Tracking the Silence of the Backland: In search of a non-Euclidean criticism on the Massacre of Canudos

The main research in which “Tracking the Silence of the Backland” takes part is about the foundation of speeches about state violence practiced in Brazil within literary texts and essays on the national identity. The purpose of this trip was to do an investigation in Bahia, Brazil, on primary sources that Euclides da Cunha could have dismissed or erased about Canudos War in his book Os Sertões. I visited the archives of José Calasans in Centro de Estudos Bahianos. I met the filmmaker Antonio Olavo and got references for further reasearch and about how to reach the city of Canudos. I visited Canudos and the few museums and archeological sites out there, in the very deep Brazilian Backlands. I have changed my questions about the notion of poverty, crime and safety in Brazil, and moreover, on the intellectual role narrating this war. I learned that to address the problems of violence  then is necessary to approach the reality of Today’s Canudos. I realized that Canudos ideal in 19th Century is still alive.