Batalha da Flores: uma festa e suas possibilidades educativas para a cidade do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This doctoral thesis aims to investigate the ‘Batalha da Flores’, an educational festival promoted by the City Hall of Rio de Janeiro between 1903 and 1909, as part of the actions foreseen by the urban reform carried out by Mayor Pereira Passos in the first decade of the 20th century. Using the indexical method, documentary sources from the press at the time, official acts of the City Hall, and images are analyzed, especially photographs produced by Augusto Malta as a documentary photographer hired by Passos to record the main transformations the city was undergoing. As a theoretical-methodological framework, the work is based on the analytical perspective of Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson, whose contributions to the understanding of social configurations marked by tensions between established groups and outsiders, as well as the processual development of the concept of civilization, open fruitful paths for understanding Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Batalha da Flores’ as a carnival celebration inspired by the French carnival in the city of Nice. Through this celebration, Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall sought, via socialization, to develop among popular groups habits considered more refined, according to the standards of civilization and modernity of the Europeanized elites, leading to the development of appreciation for more restrained celebrations and, consequently, to the curbing of popular festivities that involved more exalted spirits, such as the game of ‘entrudo’ (shrovetide). Additionally, the notion of cultural circularity proposed by Carlo Ginzburg is mobilized to observe the process of appropriation and reinterpretation of Europeanized elements of the ‘Batalha das Flores’ by the popular layers of Rio de Janeiro’s population.