“Across the Waves”: The Luso-Brazilian Republic of Letters at the Fin de Siècle

Abstract

The fin de siècle does not immediately spring to mind as a period sympathetic to supranational Luso-Brazilian literary and cultural bonds. The period witnessed a sequence of events that distanced Portugal and Brazil politically, and destabilized both countries. Brazil’s republican coup (1889) put the final nail in the coffin of the Luso-Brazilian empire and led to a transatlantic financial crisis; Britain’s “Ultimatum” (1890) to Portugal regarding its African claims undermined the monarchy; and Portugal’s limited intervention in Brazil’s Revolta da Armada (1893-94) led to a temporary suspension of diplomatic relations. Further, the aggressive nationalism of the early years of Brazil’s Old Republic was marked by a pronounced lusofobia. And negative stereotypes about Brazil and brasileiros (nouveau riche Portuguese returnees) remained popular comic fodder in Portugal. I contend that this agitated state of affairs prompted a cohort of Brazilian and Portuguese writers to affirm enduring Luso-Brazilian ties despite their political unpopularity. I will focus on three moments of Luso-Brazilianist activity during the period: Joaquim Nabuco’s 1880 and 1888 speeches in Rio de Janeiro’s Gabinete Português de Leitura, the publication of Oliveira Martins’s O Brasil e as Colônias Portuguesas (1888), and the 1916 visit to Portugal of Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac.