Santos, Luís Cláudio Villafañe G. O dia em que adiaram o Carnaval: política externa e a construção do Brasil

Abstract

Luís Cláudio Villafañe G. Santos' book impresses from the beginning with its title, which links the popular festival of Carnival to foreign policy, and also with its cover, an image of a stained glass window in the National Cathedral of Washington portraying Baron Rio Branco. Immediately we are led to perceive that the book's starting point is José Maria Paranhos da Silva Júnior, Baron Rio Branco, responsible for the consolidation of Brazilian territory, who appears in that set of stained glass windows with Bolívar and San Martín, among the heroes of South America. In this book O dia em que adiaram o Carnaval: política externa e a construção do Brasil, published by Editora Unesp, the author, a career diplomat, with a Master's and Doctorate from Universidade de Brasília, has written an excellent study of the relationship between nationalism, identity and foreign policy. Starting with Rio Branco, Villafañe runs through a historic panorama of the country, from the nineteenth century to the current day, to investigate how 'national consciousness,' the 'idea of the Brazilian race,' the 'consciousness of national backwardness' and the 'natural leadership' of Brazil in Latin America were constructed. The postponement of popular festivities in 1912 due to the death of Baron Rio Branco, which had occurred on the eve of carnival, demonstrates the prestige and the power of the diplomat not only with authorities, but also with the general population. For Villafañe this was a unique case in history, in which the figure of a diplomat became a reference for the construction of a nation by obtaining important victories in frontier disputes. Although they were not contemporaries, Bolívar, San Martín and Rio Branco were, each in their own way, responsible for the consolidation of