Russia in the Work of Gustavo Barroso: An Imagological Study

Abstract

This study proposes an imagological and critical reading of the work of Gustavo Barroso, encompassing three spheres: the literary, the doctrinal, and the translational. With regard to the literary works, the focus falls on two short stories written prior to the author’s adherence to Integralism, “Autokrator” and “A rapariga de Kiev,” with the aim of showing how they construct a hetero-image of Russia as a space of atavisms and authoritarianisms. This hetero-image would later be reworked in the author’s doctrinal writings, linked to the Brazilian Integralist Action, and articulated with the elaboration of a desired self-image for Brazil — conceived as a barrier to an Oriental becoming and as aspiring to a Western, spiritualized, and cohesive becoming. However, Barroso’s relationship with Russia proves to be more ambiguous, as evidenced by his translation of Unknown Jesus by Dmitri Merejkóvski, a work which, by synthesizing Barroso’s political and spiritual concerns, seems to suggest Russian culture as a reference for the integralist.