Name: VITOR BOURGUIGNON VOGAS
Publication date: 22/11/2024
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| JOSÉ HÉLDER PINHEIRO | Examinador Externo |
| MARCELO FERRAZ DE PAULA | Examinador Externo |
| NELSON MARTINELLI FILHO | Examinador Interno |
| PAULO ROBERTO DE SOUZA DUTRA | Examinador Interno |
| WILBERTH CLAYTHON FERREIRA SALGUEIRO | Presidente |
Summary: With a distinctly fragmentary nature, this thesis proposes an extensive reflection, based on
literary texts, on the far-right mentality that has resurged in contemporary Brazil, governed the
country from 2019 to 2022, and ultimately traces back to the Nazifascism that culminated in
World War II. Throughout the following pages, I intend to examine how this ideology, or
“system of thought” (LEVI, 1988, p. 7), resonates in our present, with a detour through the
Southern Cone dictatorships of the 1970s. To achieve this, I have structured seven essays on
various authors, constituting the first part of the thesis, followed by a compilation of 39 Political
Broadsheets authored by myself, presented in the second part. The chapters follow a guiding
axis: all converge on the phenomenon of the resurgence of the far-right in Brazil, with distant
roots explored throughout the work. At first glance, the chapters may appear independent – and
they may indeed be read as such. However, they also interact with each other, forming a
chronological and cohesive whole, centered around a central idea that pervades them all: on
one side, political authoritarianism in its various facets; on the other, literature, in both prose
and verse, that serves as political testimony and resistance through multiple approaches and
artistic dimensions, which precisely rises, through the medium of art, against various forms of
authoritarianism and state violence throughout history. This is the fundamental opposition that
I will address here. To this end, I will critically and analytically explore lyrical and narrative
texts (mostly direct or empathetic testimony) by authors such as Primo Levi, Svetlana
Alexievich, Raul Seixas, Luisa Valenzuela, Bernardo Kucinski, Pedro Tierra, Beatriz Leal, and
Alex Polari, culminating in a compilation of my Political Broadsheets produced over the past
decade (2014-2024) as a professional journalist. My analysis will be grounded in the critical,
theoretical, and philosophical contributions of thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Jaime
Ginzburg, Márcio Seligmann-Silva, Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Alfredo Bosi, Maria Zilda Cury,
and Alberto Pucheu. In the amalgamation of the fragments of this grand mosaic offered to
readers, I hope the central argument I propose will emerge: the ideological premise underlying
Nazifascism, a system of thought that not only endorses the idea of the summary elimination of
the other but also practices it, currently finds conducive conditions to resurge in Brazil, in an
updated version condensed into “Bolsonarism,” just as it found fertile ground to flourish during
the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship of 1964-1985 and in the concurrent exception regimes
of neighboring countries like Argentina.
