Republican crime and citizen restoration in the canudos war

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Published: Jan 30, 2025
Keywords:
Canudos, war, archive, crime

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Juan Recchia Páez
Institute for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences (IdIHCS), National University of La Plata (UNLP), National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7210-8393

Abstract

This article reviews the archive of the Canudos war to make visible the textual operations through which subjects erased from history disputed interpretations of the war that took place in the interior of Bahia (Brazil) between 1896 and 1897. In particular, I will address the notion of “crime” developed by two Bahian texts on the war: the Histórico e Relatorio do Comitê Patriótico da Bahia (1901) edited by Lelis Piedade and the Descripção de uma viagem a Canudos (1899) by Alvim Martins Horcades. These texts combine descriptive and argumentative elements that point out the impact of the written word in the restoration of social order after the end of the war in the arraial. In both documents one can see an ambiguous oscillation between the civic claim of the jagunço and the universalist condemnation of the atrocities of the war in the name of Charity and the Fatherland. The texts analyzed are clear examples of how the writing of history becomes a performative work on the event and these dissidences disturb the Manichean logic between victors (republicans) and vanquished (sertanejos) typical of the official textuality of the Canudos war.

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How to Cite
Recchia Páez, J. (2025). Republican crime and citizen restoration in the canudos war. Memorias Disidentes. Revista De Estudios críticos Del Patrimonio, Archivos Y Memorias, 2(3), 189-211. Retrieved from https://ojs.unsj.edu.ar/index.php/Mdis/article/view/Crimenrepublicano.JuanRecchia.MD%2Cenero2025
ARK
http://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s30087716/pajkrugcd
Issue
Vol 2 No 3 (2025): Elusive Archives, Dissident Bodies, Elusive Patrimonies and Devastated Territories
Section
Sección Académica
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Author Biography

Juan Recchia Páez, Institute for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences (IdIHCS), National University of La Plata (UNLP), National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET)

He holds a PhD in Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of the National University of La Plata (FAHCE-UNLP), where he works as a professor in the Latin American Literature I department. He obtained a Master’s degree in Latin American Literature from the National University of San Martín (UNSAM), and a Diploma from the Brazilian Culture Program at the University of San Andrés (UDESA). He works as a Doctoral Researcher for the international program Maria Sibylla Merian Center Conviviality-Inequality In Latin America (MECILA). He is a postdoctoral student at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina, with a scholarship on The Canudos War in Brazilian cordel literature from 1897 to the present. Popular Versions and Rewritings of Official History and, as a postdoctoral student, he is completing the Postgraduate Program in Cultural Criticism (Pós-Crítica) of the Department of Linguistics, Literature and Arts, Campus II of the State University of Bahia (UNEB). His postgraduate research is dedicated to the study of Brazilian literature and cultures with a Latin Americanist focus, in the research of discursive and literary archives from the end of the 19th century. He has been awarded an honorable mention in the 10th International Prize "Dr. Leopoldo Zea" for the best postgraduate thesis on Latin America or the Caribbean (CIALC-UNAM). He is currently director of the journal Transas, letras y artes de América Latina (UNSAM).

References

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Periódicos internacionales consultados

Aberdeen Herald (11 de noviembre de 1897) A knife for Moraes.

The New York Times (6 de noviembre de 1988) Brazillian plotters punished. Five would be assassins of the President Sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.