Obecność mesjanizmu i millenaryzmu w brazylijskiej religijności ludowej przełomu XIX i XX wieku

Abstract

The Presence of Messianism and Millenarianism in Brazilian Folk Religiosity in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, numerous unorthodox Christian religious communities sprang up in many parts of the vast Brazilian interior. Their worldview basis was the belief that the present life takes place in times of cosmic and social crisis. Waiting for the day of the Last Judgement was associated with attempts to establish a just social order, consistent with Christian norms and values. These communities were led by charismatic leaders, perceived by their participants as incarnations of saints. In this article, we ask about the circumstances and reasons for this religious and social revival, and we consider them in the perspective of the meeting of European culture with the cultures of the New World, understood as the process of creating a new, common symbolic universe.