Questões de Inglês

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A hundred years ago this weekend, a group of young artists and writers organised what they called the Modern Art Week in the new and grandiose municipal theatre in São Paulo. In fact, it lasted only for three evenings. It included a show of modernist painting, lectures, poetry recitals and music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, who was to become Brazil’s best-known composer. It has since come to be seen as the founding moment of modern Brazilian artistic culture. Its centenary has brought both commemoration and some criticism.

The event took place in São Paulo, then a fast-industrialising frontier city that was starting to rival Rio de Janeiro, the capital at the time, where the staid cultural establishment was based. The Brazilian modernists had their contradictions. The would-be revolutionaries were also dandies, the scions of the coffee-growing aristocracy, and they were close to the political oligarchy that ran São Paulo and Brazil. Even so, they were disrupters.

The week “was a declaration of cultural independence, that we are not simply a clumsy copy of something else”, says Eduardo Giannetti, a Brazilian philosopher. The modernists’ aims were later formalised in a Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto), written by one of the poets, Oswald de Andrade. This sought to address the dilemma of how to be a Brazilian modern artist when modernism was a European import. The answer: “Absorption of the sacred enemy. To transform him into a totem.” In other words, Brazilians would not simply reproduce other models but digest them and turn them into something that was their own. The group embraced a national identity that, at least in theory, included black and indigenous Brazilians and their beliefs, and tropical fauna and flora.

It was cultural nationalism, but of an open-minded, cosmopolitan and non-xenophobic kind. That was important. Across Latin America, modernist writers and artists were forging new national identities. As the innovative 1920s degenerated into the ideological conflicts of the 1930s, some would embrace communism and others creole fascism in its many variants. The Brazilian modernists would radicalise politically and be coopted, too, by Getúlio Vargas, Brazil’s nation-builder, who ruled for much of 1930 to 1954, by turns an autocrat and a democrat.

Fonte: How the “Cannibal Manifesto” changed Brazil (Updated Feb 20th 2022). In: www.economist.com/the-americas/ 2022/02/12/how-the-cannibal-manifesto-changed-brazil. Adaptado. Data de acesso: 20/08/2022.

Leia atentamente o texto a seguir para responder à questão.

A hundred years ago this weekend, a group of young artists and writers organised what they called the Modern Art Week in the new and grandiose municipal theatre in São Paulo. In fact, it lasted only for three evenings. It included a show of modernist painting, lectures, poetry recitals and music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, who was to become Brazil’s best-known composer. It has since come to be seen as the founding moment of modern Brazilian artistic culture. Its centenary has brought both commemoration and some criticism.

The event took place in São Paulo, then a fast-industrialising frontier city that was starting to rival Rio de Janeiro, the capital at the time, where the staid cultural establishment was based. The Brazilian modernists had their contradictions. The would-be revolutionaries were also dandies, the scions of the coffee-growing aristocracy, and they were close to the political oligarchy that ran São Paulo and Brazil. Even so, they were disrupters.

The week “was a declaration of cultural independence, that we are not simply a clumsy copy of something else”, says Eduardo Giannetti, a Brazilian philosopher. The modernists’ aims were later formalised in a Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto), written by one of the poets, Oswald de Andrade. This sought to address the dilemma of how to be a Brazilian modern artist when modernism was a European import. The answer: “Absorption of the sacred enemy. To transform him into a totem.” In other words, Brazilians would not simply reproduce other models but digest them and turn them into something that was their own. The group embraced a national identity that, at least in theory, included black and indigenous Brazilians and their beliefs, and tropical fauna and flora.

It was cultural nationalism, but of an open-minded, cosmopolitan and non-xenophobic kind. That was important. Across Latin America, modernist writers and artists were forging new national identities. As the innovative 1920s degenerated into the ideological conflicts of the 1930s, some would embrace communism and others creole fascism in its many variants. The Brazilian modernists would radicalise politically and be coopted, too, by Getúlio Vargas, Brazil’s nation-builder, who ruled for much of 1930 to 1954, by turns an autocrat and a democrat.

