“Que aprenda a ser livre para poder libertar-se das próprias cadeias”: intelectualidade e antifascismo de Maria Lacerda de Moura, entre América Latina e Europa (1920 – 1945)

Abstract

This dissertation analyses the concept of fascism developed by Brazilian intellectual Maria Lacerda de Moura (1887–1945) and her proposals for anti-fascist resistance, observing the influence of international anarcho-individualist debates on her thinking. The author had a wide circulation of her texts and lectures throughout Latin America and Europe, and established contacts and intellectual affinities in these spaces, especially in Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, and France. In order to fulfil the objective of the work, we analysed Lacerda's intellectual formation based on her theoretical and political divergences. These divergences, added to the context faced by intellectual women in the early 20th century, help to explain the silence that lasted for years regarding her anti-fascist action and production. In addition to her prolific works in Brazil, Maria Lacerda de Moura was part of an international intellectual network. This network facilitated the dissemination of her works and allowed her to establish dialogues with other anarchist intellectuals, especially anarcho-individualists, which was the tendency that underpinned the author's thinking. This intellectual network was mainly supported by eclectic publications, such as the Spanish magazine Estudios (1928–1937) and the Argentine magazine Nervio (1931–1936), to which Lacerda made significant contributions. Estudios played a fundamental role in Lacerda's theoretical development, as its focus on neo-Malthusianism, sexual emancipation, eugenics, and psychoanalysis directly aligned with the author's interests. The theoretical perspective produced by the magazine's contributors reverberates Lacerda's intellectual output, undergoing a particular reworking by the writer. Based on the articulation of recurring perspectives in Latin American anti-fascism and debates specific to individualist anarchism, obtained from her international intellectual network, Maria Lacerda de Moura developed her interpretation of fascism with a focus on subjective and cultural aspects. Despite understanding the phenomenon as the result of a crisis in the industrial capitalist system, the author added to this reading a subjective view that advocated the psychological and moral formation of individuals to reflect on the reasons for the emergence of fascism and propose strategies that she considered effective for anti-fascist resistance. This perspective brings unique characteristics to Maria Lacerda de Moura's anti-fascist thinking, placing sexual emancipation – especially of women – and the inner, mental development of individuals to abandon ‘herd servility’ at the center of the anti-fascist debate. The inner “elevation” of individuals would make them masters of themselves, and only then would they be able to resist fascism and all forms of authoritarianism culturally rooted in patriarchal, capitalist and clerical oppression.