A (re)invenção da identidade católica polonesa na Colônia Santa Bárbara em Palmeira/PR (1890 – 2019)

Abstract

This research aims to understand the (re)invention of the Polish Catholic identity of a community of immigrant origin, located the rural area of the Municipality of Palmeira-PR, between the years 1889 to 2019. Among the most diverse forms created to preserve the polish identity in Colônia Santa Bárbara, this dissertation looked in greater depth at the typical Polish festival in honor of Nossa Senhora Czestochowa, therefore, the central question seeks to identify the possible relations between the process of (re)formulation, (re)affirmation and (re)signification of the ethnic-religious identity among the descendants of Polish immigrants through the typical festival. The festive space becomes privileged for research because it is the greatest expression of production of the collective Polish public identity, that is, an identity organically constructed by the community, which presupposes generating the image of a unified public identity around an ethnic “I”. Therefore, among the specific objectives, in addition to the description of the party's programming, we proposed to analyze the internal logic of this manipulation of Polish identity, through the process of selection, ethnic highlight, performance and repetition, questioning the importance of these processes in construction/maintenance of the ethnic-religious identity for the group. We emphasize that the process of reinvention, as a cultural construction of something that already exists, must be understood as an identity created in Brazil, but based on the structuring elements of the Polish identity brought by immigrants, what we call “Brazilian Polish identity”. Thus, it was necessary to observe which identity elements, despite territorial domination, were kept in peculiar conditions and brought by immigrants and the process of reformulation of this identity in Brazil. The source material used is composed by the parish registers, the diaries of Helena Orchanheski and the interviews (oral history) with the parish priest responsible for the Nossa Senhora da Conceição Church and the descendants of Polish immigrants, in order to understand the community , the Slavic soul of these descendants, what was left of this Polish identity and how it manifests itself at the party and is structured so that the group continues to identify itself ethnically to this day