Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Viscount of Porto Seguro

Adolfo de Varnhagen Francisco, 1872 and 1874 Baron 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. Ludwig Wilhelm Varnhagen was from 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, after Rio de Janeiro ), where he led the ironworks São João do Ipanema in Sorocaba. 1823 Ludwig Wilhelm returned back to Portugal and took his six year old son Francisco Adolfo with. This first visited in Lisbon, the Real Colégio da Luz, later graduated from various courses of study in military, technical, mathematical, economic and paleographical sciences.

It was Varnhagen, even deeply rooted in European culture, Brazil announced its new identity. He was the founder of the methodological historical research in and for Brazil. Almost always in the European " exile " living, sought the " Brazilian Patriot" ( like his contemporary Capistrano de Abreu called him ) in European archives for documents about the colonization of the later Empire and evaluated them. In 1841 he took, just after the emancipation and enthronement of the only 15 year old Brazilian Emperor Pedro II, the Brazilian citizenship and became a member of the company founded in 1838 " Instituto Histórico Brasileiro Geographico ". The result of his research he presented in his major work, the five-volume " História Geral do Brasil " ("General History of Brazil ").

Varnhagen was self-taught. He rarely cites other authors ( historians ), but he knew the (European) historical works of his time well, and probably the influence of Leopold von Ranke was formative. As Ranke, Varnhagen was a "typical historian of the 19th century". In general, the German influence due to the nationality of his father seems to have been large. Varnhagen translated, inter alia, Heinrich Heine writings into Portuguese.

Varnhagen became one of the most important members of the " historical- geographical institute", and unlike other members who were lawyers or philosophers in the majority, he worked primarily with historical themes and was convinced of the scientific research. His methods were the hermeneutic explanation instead of looking for laws of nature, empirical research rather than 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 / American Indian, African and European). He introduced himself as a "master " of the Euro -centric historiography developed, for he represented the ideas of the Brazilian elite of history and nation. With great eloquence and heaps of facts and figures he praises in the "General History of Brazil ," the Portuguese colonization. He always keeps the perspective of the " victorious colonizer ". As the winner namely the colonizer forced the colonized its supposed ethnic, cultural and religious superiority - and rightly so, Varnhagen 's view.

And yet Varnhagen taken into account for example the story of the Indians as an integral part of Brazilian history and also promoted the study of 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.

Writings

  • 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 voyages derniers you navigateur Florentine (1869 )
  • História the 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)
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