Os Sertões

by Euclides da Cunha

Euclides Rodrigues Pimenta da Cunha, romancista, iniciou o curso de engenharia na Escola Central Politécnica no Rio de Janeiro, transferindo-se depois para a Escola Militar, da qual foi expulso em 1888 por motivo de rebeldia. Positivista, antimonárquico e abolicionista, com a proclamação da República foi readmitido no Exército. Cursou engenharia militar na Escola Superior de Guerra e bacharelou-se em matemática e ciências naturais, dedicando-se à engenharia civil e ao jornalismo. Foi enviado pelo jornal O Estado de S. Paulo, em 1897, para cobrir a guerra de Canudos, causada pela rebelião de fanáticos religiosos na Bahia. Autor de Os sertões, obra "percursora para o desenvolvimento das ciências sociais dos anos 30 e 40" (Antônio Cândido), que trouxe "para a linha de frente do pensamento nacional a indagação das razões do atraso do interior do país e deste país em relação aos outros" (Walnice Nogueira Galvão). Foi membro da Academia Brasileira de Letras e do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico.

Genres: History, Brazil, Classics, Nonfiction, Literature, War, Politics

596 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Euclides (archaic spelling Euclydes) da Cunha (January 20, 1866 – August 15, 1909) was a Brazilian writer, sociologist and engineer. His most important work is Os Sertões (Rebellion in the backlands), a non-fictional account of the military expeditions promoted by the Brazilian government against the rebellious village of Canudos, known as the War of Canudos. This book was a favorite of Robert Lowell, who put it above Tolstoy, the Russian writer.

Euclides da Cunha was also heavily influenced by Naturalism and its Darwinian proponents. Os Sertões characterised the coast of Brazil as a chain of civilisations while the interior was more primitively influenced.

Euclides da Cunha was the basis for the character of The Journalist in Mario Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the last week, I have been immersed in this unexpectedly great history. For some strange reason, I have confused this book with Guimaraes's The Devil to Pay in the Backlands; and I have always assumed that the Brazilian film O Cangaceiro by Lima Barreto was based on Rebellion in the Backlands. I was wrong on both counts, but it doesn't matter. That's because, in the end, I regard da Cunha's book on the level of Herodotus, Thucydides and Gibbon as one of the greatest of all works of history.

Picture to yourself an isolated and desolate part of Northeastern Brazil which was populated by the followers of a heretical religious leader called Antonio Conselheiro, or "Anthony the Counselor." His followers were mostly mestizo jagunços, backwoodsmen who were uniquely acquainted with this arid region of broken down mountain ranges. They built a capital of some 5,200 dwellings at a place called Canudos.

Based on misconceptions of what Antonio's followers were up to, the newly formed Republic of Brazil send three military expeditions, all of whom were shot to pieces by hidden sharpshooters. Rarely did the Brazilian soldiers ever see their enemy, but they felt their bullets. From these failed expeditions, the jagunços were able to replace their blunderbusses with the latest in military technology, along with several hundred thousand rounds of unused ammunition.

Into this strange situation marched a fourth expedition in April 1897. This expedition was likewise being mowed down until the Brazilians were lucky enough in mid-course to choose Carlos Machado de Bittencourt as the commander. Bittencourt did what none of the other generals did: He set up strong bases of supply and got men, supplies, and food and water to the besieged expedition, who were within sight of Canudos but unable to proceed further.

What makes this a unique book is that Euclides da Cunha was not only present at the scene, but he was sympathetic to the enemy:

What did it matter that they [the Brazilians:] had six thousand rifles and six thousand sabers; of what avail were the blows from twelve thousand arms, the tread of twelve thousand military boots, their six thousand revolvers and twenty cannon, their thousands upon thousands of grenades and shrapnel shells; of what avail were the executions and the conflagrations, the hunger and the thirst which they had inflicted upon the enemy; what had they achieved by ten months of fighting and one hundred days of incessant cannonading; of what profit to them these heaps of ruins, that picture no pen could portray of the demolished churches, or, finally, that clutter of broken images, fallen altars, shattered saints -- and all this beneath a bright and tranquil sky which seemingly was quite unconcerned with it all, as they pursued their flaming ideal of absolutely extinguishing a form of religious belief that was deeply rooted and which brought consolation to their fellow-beings?

This is a book that should be beside the cot of every NATO general officer in Afghanistan.

There is an ironic postscript. Years after the massacre in Canudos -- for there was no general surrender: the jagunços fought to the last man. Various sermons of Antonio Conselheiro were found and it has been determined that he was a legitimate religious leader and that both the Catholic Church and the Brazilian government attacked without legitimate cause.

[Geoffrey Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of weeks ago, I re-read Euclides da Cunha, Backlands: the Canudos Campaign, trad. Elizabeth Lowe (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), better to understand its relation to Mario Vargas Llosa's 900-page novel, La guerra del fin del mundo, about the same bloody episode in Brazil's northeastern backwoods in the 1890s. For some of the background on these two books, please see my earlier weblog entry History, fiction and historical fiction which is the first part of this essay.

Da Cunha's book is considered a classic of Brazilian literature. It is dramatic, moving, encyclopedic and often — like its author — grandiloquently, pigheadedly wrong. The savage war in the Brazilian northeast backlands of Bahia state from 1893 to 1897 was a defining event of the new Brazilian republic, and Euclides da Cunha's amazingly vivid account of it, Os sertões, is considered by many Brazilians as their country's most outstanding literary achievement. That should be reason enough to put it high on your reading list. But even if you don't care about this huge country (192 million people, a booming economy, a territory amounting to almost half the South American continent) that is rapidly rising to world influence, you will want to understand the dynamics of that war, because it has parallels to some of the world's most critical struggles today.

That it also inspired Vargas Llosa's powerful and complex novel is for me an equally important reason for studying it. Vargas Llosa insists that he has never written a "historical novel", "a more or less animated retelling of historical events", which he apparently thinks of as a lesser category of literature. What he has done here and in La fiesta del chivo and his new novel on Roger Casement is to use thoroughly researched historical events to tell an original story that helps us feel and understand those events from an original perspective. And that's what I've tried to do in A Gift for the Sultan. To me, it's what a historical novel should be, and this is why I'm fascinated by the ways Vargas Llosa handles his material.