Fonte: How the “Cannibal Manifesto” changed Brazil (Updated Feb 20th 2022). In: www.economist.com/the-americas/ 2022/02/12/how-the-cannibal-manifesto-changed-brazil. Adaptado. Data de acesso: 20/08/2022.

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Conquistadores. By Fernando Cervantes. Viking; 512 pages; $35. Penguin, £12.99. A balanced retelling of the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru, which draws heavily on the letters and diaries of those involved. The author chronicles the brutality of the invaders but seeks to judge them by the values of their own times. The behaviour of Hernán Cortés and the rest was nurtured by a late-medieval religious culture, not purely by the lure of gold and still less by modern notions of statehood, he argues.

News of a Kidnapping. By Gabriel García Márquez. Translated by Edith Grossman. Vintage; 304 pages; $17. Penguin; £8.99. An unsurpassed journalistic account by Colombia’s most famous novelist of the horror inflicted by Pablo Escobar, the murderous drug-trafficker from Medellín, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It focuses on the kidnapping of Diana Turbay, a journalist and daughter of a former president, tracing the agonising choices of officials torn between national interest and personal ties.

The Feast of the Goat. By Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated by Edith Grossman. Picador; 416 pages; $20. Faber & Faber; £8.99. Peru’s Nobel-prizewinning novelist is at his psychologically probing best in this fictionalised account of the moral corruption and political repression of the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, the self-styled Generalissimo who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. 

Beef, Bible and Bullets. By Richard Lapper. Manchester University Press; 272 pages; $29.95 and £11.99. A readable account of how Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil’s presidency in the election of 2018 through a culture war that forged an ad hoc coalition of farmers, evangelical Protestants and the security forces.

Fonte: Our correspondents recommend the best books on their beats – Latin America. In: www.economist.com/culture /2022/07/14/our-correspondents-recommend-the-best-books-on-their-beats. Adaptado. Data de acesso: 14/07/2022.

Leia atentamente o texto a seguir para responder à questão.

Conquistadores. By Fernando Cervantes. Viking; 512 pages; $35. Penguin, £12.99. A balanced retelling of the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru, which draws heavily on the letters and diaries of those involved. The author chronicles the brutality of the invaders but seeks to judge them by the values of their own times. The behaviour of Hernán Cortés and the rest was nurtured by a late-medieval religious culture, not purely by the lure of gold and still less by modern notions of statehood, he argues.

News of a Kidnapping. By Gabriel García Márquez. Translated by Edith Grossman. Vintage; 304 pages; $17. Penguin; £8.99. An unsurpassed journalistic account by Colombia’s most famous novelist of the horror inflicted by Pablo Escobar, the murderous drug-trafficker from Medellín, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It focuses on the kidnapping of Diana Turbay, a journalist and daughter of a former president, tracing the agonising choices of officials torn between national interest and personal ties.

The Feast of the Goat. By Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated by Edith Grossman. Picador; 416 pages; $20. Faber & Faber; £8.99. Peru’s Nobel-prizewinning novelist is at his psychologically probing best in this fictionalised account of the moral corruption and political repression of the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, the self-styled Generalissimo who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. 

Beef, Bible and Bullets. By Richard Lapper. Manchester University Press; 272 pages; $29.95 and £11.99. A readable account of how Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil’s presidency in the election of 2018 through a culture war that forged an ad hoc coalition of farmers, evangelical Protestants and the security forces.

Fonte: Our correspondents recommend the best books on their beats – Latin America. In: www.economist.com/culture /2022/07/14/our-correspondents-recommend-the-best-books-on-their-beats. Adaptado. Data de acesso: 14/07/2022.

