Man, there is nothing that changes more than the past. The past is always transforming. The past is shifting, interchanging, we can never trust the past!
The past is shifting, specially if it's registered in a Polaroid camera. Really, seriously, so much that I'm showing you here, but you don't see, a polaroid photo of Eduardo Bueno, his mother Beatriz, his father Milton, and a president of Brazil. At the time, he already was an ex-president of Brazil.
Yes, you are not seeing it because the photo faded, but this photo exists, is was taken in Canela, in Rio Grande do Sul. The little Eduardo Bueno and a president of Brazil. Then, of course, he is my favorite president in Brazil's history.
Obviusly! Because he really was, the best president. So you must be thinking: "Who might be the favorite president of the Buenas Ideias Youtube channel?
" Well, he is a military man. He's liutenant colonel Oliveira! Yes, liutenant colonel Oliveira!
So you: "Ah, hold on, there was never a president called liutenant colonel Oliveira" There was, man! But you, in your ignorance, doesn't know, who was liutenant colonel Oliveira. But you will know!
Come, come. Come meet this president! kakaka!
kakaka! President Smile was called JK! Yeah man, that's it, "Juscelino Kubitscheck de Oliveira" You didn't even know, but he was liutenant colonel.
And liutenant colonel is a rank much superior to captain! (Referring to Bolsonaro) Yes, liutenant colonel of the military police of Minas Gerais. He was a doctor, never practiced military activity, so to say, warlike.
I mean. . .
He kind of did, as we will see. He was very involved with a certain war. And this war was key to his fates.
But it's obvius that he entered history as Juscelino Kubitschek, and not Juscelino Kubitscheck de Oliveira, as was actually his name. Because his mother, Dona Júlia Kubitscheck, would have a much bigger importance in his life. Juscelino was born in the Alterosas, in that crested and rough land of Diamantina.
But when he was born, in September. . .
Which was the day of September? September 12th of 1902. I always thought he was a Libra but no, poor him, he was a Virgo, born in September 12th of 1902, in Diamantina.
But it was already a Diamantina frozen in time, lived in a staleness, a sameness, lived in kind of a lethargic state. The howl of the Bandeirantes, the crackling of whips, the booming of guns, the thrashing of the Bandeirates, killing indigenous peoples, the glowing of gold, the shine of diamonds. .
. Had been paralyzed, in lethargy. It was a town lost in time.
There, in Direita street, all of the big portuguese cities, and the small ones too, had a "direct" street, that turned into Direita street. In one of the main big houses of that town, Was born, came to the world, Juscelino Kubitscheck. His father was João César de Oliveira, a traveling salesman, that had also been a "garimpeiro", By the way, i don't know if you know, "garimpeiro" was the name given to those who did illegal mining.
Miners were miners, Garimpeiros were almost "traffickers" of minerals. His father had been a garimpeiro, had been a traveling salesman, was always on the road, was a bit of an inconstant figure, The eternal absent, my mother would say. Haha!
Right? And contracted Tuberculosis. .
. A flu, turned to pneumonia, turned to Tuberculosis And then he even moved, to live in an isolated place, in order not to contaminate his family and. .
. He died. He died when Juscelino was a child, with three or four years of age, And his mother, a fantastic woman, an admirable woman, a woman that you should know better, a woman to fall in love with, as are so many brazilian women that raise their children alone, was Júlia Kubitscheck.
She was, as her name indicates, a descendant of czech immigrants. Her great-grandfather, that came to Brazil in 1835, came from Bohemia, He was Bohemian! Bohemia is that region of the current Czech Republic, (Czechia) where rose the Bohemians, Buenas Ideias supports the Bohemians, and Bohemia.
A very peculiar region almost in Eastern Europe. . .
IN Eastern Europe, acutally! Came in 1835, and it is even said that he entered Brazil illegaly, because his immigration records were never found, Had a son, that had a son. .
. And this grandchild of the guy that would be known as "German João", (the first one, because no one was able to say his name) was Júlia's father, and was called João Kubitscheck Kubitscheck is a name that comes from "cuba". Cuba, not that country you are thinking of, "kubal", actually, with a K, means graduate officer Kubitscheck means "little officer", something kind of rabble, like captain.
. . (Referring to Bolsonaro) "Little officer", that's what Kubitscheck means.
Actually it wasn't a family name, it was a role, a lowly employee, and that's the origin of his name, that today, every literate brazilian knows, the name that projected itself onto Brazil, Kubitscheck. And projected itself a lot, a lot, because of Júlia Kubitscheck That was a primary school teacher, that earned 40,000 réis, that wasn't anything, and that even then never accepted any of the benefits that some tried giving her in a sort of shady way, raised her children alone, and raised them with firmness and determination, the one that would become the president of Brazil. By the way, in this wonderful book here, by Cláudio Bojunga, a fantastic book, that won many prizes, I'll show it to this camera here, an incredible book, look at its size.
Seriously, the book won "Biography of the Year", the Jabuti prize. . .
It says the following: "João César (the father) was lava, was temper, Júlia was the mold, the cast, the canon. Juscelino didn't chose to become Kubitscheck instead of Oliveira, Dona Júlia made him a Kubitshceck" Huh? !
Huh? ! To write well like this.
. . Wonderful phrase, and true!
So she forged his character with discipline, with study. And that wasn't easy, because for example: He was put in a seminary, a diocesian school, a religious school, Where there was a rigid discipline, that he hated. Beyond that he was a terrible student in arithmetic and algebra.
Unlike Eduardo Bueno, who never made any wrong calculation. . .
"One Ducado was worth 3,5 grams of gold, Exactly, so 60kg of Brazilwood were worth. . .
Uh, 3,5 grams Uh. . .
No, 3,5 times 2,5. " Did I get any calculations wrong here? I never did a wrong calculation!
Haha, you see, he alredy gets our respect, he hated arithmetic, he hated algebra, he was paddled. . .
Right? But, he graduated from this school. Before that, when he was eight years old, playing hide-and-seek, he hurt his little toe, [arguing about the pronounciation of little toe] I prefer "minguinho".
He hurt his little toe! Almost lost it. Then a doctor from Diamantina came to treat him, his name was José Eulálio de Sousa, brought by his mother.
And he didn't charge anything. And when he finished treating it (he [JK] almost lost his finger! ) and went away, the mother, Dona Júlia said to him, to the little JK, that was then called "Nonô".
. . He was called Nonô his entire life, by his family.
"This man practices medicine not for money, but to appease the pain of those that suffer" And it is said that the little boy heard that and decided, Also to please his mother, but moved by that, that he would become a doctor. Also, he was an acolyte. So religion, suffering, medicine, well-doing, All of this, and discipline, ended up forging the character of the one that would become "President Smile" Of course he wasn't a perfect president, but at least he was improvable, as you will know in the second part of this episode, because now I won't.
. . Ha, no.
I will really do a two-parter but of course the first one didn't end yet. It has just started. Then, he graduates in 1919, and decides to work on the telegraphs, mail and telegraphs, his family was indeed poor, and to work on the telegraphs you needed to be 18 years old, and he was still 17.
He manufactures a document, so he's one more president that starts his career with fraud! And he works in the telegraphs, to support himself, and moves to Belo Horizonte (BH). He leaves Minas Gerais and goes to Belo Horizonte to attend the program of Medicine in the Federal University of Minas Gerais, UFMG.
Of course, you know that there were only potheads, marijuana plantations, it was a mess, like all federal universities, like the debiloid minister of education, today, says. He enters college in 1920 and it is interesting to know, that when he arrives at BH in 1920, Belo Horizonte had 10,000 inhabitants at that time, and was one of the first of Brazil's planned cities. Belo Horizonte had been inaugurated in December 12th 1897.
