Canudos: Messianismo e conflito social.

Abstract

The present work has the objective of analysing, within the religious-socio-political context of that epoch, the conditions that permited the emergence o-f the social movement protagonized by Antonio Vicente Mendes Maciel, Antonio Conselheiro. Understandi ng that the messianic discourse is one o-f the possible forms of expression of social movements within precapitalist modes of production, the work intends to show that Antonio Conselheiro, ín his struggle against the socioeconomic domination of the "Latifúndio", returned to nis religious memory and found (discovered), through experiences of communitarían life of the first christians, the paradigm of social organization that served as a substituting ideal ímodel) of the existent social structure. Within that comprehension, the "Canudos" community is understood as a social and politicai counterproposal of the oppressed to oppressive social organization. To realize the proposed objectives, three chapters were written. In the first, a diagnostic was made of some messianic movements that occured in diverse socio-historic contexts. In that chapter, ít was intended to establish the preconditions for the floreshing of messianic movements. In the second chapter, a historie retrospective of the trajectory of Antonio Conselheiro was established since his departure from Ceara, his pilgrimage to northeastern "sertões" (drylands), his ideological background, the creation o-f the Canudos community and the causes that led to íts destruction Finally, ín the trhird chapter there is a discussion of the diverse theoretical approaches to that issue. The work concludes that. a) Canudos was an attemp to relive ín the northeastern drylands the highlights of primitive christiandom, b) 1ts socio-economic organization, to the extend that emerged as an antithesis to existent socio-politicalal structure, collided with the hegemome society, which led to its destruction and c) the "Sebastianismo" did not inspire Antonio Conselheiro.