But first, lets look at the material, the documented historical events, filtered through Da Cunha, that Vargas Llosa was working with. Every local and traditionalist movement is peculiar, the more local the more peculiar, and the movement around the holy man Antônio Conselheiro in the dense, ramshackle settlement of Canudos was so peculiar that the sophisticates in Salvador de Bahia or Rio de Janeiro could not believe it. A primitively armed, fanatically devout poor rural people was defeating every invasion by a modern, disciplined and experienced army with all the latest technology and firepower.

Sound familiar? They didn't have car-bombs or suicide belts, but they were ingenious at using everything they did have (even slingshots and crossbows, plus traps and tricks) and did not hesitate to sacrifice their own lives to destroy an enemy that they saw as the Devil incarnate.

Brazil had just become a republic in 1889, when the army deposed the ailing and weary Emperor Pedro II. Only a year earlier, Dom Pedro had achieved his long-held ambition to abolish slavery—provoking the wrath of slave-using coffee-growers and contributing to the anti-monarchical sentiment among the urban elite that led to Dom Pedro's downfall.

The rebellion in the backlands began as defiance against the republic and its new laws. A wandering visionary named Antônio Maciel, known as o conselheiro (the counselor), gathered a growing following as he denounced such impieties as a census (he said its purpose was to count people who would be returned to slavery), civil marriages and non-religious burials (an offense to God), and taxes (instead of tithes to the Church). He and most of his followers were barely literate, so we have only fragments of his preaching and exhortations recorded by people who regarded them as holy, and reconstructions from oral accounts by those who heard him. With the few believers he allowed to accompany him, he strode continually through the mountains, caatinga (shrubland), arroyos and canyons, stopping at each settlement to preach and also to command the restoration of abandoned chapels and cemeteries or the building of grand new ones, which he would demand be attended by a priest. The Catholic Church didn't know what to make of him. Sometimes a curate would invite him to preach, but the church hierarchy was suspicious of his strange sermons, equating the republic with "the Dog"—meaning the Devil—and predicting the end of the world and the advent of the Good Jesus to the backlands. But what caught the authorities' attention was his destruction of official edicts proclaiming the census, elections and taxes, and his orders not to obey any authorities of the republic.

The governor of Bahia and the military chiefs in Rio assumed it would be simple to put down this nuisance, and sent a military expedition to quash it. It was destroyed. They sent another, much larger one, under the command of a hero of several other repressive campaigns, and this turned out even more disastrous—Col. Moreira César and thousands of his troops were killed, their huge Krups cannons seized, and the surviving troops chased from the territory. This was incomprehensible from primitively armed cowhands and homesteaders. The excitable press and their elite backers kept inventing more plausible (but completely fallacious) explanations for the ongoing disaster. They must be secretly financed by aristocrats who wanted to restore the empire, and/or by British capitalists who for other reasons wanted to dismember the republic.

A former military man turned journalist and a fervent republican — that is, supporter of the coup that had deposed the Brazilian emperor in 1891 in order to "modernize" the country — Da Cunha got himself embedded in what turned out to be the final, and finally successful campaign to destroy the rebels. Os sertões is not an easy book to follow, mainly because Da Cunha wants to tell so many different stories all at the same time: how the land forms of Brazil were created, how climate affects the habits of cattlemen and farmers in different regions, the history of settlement and pillage from earliest colonial times, and only then, after you've got through all that, the story of the "war", one failed military campaign after another until finally the rebellious settlement is overcome and eliminated. (A particular problem with this translation is the lack of maps, making it almost impossible to follow all the military maneuvers or the geological descriptions in detail.) For much of the book, the real protagonist is not the army or the Canudos resistance nor any of its human participants, but the land itself, which Da Cunha describes as a living thing, crashing thunderbolts and rainstorms to flood out farms and fragile villages, or sucking down every last drop of water and splitting open deep gorges during the droughts, then sprouting its hard sharp foliage to slash human invaders, almost as though the backlands were laughing at human attempts to civilize them..

Another difficulty is that Da Cunha's literary standards, what he considered good writing, were so different from those of any of our contemporary best-selling authors. He is forever digressing and interrupting himself for the sake of reaching an especially dramatic phrase or description. And there is the additional problem that some of the things he asserts are completely screwball, especially race as determining character and ability. Then when the supposedly primitive and intellectually simple blacks or Amerindians or mestizos of the Canudos settlement keep outsmarting the supposedly superior Portuguese-descended commanders sent out to crush them, not acting according to type, he tries to explain it by phrenology — the shape of the cranium as a clue to brain development, in this case, of the wily savagery of the Canudos defenders.

And there are many contradictions like this, because Da Cunha, though fervently on the side of the army, is often overwhelmed by sympathy for the supposedly inferior (racially and culturally) "enemy" who resists that army with courage and ingenuity. If they are so inferior, how can they be so smart and so brave? And how can they, with such poor weapons, obliterate one Brazilian army campaign after another? This gets the author into some very complex speculations about racial mixing and its peculiar consequences, and how those races were somehow better adapted to the harsh physical environment of the backlands. It's as though the social groupings there — the Indians, the blacks, the mestizos — were themselves parts of the natural environment, not to be thought of as "intelligent" any more than the climate or the vegetation or the sharp-edged geology, but that all together they composed the hostile, alien environment that overwhelmed the urban, cultured, white military officers with their neatly formed batallions and cannons and bugle calls.

Vargas Llosa rehumanizes these characters. He takes da Cunha's scattered and often admiring portraits of the famously cruel and brutal bandits Paheú, João Grande and João Abade — real outlaws converted to the Counselor's faith to become fierce defenders of the community — and others and develops them into full, complex psychological characters whose intelligence and human sensibilities, and the wrongs they've suffered and the things they desire, make fully understandable what for da Cunha were simply unexplainable and unreasoned acts of instinct. And he also invents characters — a "near-sighted journalist" (unnamed), a Scottish anarchist who calls himself Galileo Gall, the baron of Cañabrava, the much-abused Jurema, and various midlevel Brazilian military men among them — to let us see this conflict from other points of view. In all, it is a magnificent denunciation of fanaticism, not just (not even principally) of the Counselor's faithful followers, but also (and even more evidently) the fanaticism of those who thought they were bringing civilization but ended up bringing only total destruction to this poor community.

