CIVILIZAÇÃO BRASILEIRA PUBLISHING HOUSE

EDITORA CIVILIZAÇÃO BRASILEIRA

Location: Rua Sete de Setembro, 97, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Political-cultural Resistance and Memory
Translated from the Portuguese by Lara Norgaard

The Civilização Brasileira Publishing House stood out during the military dictatorship for publishing books, magazines, and articles with critical and leftist content. Founded in the late 1920s, the press was later integrated in 1932 into the National Publishing Company (CEN), which at the time was directed by Octalles Marcondes Ferreira. However, it was in the 1950s, when editor Ênio da Silveira became the major shareholder, that the publisher took on the more innovative and progressive editorial lines that it would come to be known for. In 1955, the publisher starting working out of a building on Sete de Setembro Street in the center of Rio de Jainero, a space that became the center of political debate and a meeting place for writers and intellectuals.

With the goal of circulating publications with content, Ênio transformed the publishing house into an important vehicle for cultural resistance. In the testimony he gave to historian Marcelo Ridenti, Carlos Nelson Coutinho states:

The early 1960s is a time when culture flourished. It’s the period, for example, in which Ênio Silveira effectively transformed Civilização Brasileira into a new publishing house for progressive culture. It’s the period in which the Peoples’ Notebook by Violão da rua was published, the time in which some critical Marxist authors began to be published (Ridenti, 2014, p. 48).

The press published leftist intellectual works, released collections and series analyzing the country’s socio-political context, and edited magazines and cultural journals such as Revista Civilização Brasileira, Revista Política Externa Independente, Revista Paz e Terra and newspapers like Reunião and Folha da Semana. The publisher was defined by ideological independence and autonomy even in the most intense moments of repression and censorship during the military dictatorship.

After the 1964 coup d’état, Ênio da Silveira and his publishing house became targets for heavy political persecution. The editor’s stance was combative, and he insisted on publishing works aligned with leftist perspectives and those that expressed explicit opposition to the dictatorship – authors included Antonio Callado, Nelson Weneck Sodré, Ferreira Gullar, Dias Gomes, and others – which landed him in prison and court trials on multiple occasions. During the first months following the coup, Ênio published Moacyr Felix’s first books of poetry and Carlos Heitor Cony’s prose; both were critical of Brazil’s political situation. The editor even hung a banner that read: “poetry is the peoples’ weapon against tyranny.” The sign was later destroyed.

In June 1964, the first Military Police Investigation (IPM) was opened to look into Civilização Brasileira’s actions. According to Heleno Claudio Fragoso, Ênio’s lawyer, the IPM’s goal was to investigate commercial transactions between the publisher and João Goulart’s administration, Ênio’s participation in the Intellectual Workers’ Command (an organization founded in 1963 that acted as a space for activism and represented artists and intellectuals; Ênio directed the group, which held the majority of its meetings in the building of the publishing house), the relationship between the editor and Miguel Arraes, the governor of Pernambuco who was taken prisoner on the first day of the coup, and the publication of the Cadernos do Povo Brasileiro (Notebooks of the Brazilian People), a project overseen by the National Student Union’s Center for Popular Culture (CPC/UNE) and by the Institute of Brazilian Higher Education (ISEB) that Civilização Brasileira then edited and printed. The investigations concluded that the publishing house was guilty of subversive activities and collusion with the National Student Union and João Goulart’s administration. A criminal case was filed against Ênio for the “distribution, either open or clandestine, but always premeditated, of boletins or pamphlets through which prohibited propaganda was spread” (art. 11, parágrafo 3, da Lei no. 1,802, de 1953). In October 1965, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) determined that Ênio was innocent, stating that it was not possible to commit the crime of distributing subversive propaganda through books. Ênio faced two other criminal charges – that of editing “subversive” books (Fundamento de Filosofia (Foundations of Philosophy) by V. Afanasiev and Brasil: guerra quente na América Latina (Brazil: Hot War in Latin America) by João Maia Neto) – after the Department of Political and Social Order of the State of Guanabara (DOPS/GB) carried out a wave of raids of the publishing house in 1969, apprehending the press’s books. The STF determined that the editor was innocent on both charges.

Under the strict censorship of the years that followed, the state seized and destroyed various publications. Many booksellers were intimidated and stopped working with Civilização Brasileira. On top of political persecution, the publishing house was not allowed to enter into business with public institutions and its credit was cut, putting the press in a critical financial situation. In 1966, Ênio was forced to plea bargain and bail himself out with a large portion of his own estate. Civilização Brasileira Magazine, one of the most influential periodicals in politics, culture, and arts at the time, had to shut down in 1968 after the Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5) was established. Two months after the AI-5 passed, at dawn on October 14, 1968, the publishing house’s bookstore suffered a bomb attack that destroyed half of its facade.

Almost twelve years later, in November 1980, a mysterious fire destroyed the publishing house’s warehouse. One can assume that this attack and others during the period, which were carried out by paramilitary groups, were motivated by right-wing groups’ unhappiness with the process of political opening.

Despite having managed to arrange a plea bargain and lift the publisher out of debt, Ênio still had an unstable business on his hands. In 1985, the editor ended up selling 80% of Civilização Brasileira to the Portuguese businessman Manuel Bulhosa, who later bought the remaining 20% of the company and allowed Ênio to continue as director of the publishing house – a role that he continued to occupy until his death in 1996. Shortly thereafter, the Record publishing group bought Civilização Brasileira, where it came to function as an internal seal of approval, republishing important titles from its former catalogue.