUIMARÃES, Lucia; SARMENTO, Cristina (Org.). Culturas cruzadas em português II Lisboa: Almedina, 2012.
• 19 Todas as citações do discurso de Nabuco se encontram em: NABUCO, Joaquim. Camões: discurso pronunciado em 10 de junho de 1880 por parte do Gabinete Português de Leitura. Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Nacional, 1980.
• 20 Noção desenvolvida por Eliana Dutra num texto intitulado Laços Fraternos Com base nessa ideia, acredita-se, fundamentalmente, que o desejo de permanência de uma comunidade cultural luso-brasileira materializou-se, entre outras formas, pela criação e edição em Portugal e pela circulação nos dois lados do Atlântico de objetos impressos (almanaques, periódicos, livros e coleções) que se autodefiniam como destinados a 'portugueses e brasileiros', bem como no intercâmbio de ideias e projetos editoriais e intelectuais desenvolvidos por literatos, historiadores, jornalistas, em suma, pelos homens de letras de ambos os países. Ver sobre o tema: DUTRA, Eliana Regina. Laços Fraternos. Revista do Arquivo Público Mineiro, Belo Horizonte, v.1, p.116-127, dez. 2005;
• e NUNES, Maria de Fátima; MIRANDA, Paula. Imagens do Brasil na cultura portuguesa (1880-1900). In: CONGRESSO LUSO-BRASILEIRO: PORTUGAL E BRASIL. MEMÓRIAS E IMAGINÁRIO. Actas... Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, v.1, fasc., p.697-703, 1999.
• 21 CASTRO, Zília Osório de. Do carisma do Atlântico ao sonho da Atlântida. In: GUIMARÃES, Lucia (Org.). Afinidades Atlânticas: impasses, quimeras e confluências nas relações luso-brasileiras. Rio de Janeiro: Quartet, 2009. p.61
• 22 DETIENNE, Marcel. L'identité nationale, une énigme Paris: Gallimard, 2010. p.18.
• 23 Aqui fazemos referência explícita ao título do livro de SUMMER, Dóris. Ficções de fundação: os romances nacionais na América Latina. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2004.
• 25 Observação semelhante é feita por Gisella Amorim Serrano ao tratar da chamada 'política do espírito' posta em prática em Portugal durante o governo Salazar. Ver: SERRANO, Gisella de Amorim. Caravelas de papel: a política editorial do Acordo Cultural de 1941 e o pan-lusitanismo (1941-1949). Tese (Doutorado em História) UFMG. Belo Horizonte, 2009. p.26.
• 26 GUIMARÃES, M. S. Nação e civilização nos trópicos: o Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro e o projeto de uma história nacional. Estudos Históricos, Rio de Janeiro: Vértice, v.1, p.5-27, 1988.
• 28 Sobre a noção de sentimento de pertencimento, ver: NOIRIEL, G. Le lien national comme lien social: à propos du sentiment d'appartennance. In: _______. État, nation et immigration Paris: Gallimard, 2001. p.198-205.

1

SANDMANN, Marcelo Corrêa. As comemorações do tricentenário de Camões no Brasil.

Revista Letras, Curitiba: Ed. UFPR, n.59, jan.-jun. 2003, p.200.

2

See: CATÁLOGO da exposição camoneana realizada pela Bibliotheca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro a 10 de junho de 1880 por occasião do centenario de Camões. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional, 1880.

3

OLIVEIRA, Lucia Lippi. As festas que a República manda guardar.

Estudos Históricos, Rio de Janeiro, v.2, n.4, 1989. p.175.

4

There is an important text by Lilia Schwarcz analyzing commemorations in the Empire. However, since she is dealing with aspects more associated with commemorations with a popular nature, she looks at questions distinct from those mentioned here. See: SCHWARCZ, Lilia. O império das festas e as festas do Império. In:

As barbas do Imperador. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998. (2.ed.).

5

RAMOS, Maria Bernadete; SERPA, Élio; PAULO, Heloisa (Org.).

O beijo através do Atlântico: o lugar do Brasil no panlusitanismo. Chapecó (RS): Argos, 2001. p.17.

6

BURGUIÈRE, André. Histoire d'une histoire: la naissance des Annales.