Like Chechenya, and many other places. It's a marvelous, passionate and thought-provoking novel.

[Adam Nissen Feldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be standard reading for any soldier, any politician and any voter. I read it during a time where people I know had sons serving in Afghanistan. This brutal narrative read like a humanistic and precise commentary to the tragic divide between the political idea of war and the reality of war, a reality that da Cunha insisted on facing and fathoming in his life and language.

[Luisa Geisler · Rating 3 out of 5]

a linguagem é top
o aspecto épico é impecável
cenas de guerra excelentes (e olha que sou chata com cena de guerra)
mas é um livro sem um diálogo

[F.E. Beyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Canudos, a backlands town in the Northeastern State of Bahia, Antônio Conselheiro (Anthony the Counselor) preached against the republic. His followers, leather-clad ruffians or 'jagungos', terrorised the countryside. In the 1890s the Republic of Brazil was in its infancy and insecure, rumours of monarchist plots abounded, troublemakers like the Counselor needed to be dealt with. He had gathered a large following, apparently for his indifference to suffering rather than his skill as a preacher.

“His had been a harsh schooling indeed, in hunger, thirst, bodily weariness, repressed anguish and deep-seated misery. There were no tortures unknown to him. His withered epidermis was wrinkled as an old broken and trampled breastplate over his lifeless flesh. Pain itself had come to be his anaesthetic; he bruised and macerated that flesh with hairshirts more cruel than any matweed; he dragged it over the stones of the road; he scorched it in the embers of the drought; he exposed it to the rigors of the cold night dew; in his brief moments of repose he put it to bed on the lacerating couch of the caatingas.”

Soldiers carrying modern rifles bore down on the five thousand or so mud huts that made up Canudos. The jagungos armed with blunderbusses or 'trabucos' were completely outgunned and outnumbered. However, the Brazilain army was embarrassed, their expeditions from the coast were badly supplied and the march to Canudos was treacherous; their enemy was brave and resilient:

“The truth is, frugal and parsimonious in the extreme, these rude fighting men who in a time of peace would go through the day with two or three handfuls of passoca and a drink of water, had in a time of war made abstinence a matter of discipline and had carried it to so high a point that they were capable of an extraordinary degree of physical endurance.”

The army was bamboozled as the enemy employed hit and run tactics, using the terrain to their advantage. A handful of guerillas hammering a conventional army was a story to be echoed in Vietnam, Algeria and Cuba. The army had krugar artillery guns, labouriously dragged to the field of battle, they fired grenades but intially didn't bring much of an advantage. The army's most effective troops were the mounted 'vaquieros' from the south: gaucho cowboys who could at least round up some cattle for the starving soldiers, and there was a battalion of police who themselves were backlanders and could play the jagungos at their own game of hit and run.

The Canudos campaign happened in 1897 two years before the Boer War started. I’ve heard the British-Africaner conflict named the first to feature guerilla tactics, apparently not, and I doubt Canudos was the first either. Hundreds of wounded government soldiers wandering through the backlands on their return to civilisation became a scourge:

“The country along the roadside, which up to then had been populated, was now turned into a waste land, as these tumultuous bands stormed through it, leaving destruction in their wake, like the remnants of some caravan of limping savages.”

Da Cunha spends Part One of the book detailing the geology, flora and fauna of the backlands and also the racial make-up of its human inhabitants. The summary is that 'os sertões' (the backlands, literally drylands) are plagued by drought, treacherous terrain and prickly bushlands or 'caatingas', which tore through the soldiers' uniforms, but not the jagungos leather. The people, largely isolated from the coast for three hundred years, were of a particular racial mix and culture, in the main they were Caboclos (mixed white and Indians), there were also Cafuzos (mixed black and Indian), and Mulatos (mixed black and white). Da Cunha, who I think was of mixed race himself, calls these mestizos inferior. You have to remember social darwinist theories were popular at the time. Apparently the only pretty women in the backlands were of the “Jewish type”. As the narrative progresses Da Cunha changes his tune and recognises the resilience and resourcefulness of the sertanejos (backlanders). Part one of the book was unnecessary for me, as the author later describes the landscape so well in his battle narrative:

“Meanwhile, it was known that this road ran through long stretches of caatingas, necessitating the use of the pick in clearing a path; and it was further known, that a march of twenty-five miles in this midsummer season was out of the question unless each man carried a supply of water on his back, in the manner of the Roman legions in Tunisia.”

The writing is dense and the conflict in Canudos was a never ending string of muck-ups by the Brazilian army. Aware of course that the real problem came from the lack of strategy from the commanders, Da Cunha also explains the weaknesses of the common soldiers:

“In battle, to be sure, the Brazilian soldier is incapable of imitating the Prussian, by going in and coming out with a pedometer on his boot. He is disorderly, tumultuous, rowdy, a terrible but heroic blackguard, attacking the enemy whether by bullet or sword thrust with an ironic jest on his lips.”

Rebellion in the Backlands is a classic, it reminded me of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence because of the beautiful descriptions of a desert landscape. I also found there was a lot to wade through in between the odd passage in which Da Cunha’s prose (through translation) really shines. With the historical references and amount of detail, pathos and analysis here, Da Cunha was evidently an incredibly knowledgeable individual, he died in a gunfight with his wife's lover at age forty-three. An unfaithful wife was something he shared with Anthony the Counselor, for whom such a betrayal led to fifteen years wandering the backlands, and his subsequent elevation to mesianic status.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

more to come shortly ... for now, this is definitely a book that will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I was completely fascinated, especially with Antonio Conselheiro whose followers considered him as some sort of messiah and who all converged in Canudos, aka "the Jerusalem of Mud Huts."

huge book, lots of think time required, so I'll be back.

