Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Tiradentes ou a canonização de um herói

2007; UNESP; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

1808-1967

Silvia Maria Azevedo,

Cultural, Media, and Literary Studies

On the hundredth anniversary of the Inconfidencia of Minas, 24 april 1992, Machado de Assis writes in the Gazeta de Noticias an article in which not only does he make much of Tiradentes´s courage, but ironizes concerning the inadequacy of the title “great martyr” given him on account of the event of which he was the protagonist. Before considering Machado´s article, we note, contrary to the way in which he is theated there, how Tiradentes came to be the object of a sort of hagiography (monographs, essays, monumentos, commemorative calendar), in such a way that he came to be identified with republican ideas. The intention here is to demonstrate some of the steps along the road to canonization of the “martyr of the Inconfidencia”.