Annales Économies, sociétés, civilisations, v.34, n.6, 1979. p.1347.

7

All the citations about the commemorations of the tercentenary of Camões in Portugal are from JOÃO, Maria Isabel.

Memória e Império: comemorações em Portugal (1880-1960). Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002.

8

RIBEIRO, Fernando Bessa. A invenção dos heróis: nação, história e discursos de identidade em Moçambique.

Etnográfica, v.IX, n.2, 2005. p.258. Available at:

ceas.iscte.pt/etnografica/docs/vol_09/N2/Vol_ix_N2_FBessaRibeiro.pdf; Accessed on: 30 Sept. 2010.

9

MARTINS, Oliveira.

Camões, Os Lusíadas e a Renascença em Portugal. Lisboa, 1986, apud JOÃO, 2002, p.525.

10

JOÃO, Maria Isabel. Percursos da memória: centenários portugueses no século XIX.

Camões. Revista de Letras e Culturas lusófonas, n.8, jan.-mar. 2000. Available at:

www.instituto-camoes.pt/revista/percursmemo.htm; Accessed on: 30 Sept. 2010.

11

CATROGA, Fernando.

Nação, mito e rito. Religião civil e comemoracionismo. Fortaleza: Ed. do Nudoc/UFC, Museu do Ceará, 2005. p.127.

12

ENDERS, Armelle. O "Plutarco Brasileiro", a produção dos vultos nacionais no Segundo Reinado.

Estudos Históricos, v.14, n.25, 2000. p.41.

13

Anti-Lusitanism in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth has been studied by a wide range of authors, including Raimundo Magalhães Junior, who in his book

O Império em chinelos highlighted the anti-Portuguese feeling evidenced by insults such as '

Galego' and '

seaman,' frequently cited in the local newspapers. In relation to this question, see: MAGALHÃES JUNIOR, Raimundo.

O Império em chinelos. Rio de Janeiro: s.n., 1957; TRICHES, Roberta Pedroso. A labareda da discórdia: o antilusitanismo na imprensa carioca. Available at:

www.achegas.net, no.36; Accessed on: 5 Dec. 2008; RIBEIRO, Gladys Sabina.

"Cabras" e "pés-de-chumbo": os rolos do tempo. O antilusitanismo na cidade do Rio de Janeiro (1890-1930). Niterói: Ed. UFF, 1987; RIBEIRO, Gladys Sabina.

Mata Galegos: os portugueses e os conflitos de trabalho na República Velha. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1990.

14

NABUCO, Joaquim.

Camões e os Lusíadas. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Imperial do Instituto Artístico, 1872.

15

Certainly the fact that Nabuco had published this book about Camões did not justify his choice as the orator of the commemorations. From what it appears, the book did not have a great impact. It was possibly a text from his youth and of little importance in his bibliographic trajectory. In Nabuco's biography written by Angela Alonso, in which the author presents an extensive and meticulous list of the texts written by him, there is no reference to it. See: ALONSO, Ângela. Indicações Bibliográficas. In:

Joaquim Nabuco. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2007. p.343-352. It is, therefore, possible to suppose that it was the political position held by Joaquim Nabuco in 1880 which justified his choice as orator. In the period between the writing of the book about Camões (1872) and the holding of the festivities (1880), Joaquim Nabuco had grown from being the young son of an important politician in the Empire to an individual with a rising political trajectory. In her book, Alonso highlights the actions of Joaquim Nabuco in the Chamber of Deputies in the first half of 1880 - the time when the festivities for the tercentenary of Camões, which would be held in June of that year, were being prepared. According to her, amongst other questions, at that point Nabuco was occupied with the discussion of the agricultural budget, the reform of education, and "proposed a motion to include the Chamber of Deputies in the commemorations of the third centenary of Camões". See: ALONSO, 2007, p.102. Although this period in the trajectory of Joaquim Nabuco has been little dealt with in the specialized bibliography, it is important to consult: BEIGUELMAN, Paula.

Joaquim Nabuco. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1999; SALLES, Ricardo.

Joaquim Nabuco: um pensador do Império. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2002; MARSON, I.

