Bernardo Kucinski

Bernardo Kucinski , (* 1937 in São Paulo ), is a Brazilian journalist and was Professor of International Journalism at the University of São Paulo ( Universidade de São Paulo , USP) and an author until 2012 . During the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985) Kucinski went into exile in London, where he worked for the BBC, among others. He returned to Brazil in 1974 after his sister Ana Rosa Kucinski was abducted by the security forces in 1974 and is henceforth missing. In the first legislative period of the left ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2002-2006) from the left party of workers, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), Kucinski was his personal advisor on press issues. Bernardo Kucinski has been involved in the PT since it was founded in 1980.

origin

Bernardo Kucinski comes from a Jewish-Polish family. His father, Meier (Majer) Kucinski was born in 1904 in Włocławek, Poland , which was then part of the Russian Empire. He became politically active at a young age and spent two years in prison in Poland in the 1930s for subversive activities and the founding of the Marxist-Zionist organization Poalei Zion . He was released on condition that he leave the country and went into exile in São Paulo in 1933. Bernardo Kucinski's mother, Esther Kucinski, followed two years later in 1935. Most of the father's family survived the Holocaust by fleeing. His parents and seven of the nine brothers moved to São Paulo one after the other. The mother's family, the Mayerczacs, in turn, were almost completely murdered in the German extermination camps. Only his cousin Bennik, who fought in the Red Army, and his aunt Hanna Mayerczak survived and then moved to Israel.

Childhood and youth in São Paulo

Kucinski grew up in the north of São Paulo, away from the districts traditionally inhabited by Jews, such as the Bom Retiro in the center. His father had a clothing store where B. Kucinski occasionally helped out at a young age. Kucinski's upbringing was not religious. Instead, from the age of 12 he took part in meetings of the Dror , a Zionist-socialist youth organization, and became more and more familiar with the Hebrew language.

Israel and Life in the Kibbutz (1959–1961)

After graduating from high school, Kucinski went to Israel with friends in 1959 at the age of 21. There they were housed in Kibbutz Erez in southwest Israel and mainly worked in agriculture. Not even two years later, however, he returned to São Paulo because his mother had cancer and the family needed his support. The mother died that same year. Today, Kucinski reports how the family fell silent and the father turned increasingly to the Yiddish language and culture. He organized meetings of Yiddish-speaking writers and earned a reputation as an outstanding critic of Yiddish literature. According to the son in an interview, there was a particular irony in this. "He cared more about a dead language than about living people."

Engagement and Exile (1961–1974)

After his mother's death in 1961, Bernardo Kucinski began studying physics at the University of São Paulo and was involved in the student movement. At the beginning of the military dictatorship (1964–1985) he was arrested during a strike because of unpaid wages in a metalworking factory, where he worked as an industrial draftsman, and spent a day in the cells of the security police, the "Departamento de Ordem Política e Social" ( DOPS). At that time, Kucinski was already writing for newspapers. In the course of his collaboration on two courageous reports for the magazine “VEJA” about torture sites of the military regime, Kucinski was forced to leave the country due to the increasing pressure. In 1970 he went into exile with his wife in London. There he worked for the BBC, the “Latin America Newsletter” published in London and for several Brazilian newspapers.

Caesura: End of Exile and the Murder of Kucinski's Sister (1974)

Today in Brazil, Kucinski is not only considered a critical journalist and media specialist. Rather, he is an important voice for the members of the " Desaparecidos " - people who were captured or abducted during the time of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985) and have been missing since then. This was the fate that befell Kucinski's sister Ana Rosa Kucinski Silva. At the end of the 1960s, she joined a resistance group, the Açao Libertadora Nacional (National Liberation Action ), was arrested in 1974 and has been missing since then. Through his father's sudden visit to London in 1974, Kucinski learned of his sister's disappearance. In the same year he returned from exile. The family's search for Ana Rosa Kucinski yielded only one clue. In the archives of the São Paulo Special Police (DOPS), only the file note "arrested on April 22, 1974 in SP" was found.

