Tourism in times of war. The travels through Brazil of the Galician José Casais between 1937 and 1939

Abstract

The Estado Novo (1937–1945), in Brazil, repressed any articulation by Spanish immigrants in favor of the II Republic during the Spanish Civil War and prevented the arrival of exiles from Spain. Within this context, we studied, through documentary research, the actions of the Galician professor and researcher José Casais, who, after being dismissed from the position he held at the Spanish Embassy in Buenos Aires, took refuge in Brazil and, avoiding partisan positions, dedicated himself to touring the country until Brazil's entry into the Second World War. It is considered that in the travel book documented with photographs Un turista en el Brasil, published in 1940, José Casais put into practice his understanding of the modern tourism category. This work also contains the first narration in which Santiago de Compostela, associated with distinction and tradition, is used as the reference for recommending a tourist destination in Brazil, the City of Goiás. Considering Casais’ habitus, we sought to understand, on the one hand, how the application of the modern tourism category materialized in the itineraries carried out and, on the other, what elements were used to justify the drawing of parallels between the two cities – Compostela and Goiás, recommending, consequently, the incorporation of the old capital of Goiás into the new tourism itineraries.