Getúlio Vargas, the civil-military dictatorship and the anti-imperialist: a reading of the biography Quem matou Vargas (1974), by Carlos Heitor Cony

uma leitura da biografia Quem matou Vargas (1974), de Carlos Heitor Cony

Abstract

The idea for this article came from the coincidence of three dates, all listed in Carlos Heitor Cony's book: the year 1954, seventy years since the suicide of Getúlio Vargas; the year 1964, sixty years of the civil-military coup; and the year 1974, fifty years since the publication of Cony's book. In this study it was intended to discuss theoretical and methodological issues involving biographical writing, seeking to identify the way in which the author organized his book: care with the formal aspects; its relations with the political and historiographical context; and, how the author sought to give a believable character to the biography. As it is a book released in 1974, in the dictatorship, it was also sought to analyze the uses that the author made of the figure of Getúlio Vargas to approach or distance himself from the coup against João Goulart, the military and the political regime.