It was not until May 2012 that the confession of a retired officer, published in a report, caused a sensation. In it, the former military announced that the body of Ana Rosa Kucinski had been burned together with ten others in the oven of a sugar cane distillery. In 2011, Kucinski wrote the award-winning novel K. about his father's search for his sister .

After 1974 - Living for Journalism

After his return from exile in England in 1974, Kucinski wrote from then on as a correspondent for the British newspapers The Guardian , Euromoney and Latin America Political Report as well as for the Lagniappe Letter, which appears in New York . He also worked in the editorial department of the Brazilian newspaper Ciência Hoje . At this time he was building a reputation as a contentious journalist. In 1986 he took on a teaching position at the USP and was awarded a doctorate in 1991 for his scientific work on the alternative press in Brazil between 1964 and 1980. At USP he was a lecturer in journalism until 2012. For his work “Jornalismo Econômico” (“Business Journalism” , published in 1996), he was awarded the most important Brazilian literary prize, the “ Prêmio Jabuti ”, in the economics and law category in 1997 .

For the Brazilian Workers' Party, PT, in which Kucinski has been involved since it was founded in 1980, he was partly responsible for its nationwide newsletter. Since the beginning of the election campaign for the presidency in 1998, Kucinski has been working on daily press assessments and recommendations for dealing with the media on behalf of the left candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). In the book publication "Cartas Ácidas da Campanha do Lula de 1998" (for example: "Snappy letters from Lula's election campaign in 1998"), he brought out an insight into the world of power and the media with an already critical distance from politics. Lula's victory in 2002 made Kucinski his special state secretary for social communication (Comunicação Social). As a result of political divergence, Kucinski left this post in 2006 and returned fully to the university, where he taught until 2012. Today he is considered one of the most experienced and most respected journalists in Brazil.

2011 - debut novel "K."

His debut novel K. in October 2011 attracted worldwide attention and high recognition . In this strongly family-biographical novel, he tells the story of the Jewish immigrant K, who came from Poland and who went to Brazil in 1974 in search of his missing daughter. However, he can only find out that she belonged to an underground militant movement in the fight against the military dictatorship and was arrested. As an award for this work, Kucinski received the special mention of the jury in November 2012 at the award ceremony of the “Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura”, which is outstanding in the Portuguese-speaking world - a category that was set up for Kucinski's K .. Prior to that, Kucinski was among the four finalists in the Prêmio São Paulo de Literatura in September in the category “Best Book of the Year - Novel Debut” and was awarded 2nd place and Special Mention at the Concurso Internacional de Literatura 2012 of the Brazilian Writers' Association in the Novel category honored by the jury. The second edition of the novel followed in March 2012, the third edition in September 2013; an English and a Spanish version appeared in early 2013, the German version in August 2013 by Transit Buchverlag .

Publications

Publications in Brazil

• Fome de Lucros , São Paulo, Editora Brasiliense, 1977.
• A Ditadura da Dívida , São Paulo, Editora Brasiliense, 1987.
• O que são Multinacionais , São Paulo, Editora Brasiliense, 1991.
• Jornalistas e Revolucionários , São Paulo, Edusp, 1991.
• Jornalismo Econômico , São Paulo, Edusp, 1996.
• A Síndrome da Antena Parabólica , São Paulo, Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 1998.
• Cartas Ácidas da Campanha de Lula de 1998 , São Paulo, Ateliê Editorial, 2000.
• O Fim da Ditadura Militar , São Paulo, Contexto, 2001.
• Jornalismo na era virtual , São Paulo, UNESP, 2005.
• Diálogos da Perplexidade , São Paulo, Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2009.
• K. , São Paulo, Expressão Popular, 2011.

