Page:The Forgotten in the Independence Process.pdf/3

Lucia Maria Bastos Pereira das Neves The forgotten in the independence process: a history to be made

Almanack, Guarulhos, n. 25, ef00220, 2020 http://doi.org/10.1590/2236-463325ef00220

[…] le problème de toute mémoire officielle est celui de la crédibilité, de son acception, et aussi de sa mise en forme. Pour qu’émerge dans les discours politiques un fonds commun de références qui peuvent constituer une mémoire nationale, un intense travail d’organisation et de mise en forme est indispensable pour surmonter le simple bricolage idéologique, par définition précaire et fragile.^[1]

In a thin and provoking review of a book by Alain Corbin entitled Le mondee retrouvé de Louis-François Pinagot, sur les traces d’un inconnu, 1798-1876, whose aim was to write the biography of a common man who had no particular trati, harassing any kind of heroism, Sabina Loriga criticizes the idea of the ‘invisible biography’ idealized by the author, which sacrifices the quality of life of individual figures who never appear as social actors, since they have no singularity, no identity. Thus, for Loriga, the rediscovery of biography must ‘give voice to a wide variety of individuals who, in some way, are inserted in their contexts as social actors in a historical process that provides them with some singularity, ie, their small x. It is necessary to ‘give to the men of the past not only a name, but also some trace of vital capacity.^[2]

This perspective of analysis explains partially what I want to highlight in this article : another approach to the history of the Independence of Brazil which allows to bring to the person the forgotten and unknown individuals of this process. Such a question does not mean, however, choosing a non-original character, just a name whose path is possible to reconstruct without inserting a broader contex of the conjuncture that marked the separation of Brazil from Portugal. It

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1. POLLACK, Michael. Mémoire, oublie, silence. In: POLLACK, Michael. Vienne 1900: une identité blessée. Paris: Métailié, 1993. p. 28-29.
2. For the quotes, see LORIGA, Sabina. Alain Corbin: Le monde retrouvé de Louis-François Pinagot, sur les traces d’un inconnu, 1798-1876. In: COMPTES rendus: approches de l’histoire. Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Paris, year 57, n. 1, p. 204-244, 2002. p. 240-242. Para o Pequeno X, cf. Idem. O Pequeno X: da biografia à história. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2011.