Gustavo Barroso | |
|---|---|
 Barroso in 1958 | |
| Born | (1888-12-29)December 29, 1888 Fortaleza, Ceará,Empire of Brazil |
| Died | December 3, 1959(1959-12-03) (aged 70) Rio de Janeiro,Federal District, Brazil |
| Alma mater | Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Faculty of Law |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, professor, politician, museologist, chronicler, essayist, novelist, translator |
| Notable work | Brasil, Colônia de Banqueiros |
| Political party | Brazilian Integralist Action |
| Signature | |
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Gustavo Adolfo Luiz Dodt da Cunha Barroso (December 29, 1888 – December 3, 1959[1]) was a Brazilianantisemite lawyer, historian, writer and politician associated withBrazilian Integralism.[2] He was also known by the pseudonym João do Norte.[3] Being considered a master ofBrazilian folklore,[4] he was the first director of theNational Historical Museum and one of the leaders of theBrazilian Integralist Action, being one of its most prominent ideologists.
He is considered the most anti-Semitic Brazilian intellectual,[5] whose ideas were close to those of Nazi theorists.[6][7]
A significant portion of the historiography emphasizes that Barroso’s antisemitism was framed not in racial terms, but as a moral concern.[8]
There also scholars who affirm that he manifests traditionalcatholic forms of antisemitism.[9]
Barroso explicitly rejected racial interpretations.[10][11] He positioned himself as ananti-racist writer fighting what he viewed as jewish racism.[11]
Barroso was born inFortaleza, son of Antônio Filinto Barroso and Ana Dodt Barroso, he studied at day schools São José, Partenon Cearense and Liceu do Ceará. He studied at the Faculty of Law of Ceará linked to theFederal University of Ceará (UFC), graduating in 1911 from the Faculty of Law of Rio de Janeiro, currently the National Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He was half German by birth, his mother coming fromWürttemberg.[12]
Barroso made his name as a journalist and was for a time involved with thesocialist ClubeMaximo Gorki.[1] However his politics became more conservative after he secured his law degree inRio de Janeiro in 1910.
He soon became an important figure inCeará state, serving variously as Secretary of the Interior and Justice, and being elected a Representative in the National Congress. He even formed part of the Brazilian delegation to theParis Peace Conference of 1919.[1] He would later rise to hold such positions as president of theAcademia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters) and secretary-general of the International Committee of Legal Advisers.[1]
In 1933, Barroso joined the Brazilian Integralist Action, which hadfascist characteristics. He soon became the head of the extreme anti-Jewish faction within the Brazilian Integralist Action.[1] Noted for his hard-lineantisemitism, he took charge of theBrazilian Integralist Action Militia from 1934 to 1936 before being appointed to the party's Supreme Council. An extensive writer, his polemical works at this time included many anti-semitic books and newspaper articles inFon-Fon andSéculo XX magazines.[1]
Political differences caused Barroso to be regarded as dangerous by the more constitutionally mindedIntegralista party's leader,Plínio Salgado, who suspended him from collaborating for six months with the party's newspaper,A Ofensiva.[1] However Barroso continued to pursue his antisemitic ideals, translatingThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion intoPortuguese and even suggesting setting upconcentration camps.[1]
Following the formation of theEstado Novo dictatorship ofGetúlio Vargas (1938–1945), Barroso was arrested in 1938 after theBrazilian Integralist Action attempted a violentcoup d´etat.[1] However Barroso was never tried due to a lack of evidence of his involvement in the attemptedcoup. He subsequently left political activism and became largely accepting ofGetúlio Vargas later constitutional government (1951–1954), serving as a special ambassador toUruguay (1952) andPeru (1954). He died inRio de Janeiro, aged 70.
He was mentioned as a relevant intellectual in a publication that lists extreme-right activists from the whole world.[1] A museum inFortaleza, his home town, theMuseu Gustavo Barroso, bears his name.[13]
A keenFolklorist, Barroso built up a collection of exhibits relating to Brazil's past at the National Historical Museum (Portuguese:Museu Histórico Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro and produced around 50 non-political books including historical and regional novels, folklore studies and biographies of Brazilian national military heroes such asGeneral Osório andAdmiral Tamandaré.[14]
As a novelist, he produced the work "Terra do Sol" (1912), which demonstrated his admiration for the people of northeastern Brazil's rural areas.[1] Barroso was often linked with theneorealist school ofBrazilian literature, although he differed from the neorealism typified by the likes ofErico Verissimo, Amando Fontes and Telmo Vergara by his emphasis on rural rather than urban settings.[15] Barroso belonged to the regionalist documentary strand of Brazilian neorealism, although, along with Mário Sete, he rejected the inherentmodernism in the works of contemporaries in the genre such as Jorge Luis de Rêgo andJorge Amado.[16]
He also published a few works onLampião, besides the aforementioned "Terra do Sol", also "Herois e Bandidos" (1917) and "Alma de Lama e de Aço"(1928).[3]
As a political writer, his polemical works when joined to the Brazilian Integralist Action included "O Liceu do Ceará", "Brasil: Colônia de Banqueiros" and "História Secreta do Brasil". He also translatedThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion intoPortuguese.[1][17]
As Brazil had relatively few Jews by then, Barroso's anti-semitic writings tended to focus on the internationalconspiracy theory of Jewish world control, as espoused notably in his book "The Paulista Synagogue".[18]
