Fighting for Home Abroad: Remembrance and Oblivion of World War II in Brazil Pubblico
Rosenheck, Uri (2011)
Published
Abstract
Fighting for Home Abroad:Remembrance and Oblivion of World War II in Brazil
Four and a half centuries after Europeans first set foot on the
South American
continent, it was the Brazilians' turn to explore, wage war and
conquer European soil as
Allies in the Italian Campaign during the Second World War. The
arrival of the 25,000-
strong Brazilian Expeditionary Force ( Força
expedicionária brasileira- FEB) was a
unique episode in Brazilian and Latin American history. Brazilians
interpreted this
inverted encounter between the New World and the Old in several
ways, and they
assigned it diverse meanings.
Fighting for Home Abroad: Remembrance and Oblivion of World
War II in Brazil
explores how Brazilians negotiated their past, and while doing so,
how they understood
what it meant to be Brazilian. Despite the scholarly claim that
Brazilians forgot the FEB,
I demonstrate how heavily they commemorated it, and how their
memories of it changed
over time. I argue that Brazilian communities of memory interpreted
the FEB in three
principal ways. First, they viewed the FEB as a symbol of
democracy, civic spirit and
liberal virtues. Second, they promoted the FEB as the embodiment of
military valor
unifying the armed forces and as the bearer of democracy,
understood as the opposition
to communism. Third, they questioned the military establishment and
saw it as
victimizing the soldiers, and by doing so, blackened the reputation
of the military regime
that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. Despite the constant
presence of each of these
interpretations, each predominated in a different period according
to the political setting.
The competing meanings surrounding the FEB also reflect debates
about
Brazilian national identity. In order to promote their perception
of the past, Brazilian
agents of memory offered different models of what it meant to be a
Brazilian. The main
vehicle for articulating national identity was through expressions
of pride and the claim
for the existence of a "racial democracy" and, conversely,
criticism of Brazil's racial
relations.
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Progressing to Take Order Down 16
The Brazilian Road to World War II 17
The Creation of the FEB 29
Toward the Baptism of Fire 41
War 44
The Homecoming 54
Chapter 2: Writing the Past, Narrating the Present: Memoirs, Memory
and War Stories 67
What Is a War Memoir? 69
Individual Memory and Society 79
The Claim for Legitimacy, or Who Can Write a Personal Memoir of the
FEB 83
The Meaning of the First Person Plural, or Who Are "We"? 89
Whose Civilization Is It? Tourism and the Boundaries of Brazilian
Culture 101
Tourism, the "Other," and the Affirmation of Brazilian Identity
107
Explicit and Implicit Criticism, or What Veterans Are Allowed to
Say 111
The Memoir in the Eye of the Beholder 119
Chapter 3: Commemoration without Remembrance: FEB Monuments in Time
and Space 130
Number and Dispersion 132
The Geography of Memory 136
Shape and Form 145
(Lack of) Christian Iconography and Ethnicity 152
Inscriptions, Identities and Values (or Who Fought for What?)
158
Reinterpretation, Militarization and Resistance 161
Memory, Oblivion and Interpretation 172
Chapter 4: The Other War Illustrated: Comics, Criticism, and
Generational Shifts 183
Comics in Brazil and Brazilian Comics 184
War Stories in the Comics 189
The Sample 192
FEB Comics' Readers 195
Two Waves of FEB comics in Brazil 198
True and Fictional Stories 203
On Bravery and Heroes 206
Anti-militaristic Attitudes 213
On Commanders 218
Fighting "Superman" 224
Racial National Identity 227
Chapter 5: Collectable Memories of War: Narratives of Pastime
236
Brazilian Stamps as an Historical Source 239
The FEB in Brazilian Stamps 247
The FEB for Clean Consumers 264
Conclusion 279
Appendices 289
Appendix A: Personal Narratives of the FEB (By Date of First
Publication) 289
Appendix B: Estampas Eucalol 291
Sources 293
Archives 293
Private Archives and Collections 293
Newspapers and Periodicals 293
Comic Magazines 294
Audio Visual Sources 294
Interviews 294
Works Cited 294
About this Dissertation
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