Publications abroad

• Pau de Arara, La Violence Militaire au Brézil , Paris, Cahiers Libres, 1971.
• Brazil: State and Struggle , London, Latin America Bureau, 1982.
• The Debt Squads , London, Zed Books Ltd, 1988.
• Brazil - Carnival of the Oppressed , London, Latin American Bureau, 1995.
• Lula and The Workers´ Party in Brazil , London, Latin America Bureau, 2003.
• Las tres muertes de K. , Barcelona, ​​Rayo Verde, 2013.
• K , London, Latin American Bureau, 2013.
• K. or The Missing Daughter , Berlin, Transit-Verlag, 2013.

Awards, finalist

• 1997: Prêmio Jabuti , category Economy, Management, Business, Law for Jornalismo Econômico, Edusp, São Paulo, SP
• 2002: Prêmio Dom Helder Câmara, Online Journalism Category, Brazilian Journalists' Association Award for his articles in Carta Maior magazine
• 2010: João Ferrador Prêmio for Journalism, São Paulo Metalworkers Union Prize
• 2012: “Prêmio Portugal Telecom de Literatura” 2012 in the Roman category. Among the four finalists and Special Mention from the Jury (Menção Honrosa), category awarded for the first time for Kucinskis K. (November 2012)
• 2012: "Concurso Internacional de Literatura" 2012 of the Brazilian Writers' Union (União Brasileira de Escritores, UBE), Rio de Janeiro section, in the Roman category. 2nd place and special mention by the jury (Menção Honrosa)
• 2012: " Prêmio São Paulo de Literatura " in the category Best Book of the Year - Novel Debut, among the ten finalists (September 2012)
• “Prêmio Machado de Assis de literatura 2012” in the Roman category. National Library Prize. Among the finalists. (December 2012)

Web links

• Bernardo Kucinski website (Portuguese)
• Curriculum Bernardo Kucinski on the Currículo Lattes website (Portuguese)

Remarks

1. ↑ The ALN was a guerrilla group that emerged largely from the banned Communist Party of Brazil (PCB) and advocated armed resistance to that of the masses as a means against the Brazilian military dictatorship. The group was founded at the end of 1966 as a spin-off of the remaining PCB under the leadership of Carlos Marighella. In addition to the guerrilla group MR-8, the ALN was responsible for the kidnapping of the US ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick and the freeing of 15 political prisoners in 1969.
2. ^ DOPS, Departamento de Ordem Política e Social. Served in the military regime to control and combat political and social movements. The DOPS police chief in São Paulo, Sérgio Fleury, was largely responsible for the torture. Today his name stands like no other for the horrors of the Brazilian dictatorship. He was never held accountable and died in an unexplained manner in 1979 while visiting the seaside. According to the ex-military, Cláudio Guerra, Fleury was murdered on behalf of the military regime because it increasingly evaded the instructions of the generals.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Katarina Peixoto: As marcas das ditaduras ea revelação dos sobreviventes. In: Carta Maior of January 28, 2010 . Retrieved July 31, 2013 (Portuguese).
2. ↑ The quote comes from an interview with the English-language newspaper " The Times of Israel " on April 3, 2013: Brazilian bestseller probes fate of jewish disappeared . Retrieved July 31, 2013.
3. ↑ Compare: Dossier: Ana Rosa Kucinski Silva on the website Eremias Delizoicov - Centro de documentação, DOSSIÊ - Mortos e Desaparecidos Políticos no Brasil . Retrieved July 31, 2013 (Portuguese).
4. ↑ The details concerned go back to the statements of the retired officer of the special police, Cláudio Guerra, which he made to the journalists Rogério Medeiros and Marcelo Netto and in the book 'Memórias de uma guerra suja' (2012) in the publishing house "Topbooks" are published. See the article on the book in the Portuguese Wikipedia pt: Memórias de uma Guerra Suja .
5. ↑ Compare: Bernardo Kucinski: Cartas Ácidas da Campanha de Lula de 1998 , São Paulo, Ateliê Editorial, 2000