200 Years of German Immigration to Brazil: Achievements and Perspectives
The year 2024 marks the bicentenary of the first wave of German-Speaking migration to Brazil. At the beginning of the 19th century, Europe was facing political and economic instability, with wars and agricultural crises that led many Europeans to seek better living conditions on other continents. During this period, shortly after Brazil’s independence in 1822, the Brazilian empire encouraged immigration. Thus, the first large wave of German immigrants arrived in Brazil around July 25, 1824, settling in São Leopoldo, in the then Province of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul (currently Rio Grande do Sul). Most of the immigrant groups of the first half of the 19th century came from the Rhenish-Franconian and Moselle-Franconian Hunsrück and founded their first colonies in the area around the capital Porto Alegre.
In the second half of the 19th century, groups of German-speaking immigrants from other areas such as Pomerania, Westphalia, Bohemia, Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, South Tyrol, Romania, the Volga region (present-day Ukraine), and Switzerland followed. They brought with them their cultures, new agricultural cultivation techniques, and different varieties of the German language, many of which continue to be used and passed on to subsequent generations to this day.
Over time, German-speaking groups integrated into Brazilian society, maintaining some of their traditions while adopting aspects of local culture. Currently, it is estimated that there are 1.2 million speakers of German as a minority language in Brazil, making it the country with the second-highest number of speakers of German as a minority language in the world.
To celebrate this anniversary, the Leitorado Brasileiro Guimarães Rosa (IGR/HCIAS) and the Institute of German Philology as a Foreign Language (IDF) at the University of Heidelberg are organizing an international series of events entitled “200 Years of German Immigration to Brazil: Achievements and Perspectives”. Coordinated by Marília Pinheiro Pereira (IGR/HCIAS) and Angelica Prediger (IDF), the objective of this international series of events is to celebrate this occasion with students, teachers, researchers and all interested people, not only on the official day (July 25th), but throughout 2024. To this end, we have prepared lectures on the topic of immigration from linguistic, historical, social and political perspectives for both the academic community and the general public. Above all, lectures related to the variety of German spoken in Brazil, highlighting progress in the study of German as a minority, foreign and second language. In addition, we are also planning cultural activities for the community. For more information about our agenda, click here and to read about previous lectures click here.