[Gláucia Renata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esse primeiro volume contém a primeira e a segunda partes: A Terra e O Homem e começa a terceira, A Luta.
Muita gente desiste da leitura logo no início e eu já fui preparada para encontrar um excesso de descrições na parte A Terra. Mas não estava preparada para o que encontrei. O autor se utiliza de uma quantidade enorme de palavras difíceis, várias numa mesma frase que o dicionário foi leitura complementar o tempo todo. O objetivo foi descrever o sertão onde a ação vai se desenrolar mas houve um abuso dessas palavras de forma que não consegui formar uma imagem mental desse cenário. A impressão que tive foi que o autor estava preocupado em exibir sua erudição e foi bem difícil chegar ao final dessa primeira parte. Quem tiver muita vontade de ler essa obra e teme desistir por conta dessa primeira parte pode partir direto para a parte 2 sem que haja prejuízo da compreensão da trama. Posso resumir em palavras mais acessíveis: o sertão é um ambiente extremamente seco, inóspito, rude, a sobrevivência lá é um verdadeiro desafio e acaba tornando o homem mais forte.
A segunda parte, O Homem traz uma espécie de estudo antropológico e tem como objetivo descrever o sertanejo desde sua origem. Essa parte é bem mais acessível e melhorou bastante. Mesmo assim, o livro ainda não me pegou, tudo bem que se trata do relato de um acontecimento histórico mas o autor até agora fez isso com um tom bem neutro, sem colocar qualquer emoção, se restringindo mesmo a descrever os acontecimentos. Fica a sensação de que estou estudando, lendo um livro didático de História do Brasil.
Partirei para a terceira parte que todos dizem ser melhor. Veremos.


Continuando de onde parei, esse segundo volume traz a terceira parte, A Luta desdobrada em vários capítulos que descrevem detalhadamente essa luta sangrenta e tão sem sentido, descrito pela história como um dos maiores crimes à humanidade.
A Guerra de Canudos ocorreu entre 1896 e 1897 e foi formada por quatro expedições mandadas para debelar essa "revolta", tendo Euclides participado como jornalista da última. Apesar de ter lido atentamente o livro todo é muito difícil conseguir explicar de forma racional como os sertanejos conseguiram manter vantagem por cerca de 10 meses. O principal fator foi o profundo conhecimento que eles tinham do inóspito ambiente onde se desenrolou a ação, além de sua capacidade de sobrevivência nas condições críticas e malsãs de uma seca. Isso somado ao excesso de confiança do exército.
Apesar de ser retratado por Euclides como a Vendeia brasileira, ou seja, uma luta de monarquistas contra republicanos, parece que essa não é toda a verdade e motivação. Antônio Conselheiro passou 25 anos vagando pelo sertão amealhando simpatias de um povo sofrido e carente das necessidades mais básicas que foram se unindo a ele por acreditarem na promessa de um futuro mais justo. O caráter anti-republicano dado aos revoltosos pode ser considerado incidental e até mesmo pretexto.
Não se trata de um romance histórico, mas sim de um relato histórico precioso e documental e muitas vezes tive a impressão de estar estudando.
Um final tenebroso culminando com uma chacina covarde de homens, mulheres, velhos e crianças semimortos pela fome e sede excruciante, assim como o incêndio dos 5200 casebres do Arraial.
E não sobrou nenhum...


Histórico de leitura

92% (352 de 384)

"De que modo comentaríamos, com a só fragilidade da palavra humana, o fato singular de não aparecerem mais, desde a manhã de 3, os prisioneiros válidos colhidos na véspera, e entre eles aquele Antônio Beatinho que se nos entregara, confiante - e a quem devemos preciosos esclarecimentos sobre esta fase obscura de nossa história!"

80% (307 de 384)

"Aquilo não era uma campanha, era uma charqueada."

79% (303 de 384)

"O supremo pavor dos sertanejos era morrer a ferro frio, não pelo temor da morte senão pelas suas consequências, porque acreditavam que, por tal forma, não se lhes salvaria a alma."
67% (259 de 384)

"Toda aquela campanha seria um crime inútil e bárbaro, se não se aproveitassem os caminhos abertos à artilharia para uma propaganda tenaz, contínua e presistente, visando trazer para o nosso tempo e incorporar à nossa existência aqueles rudes compatriotas retardatários."


63% (242 de 384)

"E vencido o inimigo que podia ser vencido, recuar incontinenti ante o inimigo invencível e eterno - a terra desolada e estéril."

62% (239 de 384)

"O que era preciso combater a todo o transe e vencer não era o jagunço, era o deserto."

27% (103 de 384)

"Era preciso assustar os sertões com o monstruoso espantalho de aço."

3% (13 de 384)

"O novo insucesso das armas legais, imprevisto para toda a gente, coincidia com uma fase crítica da nossa história."

[Steve]

The sertão is a harsh, unforgiving outback running from the ocean on Brazil’s northeast coast to central Bahia on the south. With water largely scarce, this land is replete with scrub, known as caatinga. I imagine that country to be similar to the southwest corner of Texas for large portions of the year – how anyone could live there in the era before electricity is baffling. The inhabitants, the sertanejos, are survivors, and banditry at the time of this history is commonplace, as if the environment breeds outlaws, known as jagunços.

With the foundation of the Brazilian republic in 1889 –a republic in name only – a stage was set for confrontation involving the new regime against many traditional sertanejos who lived with equal measure of poverty and independence. Enter Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel, born 1830, who later became known as Antônio Conselheiro, the counselor. Following personal misfortune, and years of itinerate preaching – a “confused mix of dogma, vulgarized precepts of Christian morality, and outlantish prophecies” – Conselheiro inspired and led a popular movement, ultimately centered at Canudos, roughly 150 miles directly inland from the ocean and well to the south of the São Francisco River. His influence grew until the establishment figured enough was enough. The spark appeared in October 1896 when the chief justice of Juazeiro decided to settle a grudge, preventing delivery of an order of wood Conselheiro placed to build a new church. Conselheiro’s men were reported to be on the march to Jazeiro in reaction to this affront. The Bahian government called in the troops. What followed was nearly a year of slaughter and atrocities that ended in October 1897.

Sr. da Cunha travelled with the federal troops. A revered figure, and a character in his own right, you will find a town in Bahia named for him not far from Canudos. He recorded the military embarrassments and incompetencies for posterity for which there was ample supply. To suppress Conselheiro’s followers, armed with primitive weaponry, required multiple expeditions with dramatically increased force. Progress occurred only when the commanders realized the first foe was the sertão itself – they sure were slow learners. With the defenders fighting to the last man, no quarter was given. The military committed abysmal crimes – as did the enemy – in their mission to eradicate Conselheiro's army of jagunços. The dead measured several thousand on both sides of this conflict. Apparently, every jagunço, but for a handful, was killed in combat with Conselheiro dying of dysentery that September. The military counted 5,200 residences in Canudos following the campaign; the dead jagunços likely numbered far more than that.

