Tobias Barreto

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Tobias Barreto

Tobias Barreto de Meneses (born June 7, 1839 in Vila de Campos do Rio Real ( Sergipe ), † June 26, 1889 in Recife ) was a Brazilian philosopher , poet , literary critic , publisher , lawyer and professor of law at the law faculty in Recife (Brazil).

life and work

After extensive studies and journalistic activities, Barreto co-founded the Escola do Recife , a philosophical movement that joined European monism and evolutionism (as it was propagated by Ernst Haeckel ). As a critic of the French authors of rationalistic and positivistic character, who dominate literature, philosophy and legal theory , he learned German by self-teaching in 1870 and founded the movement of Brazilian Germanismo , the orientation towards German culture. He was influenced by the philosopher of the unconscious-irrational Eduard von Hartmann and the critic of conceptual jurisprudence Rudolf von Jhering , later also by Kant . He also published in German in the newspaper Deutscher Kämpfer, which he published in Pernambuco . With his literary work he also founded the current of Condoreirismo , which turned away from Romanticism and turned to the country's social problems.

Fight against slavery

Tobias Barreto was one of the first in his country to see slaves as bearers of rights ( legal subjects ) and, with his liberal-radical way of thinking, campaigned for the liberation of slaves, which soon turned the conservatives in the Sergipe province against him. The use of slaves on the sugar cane and cotton plantations was still widespread in Brazil and was only abolished in 1888 with the “Golden Law” (Lei Áurea). Brazil was the last country on the American continent and one of the last nations in the world to take this step. With his modern legal positions and as a slave and minority defender, he soon created so many enemies that he was forced to leave Escada in 1881.

Fight for women's rights

Barreto was born out of wedlock to a notary and therefore grew up with his mother and grandmother, "which at that time was not a matter of course in the conservative and Catholic society of rural Brazil." This feminine character and socialization made him an early and first feminist Advancing women's rights activists in Brazil. As a regional politician, he campaigned for the right of women to a higher education by referring to famous examples of women in Europe . He wanted to counter the dependence of women on their husbands, in which he saw the foundation of the Catholic-patriarchal society of Brazil. While his opponents argued with the thesis of the alleged inferiority of the female sex, Barreto fought for the award of training grants to women who wanted to do their training abroad. Although his plan was not implemented because he was not re-elected as a regional MP due to his radical views, he nevertheless prepared the ground for later efforts and successes with regard to the rights of women in Brazil.

Fight for a copyright in Brazil

The term "direito autoral" (" copyright ") was first used by Tobias Barreto in the Brazilian legal debate. As part of his application to the Law Faculty 1881–1882, he already spoke out in favor of copyright as part of personal law, but received no attention, which is why he felt compelled to publish an article on the subject. He referred to the German legal scholars Rudolf von Jhering , Josef Kohler , Heinrich Dernburg and the Swiss criminal lawyer Johann Caspar Bluntschli .

He found the French concept of “propriété littéraire”, which had been used in Brazilian case law to date, to be inadequate and introduced copyright law for the first time in Brazilian legal history and in the German-speaking debate as part of private and personal law. He expanded the "propriété littéraire", which was previously used as a pure publisher right, to include the rights of authors. With this progressive perspective, he took up the latest legal findings from Josef Kohler. With his writing “O que se deve entender por direito autoral” (1883) Barreto found more attention, but the term “direito autoral” (“copyright”) was not included in Brazilian jurisprudence until 1898, that is, after Barreto's death . As Clóvis Beviláqua, the author of the first Brazilian civil code , pointed out, Barreto was not even mentioned in this context, although this groundbreaking innovation was due to him.

Fight for the professorship

In 1881 Barreto applied for a professorship at the law faculty in Recife. The public exam became a legendary event, a battle of old ideas against new ones, with Barreto standing for new thinking in Brazil and the young students on his side. “Barreto saw himself as a fighter on the battlefield of ideas.” The legal historian Venancio Filho divides the history of the law faculty in Recife into a time “before” and “after” Tobias Barreto. The examination board did not want to accept him at first, although he passed the exams as the best. Only after the intervention of the emperor did he initially receive an extraordinary professorship.

After moving to Recife, Barreto continued to work as a social critic in the fields of politics, religion, literature, art and the humanities and cited many current German writings. His debates received a lot of public attention and cemented his reputation as a free thinker with an anti-Catholic and anti-monarchist attitude. He opposed the Neothomism of the Catholic Church to Haeckel and Darwin and combined his views with a “materialistic monism.” Due to his radically modern conceptions and his contentiousness, however, he only received the title of full professor shortly before his death, when he was already very weak and could hardly visit the faculty.

Reception of German-speaking authors

Barreto was not only a harsh critic, he wanted above all to enlighten and reform Brazilian law in terms of method and content. Haeckel's monistic worldview became an essential part of his legal conception, which he brought together with Jhering's legal sociological approaches. Although he was considered the most important advocate of German thought in the 19th century and introduced central ideas of German scientists and writers into Brazil, which had been predominantly French until then, he did not simply adopt them, but developed them further or interpreted them in his own way. So he turned against the claim of sociology to transfer the theories of Darwin and Haeckel to social theory and, especially in his late work of 1887, spoke out against any determinism, be it racial or gender-determined (in gynecracy he saw the greatest gain of Culture over nature). As a black man, he was sensitized to this and shaped by his early reading of German-speaking Jewish and liberal writers and intellectuals such as Berthold Auerbach and Georg Heinrich Ewald .

