Boris Fausto wrote in Folha about politics and football – 04/20/2023 – Politics

Reading newspapers, a lifelong habit, helped Boris Fausto take the path of history, a field in which he became one of the exponents in Brazil.

In a long interview published in the book “Critical Readings about Boris Fausto”, edited by Ângela de Castro Gomes, the inevitable question arose: “How did you discover that you liked History?”.

He said: “Tough question to answer. I have a feeling it has a little to do with my early start reading newspapers and taking an interest in the world I lived in. I’m thinking aloud now: my grandfather [que era cego] asked me to read about the War in Spain and, more than that, to take a stand”.

Author of fundamental books on the history of Brazil in the republican period, such as “Revolution of 30” (1970) and “Crime and Daily Life” (1984), Boris died on Tuesday (18) at the age of 92, in São Paulo.

The historian’s connection with journalism was strengthened in 1998, when he became a columnist for Sheet. She wrote every Monday in the vertical column of page A2 until 2003 and, in the following years, started to collaborate regularly for the Mais ! section.

Updates in Brazilian politics and facts from the country’s recent history were frequent themes in his texts.

In December 1998, Boris discussed the three decades of Institutional Act No. 5, a set of measures that marked the beginning of the most repressive period of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). “30 years after AI-5 was enacted, Brazil has changed for the better. It turned a tragic page in its history and became a democracy, with its known shortcomings,” he wrote.

“But the memory remains. And it is the duty of the older generations to pass on to the younger ones — if only to value freedom of expression — a little bit of the experience of those years of lead.”

Another relevant column was published on March 12, 2001, six days after Mário Covas’ death. Boris commented on the legacy of the then licensed governor of São Paulo and pointed out similarities and differences in his trajectory in relation to that of Tancredo Neves.

“Tancredo’s unexpected death, coinciding with the moment he arrived at the Presidency of the Republic, gave rise to the birth of the version of a crime perpetrated by the enemies of the people against a figure who embodied popular hopes.”

And he added: “In the case of Covas, emotion and rationality were combined in equal doses, without giving rise to myth: his death was a bit the death, certainly frightening, of each one of us. a man for whom, as he himself said, things have a beginning, middle and end”.

At least one in every four or five columns dealt with international politics. In this area, conflicts in the Middle East were a recurring subject, which can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that Boris belongs to a family of Jewish origin.

The historian from São Paulo was skeptical about the proposals of the time to put an end to the clashes between Israel and Palestine —written more than two decades ago, his analyzes of these clashes have not aged at all.

In a January 2001 text, however, he let slip an unrealistic sign of hope, he admitted: “Would it be possible to transform the Jerusalem of our days into a “kingdom of the three religions”? Faced with the brutal reality of the Middle East, the question sounds like fantasy. But, among so many reasons for pessimism, it doesn’t hurt to at least dream, even if it’s the vague dream of a summer night”.

Boris mainly wrote opinion articles. But every now and then he ventured as a chronicler. He recalled a story told by Seu Jeremias, the street guard, to comment on the expansion of evangelical religions, in September 1999, and spoke about the excessive discretion of Seu Mario, the barber, in a text about the war in Iraq, in April 2003.

He sometimes wrote about football, one of his passions. In January 2003, the Corinthian decided to guess about his biggest rival, who had fallen to the B series of the Brazilian Championship the previous year. According to him, the club should drop the name Palmeiras and return to the former Palestra Itália. The text has 82 lines and 8 paragraphs; the ironies are countless.