I'll do an episode about the creation, the founding, the invention, of Belo Horizonte, that was inaugurated by the governor, the president of the province at the time, Bias Fortes, and was a geometric city, a planned city, a calculated, and calculist city. The first capital of Minas Gerais, everyone knows, was Ouro Preto, and then changed to what was called "Curral de Rey", that then became Belo Horizonte, and it's incredible that the city was only five years older than JK, because it's from 1897 and he was born in 1902, so almost at the same time. And why am I saying all of this?
Because years later, as you obviously know, JK would create the first planned capital of Brazil. Brasília And it's obvious that this planned BH influenced his vision. In BH he manages, through hardships and by his own effort, enter the college of medicine, and graduates in 1927, in this college.
In 1930, after graduating, and having practiced medicine for a bit, he manages to go to Paris, to specialize in Urology. He did a brief course in urology but this trip was fantastic, in which he visited many places in Europe, including Prague, in the Czech Republic, where his family originated, traveling with few resources, and he also traveled to Egypt, to Alexandria and Cairo, climbed atop the pyramids and said: "From the top of these pyramids, 40. .
. " no, no, he wasn't the one who said this. This was Napoleon!
Don't make this face. But he did see the pyramids. Then while he was abroad, and right when he was returning to Brazil, starts the.
. . Revolution of 1930.
Revolution that would change all of Brazil's history and that would change JK's own history. Because in 1931 he marries Sara, that would logically become Sara Kubitscheck. .
. They marry in Rio de Janeiro, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Paz, in Ipanema, they spend their honeymoon in a hotel that doesn't exist anymore, in Copacabana, and spend their new year's eve between 31 and 32 in the Copacabana Palace even though they had little money, you know, thanks to their savings. In this same year of 31 he joins the military police of Minas, as a doctor, as a captain, and a doctor.
And then, in 19. . .
Then the revolution was already supported in a very "Minas" way, that minas gave to Rio Grande do Sul and Paraíba, in this military coup of 1930, right? Then in 1932, what happens? The Constitutionalist Revolution eclodes, São Paulo's war of 1932, and it's really a key event, an incredible event on JK's life because, married for six months, he's sent to the front, in Minas Gerais, because São Paulo's troops had taken a tunnel in the Mantiqueira range of the railroad, when Brazil still had railroads.
. . He and Sara had made the trip on the night train, when they traveled to get married, There was a night train, the "Mineiro Noturno", as it was called.
It's unbelievable how there are no more trains in Brazil, right? And the men from São Paulo took this tunnel, called the Mantiqueira Tunnel, in the city of Passa Quatro, in Minas Gerais, and Minas' troops that had supported Vargas are sent for a fight in this region. And in July 16th 1932, JK along with a big contingent of Minas' troops goes to fight the men from São Paulo.
And what's most unbelievable is that he sided with São Paulo, because he thought Brazil needed a constituent assembly, a new constitution, needed that this government that rose from a coup in 1930 had at least a legal appearence. So he sided with São Paulo, but because of his duty to the troop, and to Minas Gerais, there was he, amidst this fight, and they were terrible fights, that lasted more than two months, São Paulo's men reacted with fury, keeping their position in that tunnel, many fights, many deaths, many wounded, and JK had to treat many of them. And check out how incredible is what he says: "I could never forget that spectacle.
Wounded came, one after another. Some with a bloody uniform, but still able to walk. Others, supported by crutches, moaned with their clothes torn, allowing for their wounds of granade fragments in their poor bodies' exposed parts, to show.
Many let themselves get carried away, inert, with heavy arms and grimacing with pain. Some already found themselves in extreme agony, and intermittently shots were heard, from the high caliber weapons, cannons and mortars, granades exploding in regular intervals gave me an impression, as strange as sinister. They made us think they were exploding from one end to the other, and that the angel of death dispensed an immense shroud, disposed to cover the Mantiqueira range.