His progressive opinion about marriage and the role of women in society is the result of his reception of German-speaking women's rights activists, writers and intellectuals such as Marianne Hainisch , Augusta von Litrow, Johanna Leitenberger, Josephine von Wertheimstein and Hedwig Dohm . In the Brazilian provinces he even quoted the founder of the Berlin Lette Association for Women's Education, Jenny Hirsch , of whom he had knowledge through the magazine “Frauenanwalt”, and sided with the progressive and liberal educators of his time, such as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi , Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel and Adolph Diesterweg .

Like his friend and colleague Sílvio Romero , Barreto viewed Haeckel's and Jhering's “German science” “as a model against scholastic metaphysics and the pure exegesis of Roman sources, which still dominated legal education and the scientific culture in Brazil.” Barreto turned against it the prevailing view that the law was a heavenly creation and instead viewed it as a product of human culture and subject to evolution. While Romero remained stuck in the French positivism of the Brazilian elite, not least because, unlike Barreto, he could not read German sources in the original, Barreto became a central mediator for ideas and approaches of German-speaking intellectuals in the second half of the 19th century. Authors like Jhering and Haeckel, however, experienced a liberal-radical reception of their ideas and were used by Barreto in the fight against Catholicism, anti-Semitism and monarchy, so they received a completely different reception from him than in Germany.

Honors

Tobias Barreto was chosen by the co-founder of the Academia Brasileira de Letras , Graça Aranha , as the namesake of the chair (cadeira) No. 38. After him, the city of Cidade de Campos do Rio Real (previously Vila de Campos do Rio Real from 1835 to 1909 ) was renamed Tobias Barreto and the Teatro Tobias Barreto in Aracaju , both located in the state of Sergipe.

Works

  • Estudos Alemães . Typographia Central, Recife 1883.
  • Ensaios e Estudos de Philosophia e Critica. 2., corr. u. exp. Edition. José Nogueira de Souza, Pernambuco 1889.
  • Crítica de literatura e arte , ed. by Paulo Mercadante, Record, Rio de Janeiro 1990.
  • Crítica política e social , ed. by Luiz Antonio Barreto, Record, Rio de Janeiro 1990.

literature

  • Gilberto Amado: Tobias Barreto . Ariel, Rio de Janeiro 1934.
  • Luiz Antonio Barreto: Tobias Barreto . Sociedade Editorial de Sergipe, Aracaju 1994.
  • Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 .
  • Luiz Pinto Ferreira: Tobias Barreto ea Nova Escola do Recife. 2nd Edition. José Konfino, Rio de Janeiro 1958.
  • Hermes Lima: Tobias Barreto (A Época eo Homem), Em apêndice o Discurso em mangas de camisa com as notas e adições. 2nd Edition. Companhia Editora Nacional, São Paulo 1957.
  • Mario Giuseppe Losano: Tobias Barreto and the reception of Jhering in Brazil. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1996.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alfred foresters: The "German fighter" of Pernambuco. In: The Gazebo. Issue 42, 1879, pp. 700-703. (on-line)
  2. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , pp. 169–170.
  3. ^ Emília Viotti da Costa: Da Monarquia à República: momentos decisivos. UNESP, São Paulo 2010, pp. 345–366.
  4. ↑ Luiz Antonio Barreto: "Tobias Barreto: uma Biobibliografia". In: Tobias Barreto: Estudos Alemães. ed. by Luiz Antonio Barreto, JE Solomon, Rio de Janeiro 2012, pp. 11–38.
  5. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , p. 77.
  6. ↑ "Projeto de um Partenogógio" and both essays in "Projeto no 129th" Tobias Barreto: Critica e política social , ed. by Luiz Antonio Barreto, Record, Rio de Janeiro 1990, pp. 190-192 and pp. 193-199.
  7. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , pp. 91-92.
  8. ^ "Educação da Mulher II". In: Tobias Barreto: Crítica política e social. ed. by Luiz Antonio Barreto, Record, Rio de Janeiro 1990, pp. 162-182.
  9. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , pp. 171-172.
  10. ^ "O que se deve entender por direito autoral". In: Tobias Barreto: Estudos Alemães. Typographia Central, Recife 1883, pp. 251-271.
  11. ^ A b Clóvis Beviláqua: História da Faculdade de Direito do Recife. INL, Brasília, 1977, p. 371.
  12. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , p. 92.
  13. ^ Alberto Venancio Filho: The Arcadas ao Bacharelismo: 150 anos de ensino jurídico no Brasil. Perspectiva, São Paulo 2011, p. 114.
  14. ^ Carlos H. Oberacker Jr: "Fortuna Crítica: Tobias Barreto, o mais significativo germanista do Brasil". In: Monografias em alemão, Monografias em alemão. ed. by Vamireh Chacon, Record, Rio de Janeiro 1990, pp. 267-278.
  15. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , p. 93.
  16. ^ Alberto Venancio Filho: The Arcadas ao Bacharelismo: 150 anos de ensino jurídico no Brasil. Perspectiva, São Paulo 2011, p. 102.
  17. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , p. 176.
  18. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , pp. 145-147.
  19. ^ Ricardo Borrmann: Tobias Barreto, Sílvio Romero and the Germans. The reception of German-speaking authors in Brazilian legal culture (1869–1889). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-515-12446-1 , pp. 172-173.
personal data
SURNAME Barreto, Tobias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barreto de Meneses, Tobias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian philosopher, poet, literary critic and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Vila de Campos do Rio Real
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1889
Place of death Recife