The book "The Sertões" in Euclid da Cunha, is a work considered remarkable that portrays the reality of Brazil at the time, especially the memories of the straw war, a fact that happened in the interior of Bahia. The author of the work, Euclides, sent as a correspondent for Folha de S. Paulo, experienced this scenario in the year 1897, this scenario of the conflict of war, the clash was reported as follows: "clash between "wild" sertanejos, religious fanatics and anti-republicans.” After experiencing all this reality, Euclides began to write pieces of everything he witnessed, creating the work, which was published for the first time in the year of 1902.
The book is considered grand and peculiar, with a geographical literary narrative, forming a historical novel, mixed with a mix of war reporting and documentary-historical, a work that helps to understand the Brazil of yesterday and the Brazil we experience today, focused on man, the land and the imminent struggle, and the biggest denunciation of the greatest massacres ever to take place in the Brazil.
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Euclides da Cunha's Sertões – Book Cover (1902)
The book can be divided into 3 Parts: The Earth, The Man and the Fight, is a work considered extensive and well detailed by the author, with more than 630 pages.
In the first part of the book, that is, in the first part, The land, which is divided into 5 chapters, is a geographical study, Euclides describes in great detail the entire scenario that was seen during his stay in this region, for example the Brazilian hinterland, extolling the landscapes such as flora, reliefs, and the very arid climate, that is, of hot temperature, and desert, addressing the characteristics of the inhabitants who lived there, their living conditions, the sertanejo, the jagunço, a scenario of great exploitation of man for several years, that is, a region that was completely geographically and temporally separated from the others regions of the country.
In the second part of the book, The man, part that portrays the anthropological and sociological study of man, the author is already beginning to understand and describe the characteristics of the sertanejo, jagunço and cangaceiro, shows the relationship of these people with the environment in which they live as behavior, religiosity, customs of daily life, thoughts, paying attention mainly to the leader of Canudos, called Antonio Conselheiro, seeking to understand his main goals. At the time of this second part, Euclides also addresses important themes for his work, such as determinism the racial historian Frances Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893), this part of the book is also divided into 5 chapters. extensive.
In the third part of the work, The fight, depicts the four expeditions to straws carried out by the national army, portraying a scenario that could only be reported through the experience carried out by Euclides, a reality of hunger, misery, plague, violence and the madness of war, among the sertanejos, considered villains by the national army of Brazil, commanded to end the Arraial de Canudos, which had approximately 20 thousand inhabitants. This part of the book is of paramount importance, as it relates the war that devastated a large part of the population Northeast, a study that is considered historiographical, is the largest part of the entire work, divided into 34 chapters.
Unfortunately the war did not have a happy ending, Arraial de Canudos was destroyed.
The author throughout the course of his work portrays the absurdity of the then massacre that began for a reason even considered “silly” by part of the writer, all due to the fact that Antonio Conselheiro, only complained about the stock of wood that was not delivered to the workers, and it was because of this dilemma that a greater conflict and even national paranoia arose that the “monarchists” with straws had character support. external.
And in the end it turned out to be one of the biggest massacres in history ever, everyone in the scene involved in the mess was wrong, but of course the rope snapped to the weaker side.
Sertões is considered the first Brazilian reporting book, Euclides lived for 2 months several stories and events, and created this fantastic work, we cannot fail to mention that it followed deterministic philosophical thoughts, that is, the environment and race determine the individual, and positivist, ideas of morals and progress, these thoughts influenced a lot in every description made about the inhabitants and the relationship with the earth.
Os sertões is considered a work ahead of its time, a work that denounced the national army and the republic.
"THE LAND"
´”The structural conditions of the land there were linked to the maximum violence of external agents for the design of stupendous reliefs. The torrential regime of excessive climates, coming suddenly, after prolonged sunstroke, and hitting those inclinations, exposed long ago, snatching away all of them. the degraded elements, the oldest series of those last mountain shoots: all the crystalline varieties, and the rough quartzites, and the filaments and limestones, taking turns or intertwining, retorting harshly at each step, barely covered by a damp flora - arranging themselves in scenarios in which the tormented aspect predominates of the landscapes.”
"THE MAN"
“II. Genesis of the jagunços; likely collaterals from São Paulo. Historical function of the river S. Francisco. The cowboy, mediator between the bandeirante and the priest. Jesuit foundations in Bahia. An annoying parenthesis. Favorable causes for the mestizo formation of the sertões, distinguishing it from crossings on the coast. A strong race.
III. The countryman. Dissimilar types: the jagunço and the gaucho. Cowboys. Unconscious servitude; primitive life. The vaquejada and the arribada. Traditions. The drought. Insulation in the desert. Mestizo religion: its historical factors. Variable character of sertanejo religiosity: Pedra Bonita and Monte Santo. Current missions.
IV. Antônio Conselheiro, living document of atavism. A blunt Gnostic. Great man inside out, natural representative of the environment in which he was born. Family Background: Maciéis. A well-sponsored life. First setbacks; and the fall. How to make a monster. Pilgrimages and martyrdoms. Legends. The sermons. Montanist precepts. Prophecies. A 2nd century heresiarch in the middle of the modern age. Attempted cool reaction. Hegira to the hinterland.”
"THE FIGHT"
“Proximate causes of the fight determined it a hopeless incident. Antônio Conselheiro had acquired a certain quantity of wood in Juazeiro, which the poor scrubland of Canudos could not supply him. He had contracted the deal with one of the representatives of that city's authority. But at the end of the deadline set for receiving the material, which would apply to the finishing of the new church, they didn't deliver it. Everything denounces that the rescission was made, aiming at the desired break.”
“The crowd approached, it seems, until they edged the line of forward sentries. And awakened them. The stars, startled, startled, fired their rifles aimlessly and rushed back. to the square that was to the rear, leaving a companion in the possession of the aggressors, do. Then came the alarm: running dizzily through the square and the streets; leaving, half naked, through the doors; jumping through windows; dressing and arming themselves to careers and encounters… They didn't graduate. It barely stretched out in a hurry, led by a sergeant, incorrect line of snipers. Because the jagunços arrived there soon, surrounded by the fugitives. And the confrontation was brutally engaged, arm to arm, opponents entangled between gunfire and revolvers, blows with clubs and butts, clashes of machetes and sabers — ahead, over the fragile line of defense. This one gave in soon. And the fanatical mob, amid cheers for Bom Jesus and the Counselor, and shrill whistles of bamboo whistles, unfolded, waving, the banner of the Divine, raised to the air the saints and the arms, following after the audacious curiboca that carried the great wooden cross half bent over on a ram — it crossed the square ecstatically..."
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