When I think about recent conflicts with religious undercurrents, and then ponder this history, I can’t help but carry great pessimism for the future. Read what Sr. da Cunha wrote in conclusion of the campaign and then consider the propaganda used to inspire the Brazilian legions to battle. What a pathetic display of twisted mendacity to justify an unwarranted brutality upon a people. We still see this occurring today in various corners of our world, nearly 130 years following the death of Antônio Conselheiro. Sr. da Cunha ends: "It is truly regrettable that in these times we do not have a [Henry] Maudsley, who knew the difference between good sense and insanity, to prevent nations from committing acts of madness and crimes against humanity."

[Leonardo Rezende Malouf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Se fosse possível eu classificaria ”Os Sertões” com 2,5 estrelas. Como ponto positivo, a história é um grandioso épico brasileiro. Poucas narrativas tem uma temática tão interessante e fantástica, uma verdadeira epopéia dos sertões. Não apenas os eventos da guerra em si prendem o leitor, mas também todo o processo do surgimento do arraial de canudos sob a liderança de Antônio conselheiro, um líder messiânico e misterioso, capaz de arregimentar uma verdadeira multidão disposta à ir até as últimas consequências sob seu comando. Essa obra, com todo seu realismo brutal, faz o leitor encarar os alicerces do Brasil atual, e provoca uma reflexão sobre os processos que construíram nossa identidade nacional. Ao mostrar de forma nua e crua os eventos marcantes de nossa história, o leitor certamente sairá mais capaz de entender os rumos tomados por essa nação ao longo do século XX.

Como pontos negativos, talvez o principal é mais marcante de todos é a linguagem. O vocabulário utilizado por Euclides da Cunha é extremamente erudito e arcaico. Creio que não conhecia por volta de 20% das palavras utilizadas no livro, o que fez parecer que estava lendo uma obra da literatura estrangeira em uma língua que não domino. Além disso, o livro se inicia com uma longuíssima descrição (150 páginas) da terra na qual o conflito se desenrola. Um vocabulário técnico rebuscado é utilizado, o que mais atrapalha do que ajuda na ambientação da história. Um outro ponto negativo foram as opiniões de cunho racista emitidas pelo autor, que em certos momentos parece ser adepto à ideologia eugenista. Todos esses fatores fazem com que a leitura desse livro seja penosa e cansativa. Por diversas vezes pensei em desistir.

Em suma, eu não recomendaria a leitura desse livro para o público em geral, com exceção daqueles genuinamente interessados no evento da guerra de canudos e movimentos messiânicos. Para todos os demais, a vida é curta e existem obras mais interessantes para se ler. De todo modo, recomendo à todos dedicar um pouco de tempo para conhecer mais profundamente sobre a guerra de canudos. Seja por meio do filme (que por sinal é excelente), documentários ou uma simples leitura rápida sobre o assunto na internet.

[Dario Andrade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Os sertões é dos grandes livros para se entender o Brasil. Isso não significa que é fácil. Lançado em 1902, cinco após o fim do conflito, é uma espécie de tratado a respeito do país, escrito especialmente para aquela elite que se encastelava nas grandes cidades do litoral, principalmente no Rio de Janeiro, que ainda guardava ares de corte e era onde estavam a maioria dos intelectuais daquele tempo.
Divide-se em três partes. A terra, o homem, a luta. O primeiro e mais curto é aquele que é justamente o é mais difícil de ser atravessado. Euclides parece ter tido a intenção de escrever algo que desse ao leitor uma compreensão do que era o país, mas principalmente o que era aridez do sertão: uma terra seca, castigada pelo sol, pelas condições climáticas absolutamente desfavoráveis ao homem.
O homem que nasce dessa terra é visto por ele com grande ambiguidade. É verdade que ele o respeita, mas ao mesmo tempo, Euclides o desconsidera. Isso porque ele, Euclides, acredita nas teses raciais tão voga em fins do século XIX: a pureza da raça é maculada pela mestiçagem, que corrompe a tudo. E o próprio Antônio Conselheiro, nas palavras do autor não passa de um “gnóstico bronco”, perturbado pelos fracassos da vida.
Mas, quando chega a luta, é possível ver o autor – que esteve em Canudos durante a quarta expedição, nos estágios finais do conflito – mais simpático ao sertanejo, ao mesmo tempo em que expõe o que a República não foi. Ele insiste, em certo ponto, que era uma luta inútil, sem sentido, bárbara mesmo, e que a missão verdadeira seria a de ensinar, educar esses sertanejos que constituem praticamente outro país.
O que poderia ser uma questão menor, um simples problema em relação ao pagamento de uma carga de madeira, evolui em direção a um conflito incontrolável. O exército age como uma tropa colonial, como tantas que estiveram na África ou Ásia. O seu objetivo não é pacificar, mas o de destruir, exterminar o sertanejo que supostamente seria um resquício do império.
Canudos não se rendeu, mas foi exterminada. Um grande livro que merece ser lido ainda hoje, mais de cem anos depois.

[Andrew]

