Martius-Staden Institute

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Martius Staden Institute
Mart-Stad 4.jpg
The Martius Staden Institute

founding 1916
place São Paulo coordinates: 23 ° 37 ′ 59.7 ″  S , 46 ° 43 ′ 37.6 ″  WWorld icon
operator Fundação Visconde de Porto Seguro
management Eckhard Ernst Kupfer
Website www.martiusstaden.org.br

The Martius-Staden Institute in São Paulo , Brazil, is a public library supported by the Fundação Visconde de Porto Seguro . The institute is a non-commercial establishment with the aim of maintaining cultural relations between Brazil and Germany . As one of the largest archives in Latin America , it holds documents, newspapers, maps and photos on German immigration in Brazil, among other things .

The institute is now located in the building of the Colégio Visconde de Porto Seguro Unidade III.

Name cartridge

The institute is named after Hans Staden and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius .

Hans Staden (1525–1579) aroused interest with his trip to Brazil in 1554, especially in the 19th century, and provided information about the still unknown country. In his work, Truly Historia and Description of a Landscape of Wild / Naked / Grim Humans Leuthen… (Marburg, 1557), the first book about Brazil, he talked about his captivity with the Tupinambá . The work has been translated into many languages ​​and is still an important source for ethnology today .

Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868) was an important doctor and botanist of his time. In his main work Flora Brasiliensis , he taxonomically cataloged 22,767 species of Brazilian plants .

history

The main sources on the history of the institute are its own archive and the diary of Karl Fouquet (1897–1980). Fouquet, known as Carlos Fouquet, was a high school teacher trained in Germany in the subjects of German , history and philosophy and the deputy director of the German School , today's Colégio Visconde de Porto Seguro , in São Paulo.

founding

In 1916 the German teachers' association was established, a group of around 40 to 50 members, which was commissioned by the German school in São Paulo (at that time located on Rua Olinda, in the center of São Paulo) to preserve German culture in Brazil. The interests of the teachers included expanding their rights and improving their insurance, as well as language lessons and events such as concerts, amateur plays, festivals, lectures, discussions and skat evenings.

The German School (also called Olinda School), a forerunner of today's Colégio Visconde de Porto Seguro, “worked with a largely German curriculum ” and took teachers trained in Germany under contract, who often stayed in Brazil. The German authorities later switched to providing German teachers with a fixed-term contract to schools abroad . As a rule, these returned to the domestic German school service after their contract period had expired. The so-called Olinda School had a number of German high school teachers and a German headmaster and led to qualifications recognized in Germany, from 1929 also to the German Abitur

Early development

On April 18, 1925, the Association of German School São Paulo , a further development of the German Teachers' Association, was proclaimed in a publication in the Deutsche Zeitung . In this publication, all members of the German Colony , associations and companies were asked to provide “'documents, images, photographs, annual reports, festive and anniversary publications and publications of all kinds, insofar as they relate to the formation and growth of the colony' to ask: the school wanted to set up an 'archive for the history of the German colony'. "

At a meeting in 1935, the German Teachers' Association was renamed the Hans-Staden-Verein, with the aim of preserving German culture in Brazil. In his diary, Fouquet writes that he himself proposed the new name.

The institute during the "Estado Novo"

During the 1930s, as a backlash to the strong influence and spread of Nazism in Germany, discrimination against Germans and foreigners in Brazil increased. Decrees of the Estado Novo on April 7th and 18th and May 4th, 1938 forbade the political activity of foreigners in Brazil and the teaching of languages ​​other than Portuguese . The Hans-Staden-Verein itself was banned by these decrees. This also clearly hindered the activities of the German colony, and the cultural exchange of its members was forbidden.

In 1938 the Hans-Staden-Verein was renamed “Sociedade Hans-Staden” (Hans-Staden-Gesellschaft). This re-establishment of the association was an attempt to enable its activities under the rule of the Estado Novo and thus to circumvent the prohibition of the association. This new society received the historical archive of the German Teachers' Association as well as the previously banned library of the German School. The founding of the Hans-Staden-Gesellschaft can be seen as the point in time at which the institute was established in its current function. That year, the Society had its first headquarters in the center of São Paulo, at 20 Rua Barão de Itapetininga, under the administration of Karl Fouquet, the members sought to develop an institute independent of other institutions.

In the 1940s, state repression intensified, so foreign newspapers could no longer be published and Germans were forced to isolate themselves. In order to escape the repression, the German School changed its name. It was renamed the Visconde-de-Porto-Seguro Foundation in honor of Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen , the historian of German-Brazilian citizenship.

After 1945

In the period after World War II , the role of the Germans was essential in rebuilding German-Brazilian relations. As a result, many institutes were founded, for example in Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro. In order to support the institute financially, the Martius Foundation was established in São Paulo, which was not commercial. The institute now had the same position that she had previously at the German School. This connection brought about the Martius-Staden-Institut, which continued the actual work that had been going on for decades. This enabled German culture to be further protected and preserved in Brazil.

archive

The archive of the Martius Staden Institute

The institute houses one of the largest archives on German immigration in Latin America. It serves as a basis and source for genealogists , sociologists and historians .

The archive currently comprises around 150,000 documents as well as 80,000 books, periodicals and short films . Of these, around 7000 volumes deal intensively with immigration . In addition, many newspapers are available in the archive in both German and Portuguese. The archive also has a collection of historical newspapers in German and Portuguese.

The library has around 37,000 publications dealing with German philosophy , theology , history and architecture . Most of the documents, however, date from the time the institution was founded, especially after the Second World War . The institute has been the publisher of a yearbook since 1953 , in which articles on German-Brazilian relations are published.

Online archive

The holdings of the archive and the library are available in a database on the institute's homepage . A free registration on the website is required to use the archive. When this is completed, you have access to the various documents , cards , periodicals, photos , short films, books, etc. There is also a customer service department that is available for inquiries.

Genealogical research

There is also the option of expressing a wish for further digitized documents. The website is primarily used for genealogical research. According to the institute, most of the inquiries come from the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul .

swell

Web links

Commons : Instituto Martius-Staden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g h i j Joachim Tiemann: The Martius-Staden Institute - past and present. In: Pandaemonium Germanicum. Revista De Estudos Germanísticos . USP, Departamento de Letras Modernas, São Paulo. Volume 6, 2002, pp. 217-234. [Accessed June 1, 2020].