Getúlio's red book

Revolutionary leader, dictator, President, Getúlio Vargas is the greatest Brazilian politician of this century. He lead the country through Civil War and changes that shaped modern Brazil. Now, the world has a chance to know what this charismatic character was thinking while building a country by fire and kind words.

Hortęnsia Lemos

For 12 years, between 1930 and 1942, Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, who led Brazil for 18 years first as President brought by a military coup and then as an elected President made notes at the end of the day about the main political events, but also about his personal thoughts and extramarital affairs. There was a suspicion that this diary existed, but not even the president's most intimatefriends knew for sure. Darci Vargas, Getúlios's wife, died in 1968 without knowing about it.

It was only at the end of the `70s that a very close aide to Vargas gave Alzira do Amaral Peixoto, the president's daughter, the collection of notebooks containing the notes handwritten in pencil. Celina Vargas do Amaral Peixoto, a social scientist who is the granddaughter of Getúlio and the daughter of Alzira, was the one who decided to publish the material. It took her and a group of experts at the Fundaçăo Getúlio Vargas (FGV) two and a half years to check names and facts and add notes that shed light on events that happened half a century ago.

Just published by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation on a co-edition basis with Siciliano Publishers, this two-volume book, richly illustrated with photographs and containing over 1,200 pages, is an essential contribution to the understanding of Brazilian history in the 20th century. President of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954, when he inexplicably took his life, Getúlio Vargas is identified with the major political, social and economic changes that took place in the country after 1930.

In his diary, written between October 3, 1930 and September 27, 1942, this century's most important and influential Brazilian politician expounds, for the first time, his particular view of a 12-year period in contemporary Brazilian history, which was characterized by significant events, from a revolution to the Second World War, passing through a coup d'état that he led in 1937.

Far from being simply a facsimile of the Getúlio Vargas' diary, the book has been designed to provide a clear and coherent focus on the memories of a man who has played a strategic and definitive role in Brazil. The project of publishing a book from manuscripts, consisting of 13 papers, began in 1993 and represented a vast, complex and exciting challenge.

During thirty months, the project has been conducted by researchers of the FGV Documentation and Research Centre on Brazilian Contemporary History - CPDOC, who carefully organized the unpublished archival material, private documents and recorded oral testimonies. The result is a vivid narrative of individuals, peoples, parties, movements, events, decisions and conflicts that have shaped the political society over those decades.

These volumes are both a reference work and a book to be read for enjoyment, helping to understand the day-by-day functioning of a government, who Getúlio Vargas really was, his individual consciousness and public trajectory, and all that has come from his pen. Undoubtedly unique, this book reveals many aspects of this yet under-researched period of Brazilian history, develops a framework for understanding the radical changes which have occurred during those years and offers a new perspective on the diversity of historical situations that have arisen in the Brazilian society.

To the diary, the editors have added an appendix of 203 pages, with a comprehensive bibliography, extensive biographic references and a subject index containing several hundred suggestions for further reading. Getúlio Vargas: Diário contributes in a remarkable way to the reconstruction of a period, as a testimony to the power both of ideas and of personality in movements of the past. His unexpurgated account will be welcomed by all those interested in Brazilian history.

EXCERPT

If everyday everybody would write down in a notebook their judgements, thoughts, motives for action and the main occurrences in which they took part, many, to whom a singular fate has prevented from this, would be able to equal the marvelous fantasies described in the adventure books from writers with the most rich imaginative fantasy. Real life apparent prosaism is much more interesting than it seems to be. I was reminded that, if I would make daily faithful and sincere notes, like somebody who would write only for himself and not for the public, I would have then a large repository of facts to probe and a continuous lesson of experience to consult.

I was reminded of this today, day of the Revolution. All the arrangements made, all the calls made. It certainly will be today at 5 PM. What the uncertain future will reserve for us in this adventurous undertaking.? I had a quiet lunch with my family and went for a ping-pong match with my wife as I usually do every day. At 4 PM I've finished this note. Four thirty. The time comes. I feel peaceful in spirit, as someone who plays a decisive move because he couldn't find another honorable solution. My fate doesn't matter, but it does the responsibility of an act which decides about the fate of the collectivity. Won't I have a big disappointment afterwards? And if we lose? I will be labeled as the responsible afterwards, for spite, for ambition, who knows? I feel that only life's sacrifice can redeem the mistake of a failure. The movement has started. A live volley of rifleshots and machine guns." (Rio de Janeiro, October 3, 1930)

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