It's something of a miracle that a book like this has been saved from the dust heap, and has remained an enduring classic in Brazil (although probably not that commonly read in the world at large). Epics of military tactics are hardly hip reading, and that goes double when you bring in Cunha's racial politics, which reflect Brazil's at the time -- basically lots of calipers and skull measurements and typology of the negro -- but it's an at times gripping tale of the conflict between peasant guerrillas and the representatives of a "civilization" that tends to act in a manner anything but civilized. For me, it was worth it for the evocative descriptions of the geography and anthropology of life in the scrublands of the Sertao, a place I've seen mythologized in Brazilian film, and which seems to hold a certain something in the national imagination there. For others, there might be an appeal in the story of how a bunch of yokels in rawhide outfits with blunderbusses managed to outfox a modern army. Either way, it's worth a recommend.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Da Cunha was a nineteenth century writer, the kind obsessed with facts; he can't begin this history of crazed faith confronted by a blundering military without spending a hundred pages on the natural history of the place. Antonio the Counselor was someone we would recognize today as a cult leader, with all the charismatic madness we have seen in subsequent cults. He began wandering a particularly inhospitable back land of Northeast Brazil, encouraging people to rebuild churches, and drew a movement around him. As with other movements, part of the appeal was clearly a mesmerizing presence, part of it was an egalitarian approach to the racism of the national culture, part of it the welcoming embrace extended to outsiders, including some bandits who contributed to the defense. His ideology had less appealing facets as well; he thought monarchy to be the natural, religious order of things, which provoked the infant Brazilian Republic. His bandits turned their skills to supporting the community by robbing the neighboring ranches. What little remains of his utterances has a message that is, when coherent, both communitarian and millenarian, and his justice was, according to da Cunha who seems to have sought out every document, more concerned with faith than with what the wider Brazilian society would have seen as morals. He was a man who urged his faithful to build, not just a new church (eventually the blinds for some of his sharpshooters), but also huts laid out in a haphazard fashion, which eventually became a fatal labyrinth for Brazilian soldiers. Appropriately enough, the event that sparked the war against him was a dispute over some lumber he wished to buy. The Brazilian Army reacted with pride in the new Republic, disrepect for the backlanders, and a criminal disregard for adequate preparation. As a result, it took four expeditions and almost a year to subdue the rebels, who fought an underarmed guerrilla with skill, passion and cruelty. At the end, very few survived. Da Cunha is very modern in his distaste for the military's ineptitude and savagery; he had nothing in common with Antonio's beliefs, but he thought the state had committed a crime.

[Squire · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the first tests of Brazil's New Republic was how do deal with the 5500 followers of Antonio Conselheiro, a religious leader who had established a village of Canudos in the blasted and inhospitable highlands of northeast Brazil. The government led three assaults on Canudos, leading to three resounding defeats. Finally, under a new military commander, a fourth expedition was led into the backlands; the commander was determined to but an end to the rebellion. Euclides Da Cunha was a reporter assigned to cover the fourth campaign.

This extraordinary chronicle begins with a description of the land of northeast Brazil as the republican army traversed the hellish backlands terrain. Next, Da Cunha attempts to provide a context for the Brazillian populace and how the backlander and the coastal/city dwellers of developed differently. His antiquated sociology seems racist by today's standards (one of the pitfalls of viewing history through 21st century eyes); but as a reporter, Da Cunha was simply using the social Darwinism norms of the day to extrapolate his point.

To be sure, the first two thirds of this book relates information that from other sources (Da Cuna only witnessed the last of four expeditions into the backlands). But it is a riveting account nonetheless, though Da Cunha's tone is inconsistent throughout Backlands; he is chronicling the responsibilities and advances of the new government, but he finds himself questioning what the government is doing to the backlanders. (Apparently Brazillian publishing houses were scarce and there was no professional editing of this book).

I had never heard of the Canudos rebellion before starting this book, but Da Cahuna's approach to his material made it accessible. It is not only an extraordinary historical document but a great moral treatise on armed conflict. This is one of the great works of Brazillian literature of the time for a reason and should be read more often.

[Richard Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was Robert Lowell's favorite book. It is a dense account of the land and people and events that took place in the northeastern corner of Brazil in 1890 or so. A subculture of rubber farmers developed their own religion-based society around a charismatic crazyman name "Anthony the Counselor"and confronted the authorities of the new Brazilian republic (they had just deposed their emperor and were suspicious of governments that formed around a single leader). Like Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississippi" Da Cunha brings the landscape into play as an acitve character. The military accounts reminded this reader of a more flamboyant version of Grant's Memoirs. This masterpiece deserves a new translation. Where are you, Edith Grossman? The current one is by Walter Prescott , who did the dreary version of Don Quixote we all had to read in college .

[Amanda Alexandre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dica: Este livro é dividido em 3 tomos. Ignore os dois primeiros (são CHATOS PARA CARAMBA) e comece a partir do final do segundo. É aí que o autor começa a contar a vida de Antônio Conselheiro. E no final, em que as tropas do governo esmagam a Revolta, é es-tar-re-ce-dor!

[Claire Scorzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finalmente!!!

[Quefren Nogueira · Rating 5 out of 5]

A primeira parte é ótima.

[José Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Depois que terminei A guerra do fim do mundo (Vargas Llosa), a leitura obrigatória seria Os Sertões. Livro referência sobre o sertão da Bahia, e sobre Canudos. Escrito na época dos acontecimentos, utilizando fontes da época. Não é um romance, mas um descritivo riquissimo sobre o relevo, população, miscigenação, águas da região de Canudos, no sertão da Bahia. Claro, para ler e entender tudo, tem que ir consultando a geografia, bons mapas (IBGE tem um Atlas Geográfico digital, fantástico, recomendo), para a gente ir se situando. É a leitura definitiva sobre esses acontecimentos da nossa história, no final do século XIX.

[Flávio Barros · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's simply one of the best Brazilian master pieces. This book cover a wide range of subjects, from geology (describing the Brazilian geography from south to North), anthropology (giving live to a historically neglected race: the "sertanejo"), and a bellic epic of Brazil's army major warfares (despite being a domestic conflict, it involved over 6/7 thousand soldiers against over 20 thousand civilians), all those aspects being described in a superb poetic narrative. A "Must read" book to get a glimpse of the first years of Brazilian republic.

[Elvis Rodrigues · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entre 1893 e 1897 Antônio Conselheiro foi seguido por uma legião e comandou o povoado de Canudos, no alto sertão baiano. Visto como antirepublicano e saudoso da monarquia, foi interpretado como uma ameaça nacional, e assim realizou-se uma guerra de proporções inimagináveis, levando à morte de aproximadamente 25 mil pessoas, graças à bravura e aos estratagemas soturnos dos sertanejos, chamados à época de jagunços.

