The Forgotten Idea: Cruz e Sousa and the Santa Catarina Literary Guerrilla in the Genesis of Brazilian Cultural Modernity

Abstract

This article challenges the hegemonic narrative that positions the 1922 Modern Art Week as the exclusive founding event of Brazilian cultural modernity. Based on archival research (newspapers, correspondence, and rare books from the period), it proposes to recover and analyze the role of the Desterro Group (also known as the "Catarinense Literary Guerrilla"), active in Desterro (present-day Florianópolis) between 1883 and the early 1890s, as a pioneering and fundamental laboratory for understanding Brazilian cultural modernity as a long-term, decentralized, and conflict-ridden process.