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Since the early 1990s, an interesting phenomenon has emerged in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus – some states that, despite having their own government and state apparatus, lack international recognition. Even today, the struggle of these unrecognised states remains widely unknown. While these states have been the focus of much academic study, their very existence is often neglected by both the international community and societies in the West. In parallel, there exist in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus distinct peoples who have neither acquired recognised statehood nor any significant representation within their own countries – they are the so-called unrepresented peoples.

Today, the territory of the former Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus is somewhat unique for its relatively high concentration of unrecognised states and unrepresented peoples. Each of them has varying degrees of independence and autonomy. Some have de facto statehood, whereas others are distinct peoples with little to no representation or territorial autonomy. Although different, these peoples seem to have one common goal – self-determination.

The benefits of recognised statehood are numerous and often taken for granted – countries have access to various forms of international funding, for example from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); their citizens can travel, assured that their passports will be accepted in another country; and they have a voice at international forums like the United Nations (UN), which can be an opportunity to influence international outcomes in their favour. Unrecognised states, on the other hand, are isolated internationally and can be forced to rely upon a patron state which offers them all kinds of help in exchange for their allegiance. This dependency on a patron-client relationship can lead to the client state being used as a political tool by its patron.

One key issue facing most unrecognised states is the restriction on movement imposed on their people. Because their de facto nationality is not recognised internationally, their locally-issued passports or travel documents are not considered valid for travel or entry into another country. The only way for them to travel abroad is to receive a passport from a neighbouring country, or to travel to the few countries that do recognise them. It happens that some people living in de facto states are entitled to other citizenships. In addition to unrecognised states, there also exists a number of unrepresented peoples – that is, distinct ethnic and linguistic groups that enjoy little or no representation both internationally and domestically. These peoples struggle even more for self-determination since they do not have their own autonomous territory. They find themselves even more vulnerable and are often at best ignored, or worse persecuted.

Fonte: What does it mean to be unrecognised and unrepresented? https://unpo.org/article/21947. Adaptado. Data de acesso: 07/08/2022.

Leia atentamente o texto a seguir para responder à questão.

Since the early 1990s, an interesting phenomenon has emerged in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus – some states that, despite having their own government and state apparatus, lack international recognition. Even today, the struggle of these unrecognised states remains widely unknown. While these states have been the focus of much academic study, their very existence is often neglected by both the international community and societies in the West. In parallel, there exist in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus distinct peoples who have neither acquired recognised statehood nor any significant representation within their own countries – they are the so-called unrepresented peoples.

Today, the territory of the former Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus is somewhat unique for its relatively high concentration of unrecognised states and unrepresented peoples. Each of them has varying degrees of independence and autonomy. Some have de facto statehood, whereas others are distinct peoples with little to no representation or territorial autonomy. Although different, these peoples seem to have one common goal – self-determination.

The benefits of recognised statehood are numerous and often taken for granted – countries have access to various forms of international funding, for example from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); their citizens can travel, assured that their passports will be accepted in another country; and they have a voice at international forums like the United Nations (UN), which can be an opportunity to influence international outcomes in their favour. Unrecognised states, on the other hand, are isolated internationally and can be forced to rely upon a patron state which offers them all kinds of help in exchange for their allegiance. This dependency on a patron-client relationship can lead to the client state being used as a political tool by its patron.

One key issue facing most unrecognised states is the restriction on movement imposed on their people. Because their de facto nationality is not recognised internationally, their locally-issued passports or travel documents are not considered valid for travel or entry into another country. The only way for them to travel abroad is to receive a passport from a neighbouring country, or to travel to the few countries that do recognise them. It happens that some people living in de facto states are entitled to other citizenships. In addition to unrecognised states, there also exists a number of unrepresented peoples – that is, distinct ethnic and linguistic groups that enjoy little or no representation both internationally and domestically. These peoples struggle even more for self-determination since they do not have their own autonomous territory. They find themselves even more vulnerable and are often at best ignored, or worse persecuted.

Fonte: What does it mean to be unrecognised and unrepresented? https://unpo.org/article/21947. Adaptado. Data de acesso: 07/08/2022.