Oliveira Vianna, sociological and between the written written action

• Autor(a) principal: BRESCIANI, Maria Stella Martins
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Patrimônio e Memória
• Texto Completo: http://pem.assis.unesp.br/index.php/pem/article/view/2
• topic: Oliveira Vianna; Oliveira Vianna, interpretes do Brasil; memória da nação

Francisco de Oliveira Vianna dedicated his professional life to studying the Brazilian society in its historical, sociological and legal aspects. The issue of collective memory was the base of his questioning since his studies assumed the government and legislation forms after the Independence were out of step with the actual commitment of the population to these institutional devices. In his eyes, collective memory, which is present “in the cells of our subconscious”, formed a true genetic heritage. As he asserted: “moral identity is not a fantasy: it exists, facts prove it”. Such conviction had him “investigate in the dust of past the germs of our current ideas, the dawn of our national psyche”. A common past would be at the base of the “national character”. It would lead the behavior of the “Brazilian people” and appear in the persistent predominance of customary law over statutory law, which stood in direct contrast and opposition. His many texts may thus be read in the perspective of a search for this identity to mould Brazilian citizens and society, which he considered still precarious due to the lack of solidarity instruments, through government laws and institutions that would help form “efficient agents of social and political integration”.