Entre periódicos e o cordel: a primeira república a partir das representações do cangaceiro Antonio Silvino – Recife - PE (1900-1918)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the representations of the bandit Antonio Silvino built in Recife-PE, in the first two decades of the 20th century, intertwining readings of time related to the young Republic. In the same space and time – the capital of Pernambuco, between 1900 and 1918 –, views towards the Republic were exposed from the figure of a subject who lived from the practice of crimes in the hinterland of Pernambuco and neighboring states. In order to carry out the analysis of the multiple voices, we took as object the representations built in the periodical press – the newspapers Diário de Pernambuco and A Província – and in literature – the work of the poet Leandro Gomes de Barros. Different supports, with their specificities, based on experiences and expectations in relation to the current political regime, will build interpretations of the real having the cangaceiro Antonio Silvino as a motto. Evidently, these different “looks” at the cangaço, which end up building the usual dual vision based on good/bad-good/evil, are representations of this social phenomenon and, as such, make it possible to see the sociabilities of those who produce and consume them in a different way. a certain way of thinking and giving a reading of a certain reality. In this sense, periodicals of diametrically opposed political positions are analyzed, linked or contrary to the dominant state oligarchy, and the deliberate use of the figure of the cangaceiro Antonio Silvino by them as a weapon in state political disputes; in the same way, the literature of Leandro Gomes de Barros is analyzed and the use of the cangaceiro as an archetype of ideal man, nostalgic monarchist and representative of a moral code in the process of disappearing in the face of modernization proclaimed by the Republic. In view of this broad framework of investigation, we sought to understand these multiple views of the republican regime, having the bandit Antonio Silvino as a background character. We defend the thesis, at the end, that the experiences and expectations related to the Republic of the producers of representations of the cangaceiro Antonio Silvino built these multiple visions about the same object.