Athos Damasceno Ferreira (Porto Alegre, September 3, 1902 – Porto Alegre, April 14, 1975) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, chronicler, translator, journalist, literary critic, and historian. He is considered the most important historian and chronicler of the city of Porto Alegre, is the founder of art historiography in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and left a major contribution to the state historiography in the fields of culture and society, being a pioneer in the study of several themes. He was an advocate of the revaluation of regionalisms and a renowned poet and novelist, although being little remembered in this area.
Career
He was the son of João Armando Damasceno Ferreira and Ana Dias da Silva. He did his early studies in religious schools, then studied languages with Ildefonso Gomes and humanities with Henrique Emílio Meyer. Damasceno began law school in Rio de Janeiro, but did not finish it, returning to Porto Alegre and becoming a state employee, working in the Secretariat of the Interior and later in the Secretariat of Education and Culture, where he retired, heading the Board of Letters. In 1917, he began working as a journalist and chronicler, collaborating in magazines and newspapers such as Máscara, Província de São Pedro, Eco do Sul, Ilustração Rio-Grandense, Tribuna Ilustrada, Gazeta do Povo, A Federação, Diário de Notícias, and Correio do Povo. He was also a translator for Editora Globo, one of the founders of the Eduardo Guimarães Foundation, which he came to chair, and a member of the Historical and Geographical Institute of Rio Grande do Sul and the State Folklore Commission.
He spent his life in Porto Alegre, city in which he would be the most prolific historian and chronicler. Guilhermino César stated that he produced "the greatest writing of a single man about the capital of Rio Grande do Sul." He left essential works for the knowledge of the city's urban, cultural, and social evolution, besides addressing it in poetry and describing it in his short stories, novels, and his many chronicles. Important works in this group are Poemas da Minha Cidade (poems, 1936), Imagens Sentimentais da Cidade (chronicles, 1940), Jornais Críticos e Humorísticos de Porto Alegre no século XIX (cultural history, 1954), O Teatro em Porto Alegre no século XIX (theater in Porto Alegre in the 19th century, 1954), Palco, Salão e Picadeiro em Porto Alegre no Século XIX, (cultural history, 1956), Sociedades Literárias em Porto Alegre no Século XIX (cultural history, 1962), O Carnaval Porto-alegrense no Século XIX (cultural history, 1970), Colóquios com a minha Cidade (chronicles, 1974), and Imprensa Literária de Porto Alegre no Século XIX (cultural history, 1975).
However, his work was not limited to the state capital, being the pioneer in writing the general history of arts in Rio Grande do Sul with his classic Artes Plásticas no Rio Grande do Sul (1971), which goes to the primitive sources of art in the state and traces a wide panorama of its development until the 20th century, to this day a fundamental reference and, in its wide scope, not yet outdated, a work that was complemented by many separate articles. Other works worth mentioning are Apontamentos para os estudo da indumentária no Rio Grande do Sul (1957) and Imprensa Caricata do Rio Grande do Sul no século XIX (1962), pioneer studies of their kind; the varied contributions he left for the series Fundamentos da Cultura Rio-Grandense, published in several volumes between 1950 and 1960, dealing among other aspects with foreign travelers, the press, and clothing in Rio Grande do Sul, and O Teatro São Pedro na Vida Cultural do Rio Grande do Sul (with Herbert Caro, Guilhermino César, and Paulo Moritz, 1975).
Works
History
According to Maria Beatriz Papaléo, Damasceno approached History in a peculiar perspective, rejecting to paint the past with mythologies and focusing on popular and humorous aspects, creating an original portrait of the city that recovered information little valued by other historians, being, in her words, a "meticulous craftsman of the daily life" who left a "popular inventory of the city". But this does not diminish the interest in his research, whose seriousness and competence are widely recognized. According to Joana Figueiredo, "as an intellectual ahead of his time, the author already knew that not all history is made of myth and grandeur, but of stitches and lines, knots and buttons – with a few beads and turbans to give it color and joy."