Transatlantic Tanja Tarbuk
The subject of this year’s 22nd Book Fair(y) in Istria is a space of cultural identity determined by the triangle Lisbon-Luanda-Recife - the area of the Atlantic Ocean, the stage of various challenges even since the ancient Viking journeys to America. It is an area of fine weaving of connections throughout centuries – the source of those connections being the fearlessness of the seaborne pioneers while getting to know new worlds, the inhumane conditions of slave transportation from Africa or the migrations between the Old and the New world. Consequently, cultures were mixing and new hybrid situations emerged, carrying the characteristics of some sort of cultural bastardization, typical for the countries under the colonial rule. All of those distant journeys have naturally left a trace in the literature of those peoples. Portugal, a country which has, because of its peninsular protrusion, undertaken the task of exploring the unknown seas, saw the peak of its seaborne expansion in the 15th and 16th centuries. The sea route to India discovered by Vasco da Gama even became the main axis of the biggest national epic poem under the title The Lusiads, emerged from Camões’ quill. In that years, Portugal was the empire on which sun never sets, and Camões, considering Iberian Peninsula the head of Europe, exalted his empire even more: See the head crowning coronet is she, of general Europe, Lusitania’s reign, where endeth land and where beginneth sea (translated by Richard Francis Burton, The Lusiads, BiblioBazaar 2010). The famous Camões’ verse depicts this country as a fluctuating border between the sea and the land, a country permanently marked by the idea of casting off, which has, probably because of that, raised longing to the level of national philosophy. Saudade, a feeling weaved in the mere essence of being Portuguese, which cannot be unambiguously translated as “longing”, because it also encompasses pain, and sorrow, melancholy, is considered to emerge at the very time of the seaborne discoveries - as the longing of those who were bidding farewell to the sailors: Ah, every quay is a regret made of stone!, as Pessoa will still be saying in the 20th century, and as a longing for the empire which had quickly fallen into ruins, and Portugal consequently lost its sovereignty. Since that point, saudade has become a painful longing for what will never exist, for the country Portugal could have developed into, but it hasn’t, it encompasses the memory of the glorious past and the longing for the restoration of the Fifth Empire, which has never happened. It is presumed that fado too, another cultural mark of Portugal, emerged in the times of the Portuguese sea journeys. Sailors were playing and singing popular ditties on rudimental instruments which produced two tones: fa and do, and that’s the way one theory on the origins of fado explains the title of the song. Fado was popular among the commoners, and it spread into noble salons as late as the 19th century when the count Vimoso fell in love with the beautiful fado singer Maria Severa, nowadays considered being the mythical founder of that song. In that manner, fado has risen from the mean pot-houses to its’ nowadays’ state of being the non-material cultural heritage, and the words once put together by semiliterate commoners, are now written by renowned poets. But the world-famous seaborne discoveries also have the other side of the medal, the dark one. While the pelourinhno pillar was being set throughout the colonies as a symbol of power of the Portuguese Empire, the ones on the other side, the colonialized ones, saw it as a pillar of shame, because it was the place where their fellow-countrymen, disobedient slaves and those who stood against the power were ending in. From the 16th century until the year 1850 there were several routes used for transportation of slaves from Africa, over the Atlantic to Brazil. It is presumed that in that period up to ten million slaves had been transferred. Their cry is probably still echoing through the Atlantic. They have brought their customs and religions (among others candomblé and umbanda) to Brazil. They have also brought capoeira which developed from the initiations of young African men into adult life, representing the combination of martial arts and music. At the time of difficult living conditions and work on the plantations, capoeira was the single means of survival for black slaves, and today, being acknowledged in the year 2014 as a part of non-material cultural heritage, it doesn’t just stand for an art, or a cultural aspect, but also the greatest trading good of the Brazilian culture. I hope that at this Book Fair(y) we are going to be able to share some small parts of this mosaic of cultures and identities with the audience through promotions of the extraordinary Portuguese, Brazilian and African writers and poets, along with the round tables where that transatlantic expanse filled with different content will be discussed. Despite being a combination of many varieties which have come in contact on the journeys through space and time, these cultures and countries still have one characteristic in common – the Portuguese language. And that’s maybe the only true dwelling, as Pessoa stated: My homeland is the Portuguese language. So let the new space for dialogue be built on the grounds of that language which holds the fifth place in the world by the number of speakers.
