Cláudio Abramo

Cláudio Abramo (April 6, 1923 in São Paulo – August 14, 1987 in São Paulo) was a Brazilian journalist and author. Born to Vincenzo Abramo and Iole Scarmagnan (daughter of Italian anarchist Bortolo Scarmagnan), his siblings are Athos Abramo, the Trotskyst activist Fúlvio Abramo, Beatriz Abramo, the actress Lélia Abramo, Mário Abramo and the engraver Livio Abramo. He was married to Hilde Weber, a cartoonist, who gave him a son, Claudio Weber Abramo, current executive director of the organization Transparência Brasil and a famous oppositor to political corruption in Brazil.[1] Later he married Radha Abramo, who gave him two daughters. He was also Perseu Abramo's uncle.[2]

Cláudio Abramo
Born	April 6, 1923 São Paulo, Brazil
Died	August 14, 1987 (aged 64) São Paulo, Brazil
Occupation	Journalist, author
Relatives	Lélia Abramo, Livio Abramo, Perseu Abramo

During his career, Abramo worked for O Estado de S. Paulo, achieving the status of secretary (editor-in-chief) of the newspaper. Years later, just when the Brazilian military dictatorship began, he started working at Folha de S.Paulo, reaching the same status he earned in Estado. Abramo was responsible for the decision of making what was a very tame, dictatorship-friendly paper, into a more controversial paper, therefore running editorials and guest-pieces - many of the latter penned by critics of the régime[3] - debating on the burning issues of the day. In the 1970s, he was nominated again, editor-in-chief, but, in September 1977, the publication of an article by Lourenço Diaféria, considered by military hardliners to be demeaning to the memory of the civic patron of the Brazilian Army, the Duke Of Caxias,[4] offered the opportunity to the military to pressure for Abramo's removal as editor, which was achieved as a reconciliation token arranged by Abramo's successor to the position, Boris Casoy, whose ties to the military allowed him to act as go-between for the paper's owners.[5]

In the next year, however, Abramo returned to the paper in order to finish the reforms being planned for the newspaper since the year before, with Octávio Frias de Oliveira and Otavio Frias Filho. In 1979, he left Folha and started working with Mino Carta in the short-lived Jornal da República. In the early 1980s, he returned to Folha and worked as a correspondent in London, switching it for Paris in 1983.[6]

He was awarded twice by foreign governments: by the Italian government, for his illegal works for the Italian resistance during World War II; and by the People's Republic of Poland, for his support for anti-Nazi movements in Poland.[6]

Bibliography

• A Regra do Jogo - O Jornalismo e a Ética do Marceneiro (Companhia das Letras)

References

1. Claudio Weber Abramo's official blog
2. "Memória: Perseu Abramo por seus amigos" (in Portuguese). Fundação Perseu Abramo. 8 May 2006. Archived from the original on 27 December 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2011.
3. Thomas Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-1985. Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-506316-3 ,page 174
4. The article referred to an off-duty army sergeant who at the time had jumped into a giant otters' cage in the Brasilia Zoo to save a child at the cost of his own life, something that prompted a comment by Diaferia on this genuine act of heroism as compared to the indifference in which the Duke of Caxias was held, as a statue on whose pedestal beggars urinated: Anne-Marie Smith, A forced agreement: press acquiescence to censorship in Brazil. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8229-5621-7, page 158
5. Pilagallo, Oscar (2012). "O jornalismo possível na ditadura". In Alcino Leite Neto (ed.). História da Imprensa Paulista (in Portuguese). São Paulo: Três Estrelas. p. 220. ISBN 978-85-65339-01-8.
6. Abramo, Cláudio (1988). A Regra do Jogo (in Portuguese). Companhia das Letras. pp. 19–20. ISBN 85-7164-015-7.

External links

• Cláudio Abramo's curriculum vitae