Nostalgia for the Invader

Brazil was "discovered" by the Portuguese in 1500. The colonization lasted 322 years. In 1630 the Dutch invaded Brazil. They wanted to develop sugar cane plantages on the Northen coast. In 1647, the Dutch reach Itaparica. After many conflicts and heavy attacks from the Portuguese, the Dutch West India Company had to rush to Recife and therefore abandoned many of its members behind. The contact between foreigners and locals led to many consequences. For Capiroba, a local mestizo, for example, the taste for canibalism.
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Viva o Povo Brasileiro: romance (in Dutch the title is: Brazilie, Brazilie)
by Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro, 1984, 673 pages.
One of my favorite books ever, this is an extraordinary fiction that covers over three centuries of Brazilian history. Along the years, I keep re-reading some passages and having a good time. You find here a Brazil that is mythological, terrifying, confusing, vibrant, corrupt. So familiar to all - and at the same time so far away and misterious.


My second cultural tip is the documentary Doce Brasil Holandes, from Monica Schmiedt.
Two historians, Brazilian Kalina Vanderlei and German Sabrina van de Ley, investigate the "Golden Age" of a Dutch Recife. Johannes Mauritius van Nassau stablished Mauritia or Maurisstad, actual Recife, in the XVII century. He plannified the city according to Dutch architectural standards, stablished an astronomical abservatorium, allowed the construction of a synagogue and ordered the construction of the largest bridge in the New World. Soon, Mauritisstad became one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. But Mauritius van Nassau was an invader: he was interested, above all, in making Holland the main distributor of Brazilian sugar in Europe. So why do the actual locals of Recife still consider him to be a humanist and the "best mayor ever" ?
Doce Brasil Holandes
17th September 2010 at 20:30
Tropentheater, Linnaeusstraat 2, Amsterdam.

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