Hildegardes Vianna
Hildegardes Cantolino Vianna was a Brazilian journalist and folklorist, professor at the Federal University of Bahia, and General Secretary at the UNESCO Institute of Education, Science, and Culture in Brazil. She is known as "the lady of Brazilian folklore".
Biography
Hildegardes was born on 31 March 1919 in Salvador, the capital city of the Brazilian state Bahia. She was the daughter of Amália Cantolino and of Antônio Vianna, a poet, writer, and folklorist. Hildegardes graduated from the Faculty of Law and from the School of Music and Performing Arts, both at UFBA, and later taught folk dance and musical folklore at the latter. She completed a specialisation in ethnology in Lisbon.Hildegardes began her career in journalism at the now defunct newspaper O Imparcial. In 1955, she joined the newspaper A Tarde, where she published stories and articles weekly for 44 years. Their success led her to publish two books, A Bahia já foi assim and Antigamente era assim, along with several selected texts. As the most accredited person in the field of Bahian folklore, she was awarded the Silvio Romero medal in 1958.
Hildegardes was the General Secretary of the Bahian Folklore Commission and of the Brazilian Institute of Education, Science, and Culture, an UNESCO agency. She was also a member of the Bahian Council of Cultural Foundation, and a partner and coordinator of the Geographical and Historical Institute of Bahia. She occupied a chair at the Bahia Academy of Letters, to which her collection on Brazilian folklore was donated after her death on 12 June 2005. Her successor at the Academy of Letters is the lyricist José Carlos Capinam.