Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen

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Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Visconde de Porto Seguro (1816–1878), ill. Approx. 1870

Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen , 1872 baron and 1874 Visconde de Porto Seguro (born February 17, 1816 in São João de Ipanema , State of São Paulo , Brazil ; † June 26, 1878 in Vienna ) was a Brazilian historian and diplomat . He is considered the "father of Brazilian historiography".

Life

Varnhagen was the son of the German engineer Ludwig Wilhelm Varnhagen (1783–1842) and the Portuguese Dona Maria Flávia de Sá Magalhães. Louis William Varnhagen stood since 1803 in the service of the Portuguese royal family and had followed her in 1809 to Brazil (the entire Portuguese court moved in 1807, fleeing from Napoleon , according to Rio de Janeiro on) where he Ironworks São João do Ipanema in Sorocaba headed . In 1823 Ludwig Wilhelm Varnhagen returned to Portugal and took his six-year-old son Francisco Adolfo with him. He first visited the Real Colégio da Luz in Lisbon , where he later completed various courses in military, technical, mathematical, economic and palaeographic sciences.

meaning

It was Varnhagen, itself deeply rooted in European culture, that gave Brazil its new identity. He was the founder of methodical historical research in and for Brazil. Almost always living in European “exile”, the “Brazilian patriot” (as his contemporary Capistrano de Abreu called him) looked in European archives for documents about the colonization of the later empire and evaluated them. In 1841, immediately after the declaration of majority and enthronement of the Brazilian Emperor Pedro II , who was only 15 years old , he took on Brazilian citizenship and became a member of the "Instituto Histórico Geographico Brasileiro" founded in 1838. He presented the result of his many years of research in his main work, the five-volume “História Geral do Brasil” (“General History of Brazil”).

Varnhagen was self-taught. He seldom quotes other authors (historians), but he knew the (European) historical works of his time well, and Leopold von Ranke's influence was probably formative. Like Ranke, Varnhagen was a “typical historian of the 19th century”. In general, the German influence seems to have been great due to his father's nationality. Varnhagen translated, among other things, the writings of Heinrich Heine into Portuguese.

Varnhagen became one of the most important members of the "Historical-Geographic Institute", and unlike other members, who were mostly lawyers or philosophers, he was primarily concerned with historical topics and was convinced of the scientific research work. His methods were hermeneutical explanation instead of the search for natural laws, empirical research instead of philosophical generalizations.

One focus in Varnhagen's work was the construction of a Brazilian nation from the various ethnic groups living in Brazil (the native American / Indian, African and European). He turned out to be a “master” of Eurocentric historiography, because he represented the ideas of the Brazilian elite of history and nation. With great eloquence and amassing data and facts he praises the Portuguese colonization in the “General History of Brazil”. He always keeps the perspective of the "victorious colonizer". As the victor, the colonizer forced his supposed ethnic, cultural and religious superiority on the colonized - and rightly so, according to Varnhagen.

And yet Varnhagen takes z. B. the history of the Indios as an integral part of the Brazilian history and also propagates the occupation with the Indian languages . The return to the “roots” of a nation was omnipresent in the historiography of the 19th century in Europe and also in America.

In 1856 he was accepted as a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1872 Varnhagen received the title of Baron von Porto Seguro. He ended his career as a diplomatic representative in Vienna , where he died in 1878 at the age of 62.

In 1864 he married Carmen Ovalle from Chile, which is why he was buried in Santiago de Chile. His remains were deposited in a memorial in Sorocaba .

Fonts

  • Florilegio de poesia brasileira (1850–53)
  • Trovas e Cantares (1853)
  • História Geral do Brasil (1854–57)
  • Examen de quelques points de l'histoire Géographique du Brésil (1858)
  • Amerigo Vespucci (1865)
  • Nouvelles recherches sur les derniers voyages du navigateur florentin (1869)
  • História das Lutas contra os Holandeses no Brasil desde 1624 a 1654 (1871)
  • Introduction to the reprint of Garcia de Orta, Colóquios dos Simples e Drogas da India (1872)
  • Ainda A. Vespucci (1874)

literature

Web links

Commons : Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biografias de autores - Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen at cervantesvirtual.com, accessed on November 18, 2015.
  2. ↑ O Brasil 'inventado' por Varnhagen at unicamp.br, accessed on November 18, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Varnhagen, Francisco Adolfo de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Porto-Seguro, Francisco Adolfo de; Porto Seguro, Barão de; Varnhagen, Francisque Adolphe de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian historian, diplomat and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH São João de Ipanema , State of São Paulo , Brazil
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1878
Place of death Vienna