Como documento histórico, Os Sertões tem valor imensurável. Foi um marco na distinção clara do modo de vida da população do litoral com a do interior, e também da população sulista-sudestina daquela do nordeste. Dá para fazer algumas concessões ao racismo de Euclides da Cunha por se tratar de senso comum da virada do Século XIX para o XX, pois ele trata claramente o interiorano mestiço como inferior, embora inconcebivelmente resistente. O autor faz um retrato pormenorizado da geografia, do clima, das condições sociológicas que levaram à formação desta população tão díspar do resto do país, e do histórico de Antônio Conselheiro e como ele se tornou o messias daquele povo. E também relata com detalhes a guerra em si, com as quatro expedições necessárias para a vitória do Exército brasileiro.

A primeira parte é exageradamente acadêmica, um tratado geográfico e sociológico, que não sou capaz de julgar dessa forma. E a segunda parte é um relato jornalístico de uma guerra, parte do qual foi observado pelo próprio Euclides, mas muito foi de relatos dos sobreviventes e análise documental. É um trabalho impressionante. Porém, o conjunto se torna em momentos tedioso. Se a parte mais acadêmica pode ter sido muito útil para estudiosos da época, não é nada interessante para leitura mais de 100 anos após os incidentes. E o relato de guerra, embora seja muito mais fascinante, também peca pela despersonalização.

E é este o meu maior problema: há poucos e pouco desenvolvidos personagens em Os Sertões. Se Euclides tivesse, sei lá, seguido os passos de um soldado qualquer, ou mesmo que alternasse os personagens, mas nos mostrasse mais ou menos o ponto de vista deles, poderíamos encarar a obra como um romance histórico e seria muito mais aprazível. Então eu reconheço todo o valor do que ali consta, mas não pretendo reler um dia, e me custou 70 dias para atravessar toda a obra (embora eu tenha lido outras coisas em paralelo).

Feita minha reclamação, devo ressaltar que urge a realização de um filme sobre Canudos. Eu sei que já existe o de 1997 com o José Wilker de Antônio Conselheiro, mas este trata de aspectos mais mundanos, embora também interessantes, do conflito. Eu digo que é imprescindível um filme de guerra! Um que mostre a geografia do lugar, os fracassos do Exército, a bravura dos locais, e como se deu o conflito em si. É uma batalha tão fascinante quanto algumas clássicas da II Guerra Mundial, e poderia, sim, render um grande filme.

[Leonardo Rezende Malouf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Se fosse possível eu classificaria ”Os Sertões” com 2,5 estrelas. Como ponto positivo, a história é um grandioso épico brasileiro. Poucas narrativas tem uma temática tão interessante e fantástica, uma verdadeira epopéia dos sertões. Não apenas os eventos da guerra em si prendem o leitor, mas também todo o processo do surgimento do arraial de canudos sob a liderança de Antônio conselheiro, um líder messiânico e misterioso, capaz de arregimentar uma verdadeira multidão disposta à ir até as últimas consequências sob seu comando. Essa obra, com todo seu realismo brutal, faz o leitor encarar os alicerces do Brasil atual, e provoca uma reflexão sobre os processos que construíram nossa identidade nacional. Ao mostrar de forma nua e crua os eventos marcantes de nossa história, o leitor certamente sairá mais capaz de entender os rumos tomados por essa nação ao longo do século XX.

Como pontos negativos, talvez o principal é mais marcante de todos é a linguagem. O vocabulário utilizado por Euclides da Cunha é extremamente erudito e arcaico. Creio que não conhecia por volta de 20% das palavras utilizadas no livro, o que fez parecer que estava lendo uma obra da literatura estrangeira em uma língua que não domino. Além disso, o livro se inicia com uma longuíssima descrição (150 páginas) da terra na qual o conflito se desenrola. Um vocabulário técnico rebuscado é utilizado, o que mais atrapalha do que ajuda na ambientação da história. Um outro ponto negativo foram as opiniões de cunho racista emitidas pelo autor, que em certos momentos parece ser adepto à ideologia eugenista. Todos esses fatores fazem com que a leitura desse livro seja penosa e cansativa. Por diversas vezes pensei em desistir.

Em suma, eu não recomendaria a leitura desse livro para o público em geral, com exceção daqueles genuinamente interessados no evento da guerra de canudos e movimentos messiânicos. Para todos os demais, a vida é curta e existem obras mais interessantes para se ler. De todo modo, recomendo à todos dedicar um pouco de tempo para conhecer mais profundamente sobre a guerra de canudos. Seja por meio do filme (que por sinal é excelente), documentários ou uma simples leitura rápida sobre o assunto na internet.

[David C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Circa 1890, a religious community arose in the unbelievably harsh section of Brazil they call the Northeast; more accurately, in the easternmost area where the shoreline juts into the Atlantic. The author, an army engineer, details the "...War and Peace of Brazil...". Tellingly, this book has never been out of print after 125 years.
It is a massive book, and except for the overlong description of the horrible terrain(suffice to say fierce heat, equatorial sun, desperate drought)it never drags.
The cult of 5500 souls, in a village where the widest street was 8 feet across, of 3500 buildings, was apparently attracting the wrath of the government.
In the first sortie, ill-organized, unprepared troops were soundly beaten by the sect. The survivors retreated, down a road lined with dead soldiers, officers and horses, that were propped up, as ghastly reminders of ignominy. The glare of sunlight on the highly reflective soil and rocks, and the lack of water, caused immense suffering. In the most unbelievable stupidity, the soldiers lost over a million rounds of ammo to the defenders. Two more defeats; and they finally mounted an operation that succeeded to wipe the cult out.
The foes fought their battles on the narrow streets and and sometimes spent weeks inside the same building, unable to advance, driven mad by hunger, and thirst and fear. Let us hope we never have to fight Brazil.
Truly remarkable book that deserves more attention.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have given this book five stars because it is a fascinating read. It can be, I think, considered under that opaque category of "The Latin American" essay, along with Sarmiento's Facundo, Rodó's Ariel, etc. Da Cunha's book is riveting, it is racist in its antiquated science, but it is also humanistic in its attempt to demonstrate to Brazil in 1902 the "borrowed culture" of its coastal cities. It is a jeremiad of the senseless violence that occurs between fear and misled nationalism in the budding years of a Republic in the Americas. The conflation of science, history, literature and magic keeps this book relevant and has inspired debates and secondary literature for over one hundred years.

[Glenn Cheney]

I'm lucky enough to have editions in Portuguese and English. It's interesting to read both at the same time. I don't think I could understand the Portuguese very well if that's all I had. But once I've read the English, the Portuguese is readily understandable.

