The Sounds of the 1917 Brazilian Anarchist Strike

A look from the point of view of “Rubros Cantares”

Abstract

This work had, as main objective, the analysis of the lyrics of the songs present in a leaflet by unknown authorship (“Rubros Cantares”) that circulated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, during the short period of the anarchist strike of 1917. It could be verified, from the reading of the material, that the Brazilian anarchism of the beginning of the 20th century, used protest songs and social criticism as a way to strengthen a “collective emotional state”, among the working class, that would propitiate the emergency conditions of a revolutionary protest movement. With regard to the themes worked on in the lyrics, it could be observed that they transited in at least seven main axes: (a) values; (b) denouncing and clarifying poverty and the living situation of the working class; (c) criticism of the bourgeoisie, the State and politics; (d) utopia of an anarchist society; (e) need for a revolutionary movement; (f) reality of the revolution in other countries and internationalism; and (g) approximations of Catholic religious vocabulary and Greek mythology with the suffering of the working class.