" He wrote well, JK, right? He wrote well! These are his memories from the times of war.
But at that moment, an amazing story unfolds. A soldier is shot in his belly, his guts, and gets there with his guts outside his body, and a colonel says "there's no curing! " and abandons the soldier.
And JK operates the man, in the completely improvised conditions, with a nun beside him, that helped him, an incredible nun, you know her name, I forgot. and he operates the man in a camp tent, and saves his life! And so after the fighting ends, a military police inquiry is filed to condemn the colonel, and he refuses to depose against the colonel, lets him go unpunished, but before that he had already become a hero between the soldiers because he had treated the wounded well all that time and this was the example case.
But what's most incredible, and that's what I want to tell, is that during these encounters, see what happened near the tunnel, Look who was there! This, even though this book by Bojunga is incredible, he cites another author, I'll read to you a part where he cites Francisco de Assis Barbosa, who says the following: "The good and the bad fairies made meet at the edge of that tunnel, colonel Eurico Gaspar Dutra, the chief of Vargas' legalist troops, Who was Vargas' future War Minister and future president of the Republic, The captains Ernesto Dornelles e Zacarias de Assunção, future governors, respectively, of Rio Grande do Sul and Pará, Benedito Valadares Ribeiro, that would be the future interventor and governor of Minas Gerais, And Juscelino Kubitscheck, who will be mayor of BH, governor of Minas, and president of the Republic. Juscelino received in the 1932 campaign, not only his war baptism, but his political baptism.
" Also there was a nefarious and horrendous character, one of Brazil's history's most somber, Filinto Muller, known as Brazil's most dangerous man, who would become the patron of torturers' weapons. Yes, a man so repugnant, disgusting and noxious, as colonel Brilhante Ustra. .
. And these two, nefarious and horrible characters, this scoundrel, Brilhante Ustra and the accursed Filinto Muller, will be themes in episodes on Buenas Ideias, always so liberal, and defiant to this riffraff. Filinto Muller was there, but there was also Benedito Valadares, who was a typical Minas' politician.
And who, after the revolution ends, with the death of Olegário Maciel, who was then the president of Minas Gerais, and who, after Vargas' victory but having to cede to São Paulo's people a constitution and a constituent assembly, in 33, etc. Olegário Maciel calls for JK and condecorates him in Minas Gerais. But Olegário Maciel dies, and Vargas puts in his place Benedito Valadares.
And Benedito Valadares. . .
that the assumes as state-appointed governor in Minas Gerais, decides that JK would be his government secretary, and so JK, who didn't want to abandon medicine, and also didn't want to leave the place to which he was promoted, as liutenant colonel, that he mantained until the end, in Minas Gerais' military police, accepts unwillingly becoming Benedito Valadares' direct adviser. This is when he enters politics, and involves himself with politics. Then in 1934 he runs for and is elected as federal congressman and moves to Rio de Janeiro, where the parliament was located, does tons of improvements for Diamantina, is an effective congressman, that does a lot, and in 19.
. . He is elected by PP, the Progessist Party, just founded in Minas Gerais, in 34.
As I've said he was a very effective federal congressman, but in 1937, with the "New State" coup, he is impeached. And then he thinks his political career is over. By the way, in 37 he was supporting for 38's elections, because we would have elections in 1938, that would change the course of Brazil!
He supported José Américo de Oliveira, who was the man that would win against Vargas, he would win against Vargas, but Vargas staged a coup in November of 37 shortly before the elections, and perpetuates himself in power, impeaches many people and impeaches JK, that thinks he would never return to politics. But he will return gloriously to politics. .
. But this, you will only know in the episode: "JK, President Smile, part 2" IF, I want to do it. Haha!
I'll do it if I want to. If I don't want to, I won't! No, I'll do it, I'll do it, because I knew JK!
I was little but I met him! And he thaught me to have this wonderful smile with which I say goodbye to you. Bye.