I've skipped the tedious and, to me, not-understandable section on the land. I want to get into the sections on man and the Conflict.

The introduction by translator Samuel Putnam is very good. If you have his edition, don't skip that part.

[Leonardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um livro surpreendente. Euclides da cunha conseguiu transformar descrições científicas, História e tragédia em poesia.

O conflito em Os Sertões é atual, talvez menos manifesto. Como o Estado e parte da população é capaz de declarar guerra a seus compatriotas?

O livro é extenso, a narrativa é de um realismo impressionante. É difícil imaginar a Geografia da região de Canudos, bem como os movimentos dos batalhões durante a guerra.

Imprescindível para entender o Brasil.

[Gustavo Euclides · Rating 4 out of 5]

the brazilian iliad.

a historical, sociological, geographical and cultural view of Brazilian land and people, but most of all, an epic telling of the bloodiest conflict in our history, the Guerra dos Canudos.

[Paulo Bugalho · Rating 5 out of 5]

O crebro crepitar dos tiroteios

Pergunte-se o leitor, ao embater no livro, se o tema lhe diz respeito. O que é que eu tenho a ver com isto, pergunte, lembrando-se de quem era antes de começar a lê-lo. Se a resposta for "nada", e mesmo assim não conseguir desfazer-se da leitura, é porque o livro é bom. Quando o entusiasmo aumenta em razão inversa à da relação que se tem com o assunto, é porque a literatura, esse misterioso duende, está a fazer o seu trabalho, que é, precisamente, obrigar o leitor a "ter a ver" com o que está escrito. Veja-se o caso em apreço. Seria eu um fascinado por história do Brasil, geologias escusas, revoltas obscuras? Nem por isso. Canudos? Não faço ideia. Mas eis o livro, com o seu início ad Big Bang, fulgurante a relatar a formação dos continentes, e depois a configuração geográfica da região (a lembrar-me, saudosamente, as coisas do Ruy Duarte de Carvalho, e aquele gozo na enumeração de esdrúxulos nomes científicos que é tão só o da linguagem, e talvez da música) e em seguida a constituição antropológica dos habitantes e finalmente a origem do grande louco que a tudo dá início com a chama infalível do fanatismo. E daqui começa o que não consigo descrever senão como uma espécie de Ilíada à brasileira, com bocados a lembrar Heródoto e a resistência em Termópilas. Encontros e recontros, canhonadas e investidas, muitos insucessos inesperados, mais egoísmo que heroísmo. O que é que interessa, isto? De repente tudo, porque é bem contado. Porque tem palavras quase inventadas (tiradas ao acaso, de meia dúzia de páginas, conto perlongar, derrancar, engripando-se, adoudadamente, retovado) e plasticidades magistrais, e aquela atenção à natureza humana que as guerras sempre mostram com uma nitidez radiográfica. Porque uma coisa são os factos e outra o modo de contá-los. Um clássico, irredutível.

(Dito isto, há senãos, como sejam tiradas hoje impensáveis sobre a natureza das raças e o seu valor, que não me admirava pudessem ser preconceituosas até para o tempo em que foram escritas; e uma série dislates para-científicos de abanar a cabeça, mesmo que os admitamos compatíveis com o conhecimento da época).

(Segundo parêntesis: crebro quer dizer frequente, fui ver ao priberam: mas frequente não soa como um tiro, não tem o estalido de crebro).

[Matheus Assaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Euclides da Cunha é o primeiro intérprete do Brasil. Os Sertões permanece atual. O livro mostra a falta de identificação e total incompreensão do Estado brasileiro, na forma na recém declarada República, acerca do próprio povo e território.
Não é uma leitura fácil. É recomendável ter um dicionário por perto. Mais de uma vez precisei consultar três ou quatro palavras da mesma frase no dicionário.
A primeira parte, "A Terra", tem uma má reputação pela dificuldade da leitura. O início é realmente duro, exceto talvez para geólogos. Mas também tem uma descrição fantástica da caatinga. Eu usei o google como apoio para buscar imagens e mais informações das diversas espécies da flora da caatinga e valeu muito a pena.
Na segunda parte, "O Homem", as teorias científicas racistas vigentes da época entram em conflito com um sertanejo arisco que se recusa a seguir a ciência. A história do Conselheiro abre a história de fato, explorando o caráter místico da vida sertaneja.
Em "A Luta" transcorre a história épica da resistência de Canudos. Todos personagens são perfeitamente brasileiros. A identidade da nação está presente em todas as partes, começando pelos nomes dos líderes canudenses: Antônio Fogueteiro, Antônio Beatinho, João Abade, Joaquim Macambira, Pedrão, Pajeú. Os militares são igualmente tipos ideais: Moreira César, no limiar da loucura e com a violência como única estratégia militar; Coronel Tamarindo, que padece ao notar a iminente derrota em uma última missão que acreditava simples antes da aposentadoria; os praças esfomeados precisando caçar para ter o que comer. Canudos é apresentada como a primeira favela da história (o que justifica o nome moderno), com suas centenas de becos e vielas diagonais, com 5000 casebres pobres amontoados em volta da igreja nova. A população de Canudos fazia do arraial uma das grandes cidades do Brasil na época, de fato a população estimada ali se equiparava a de São Paulo no mesmo período. Apesar disso, nunca houve alternativa vinda do Estado senão o aniquilamento total da própria população. Uma estratégia que permanece.
Os Sertões é um épico que merece o status de clássico na literatura brasileira.

[Emico Salum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sempre achei q esse livro seria dificílimo de ler . Na verdade é muito delicioso . Uma narrativa jornalística primorosa . E quanto que aquela época guarda de semelhança com hoje em dia: Um país paralisado por um regime fantasma e um governo , abobalhado, lutando contra inimigos imaginários !

[Antenor Portela · Rating 5 out of 5]

A saga de um povo que lutou por sua crença com toda a força da raça sertaneja e a resiliência de um povo habituado ao embate com a própria natureza. Euclides, na sua genialidade, viu grandeza e coragem, enquanto muitos contemporâneos seus só viam barbárie e atraso civilizatório, por tudo isso sua obra literária magnífica foi imortalizada.
Antenor L F Portela