Política, história e método em Joaquim Nabuco: tessitura da revolução e da escravidão. Uberlândia (MG): Ed. UFU, 2008; and ALENCAR, J. A.; PESSOA, A.

Joaquim Nabuco: o dever da política. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Casa de Rui Barbosa, 2002.

16

It is important to highlight that the question of the controversies within the heart of the Portuguese colony was only reported in

Jornal do Commercio. Other newspapers which also reported on the festivities, such as

Gazeta de Notícias, did not refer to the conflicts among the Portuguese. In relation to this, see: VENANCIO, Giselle Martins. Uma festa luso-brasileira? As comemorações do tricentenário de morte de Camões no Rio de Janeiro em 1880. In: GUIMARÃES, Lucia; SARMENTO, Cristina (Org.).

Culturas cruzadas em português II. Lisboa: Almedina, 2012.

17

The collection of correspondence acknowledging the invitations from the

Gabinete Português de Leitura can be consulted in the digital archive available at the RGPL site:

www.realgabinete.com.br/.

18

Maria Isabel João states that there were around 3000 people there. See: JOÃO, 2000.

19

All the citations from Nabuco's speech can be found in: NABUCO, Joaquim.

Camões: discurso pronunciado em 10 de junho de 1880 por parte do Gabinete Português de Leitura. Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Nacional, 1980.

20

A concept developed by Eliana Dutra in a text entitled

Laços Fraternos. Based on this idea, it is believed that the desire for the permanence of the Luso-Brazilian cultural community was materialized, amongst other forms, in the creation and publication - in Portugal - and the circulation - on both sides of the Atlantic - of printed objects (almanaques, periodicals, books and collections) which defined themselves as being aimed at 'Portuguese and Brazilians,' as well as in the exchange of ideas and editorial and intellectual projects among literati, historians, journalists, in short in the men of letters from both countries. In relation to this, see: DUTRA, Eliana Regina. Laços Fraternos.

Revista do Arquivo Público Mineiro, Belo Horizonte, v.1, p.116-127, dez. 2005; e NUNES, Maria de Fátima; MIRANDA, Paula. Imagens do Brasil na cultura portuguesa (1880-1900). In: CONGRESSO LUSO-BRASILEIRO: PORTUGAL E BRASIL. MEMÓRIAS E IMAGINÁRIO.

Actas... Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, v.1, fasc., p.697-703, 1999.

21

CASTRO, Zília Osório de. Do carisma do Atlântico ao sonho da Atlântida. In: GUIMARÃES, Lucia (Org.).

Afinidades Atlânticas: impasses, quimeras e confluências nas relações luso-brasileiras. Rio de Janeiro: Quartet, 2009. p.61

22

DETIENNE, Marcel.

L'identité nationale, une énigme. Paris: Gallimard, 2010. p.18.

23

Here we are making an explicit reference to the title of the book of SUMMER, Dóris.

Ficções de fundação: os romances nacionais na América Latina. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2004.

24

SILVA, Maximiano de Carvalho. Joaquim Nabuco e as comemorações camonianas. In: NABUCO, 1980, p.9.

25

A similar observation was made by Gisella Amorim Serrano in dealing with the so-called 'politics of spirit' put into practice in Portugal during the Salazar regime. See: SERRANO, Gisella de Amorim.

Caravelas de papel: a política editorial do Acordo Cultural de 1941 e o pan-lusitanismo (1941-1949).Doctoral Dissertation in History - UFMG. Belo Horizonte, 2009. p.26.

26

GUIMARÃES, M. S. Nação e civilização nos trópicos: o Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro e o projeto de uma história nacional.

Estudos Históricos, Rio de Janeiro: Vértice, v.1, p.5-27, 1988.

27

O Positivismo.

Revista de Philosophia. Porto, v.II, p.513, 1880, apud JOÃO, 2002, p.217.

28

In relation to the concept of belonging, see: NOIRIEL, G. Le lien national comme lien social: à propos du sentiment d'appartennance. In: _______.

État, nation et immigration. Paris: Gallimard, 2001. p.198-205.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  16 July 2013
• Date of issue
  2013

History

• Received
  31 Mar 2011
• Accepted
  02 Feb 2012