The almanacs and the social circulation of cultural objects: bibliographies, collections, reading traces

Abstract

Almanacs are small or large brochures, popular secular-time writings, published since the fifteenth century in Europe, produced and disseminated with multiple purposes, including circular useful information, maintaining and renewing cultural traditions, reporting the events and characters of his time. They are considered as the most complete version of the yearbooks and calendars and retain a special relationship with the passage of time. Each country has a history of almanacs. In Brazil the ones with the highest circulation were the pharmacy almanacs, among them Biotônico Fontoura. They were published by the pharmaceutical laboratories and distributed by pharmacies. And the Perpetual Lunario, this one of great diffusion and use in the northeast of the country, mainly by the hands of poets, popular artists, singers, “emboladores” that in him looked for inspiration. However, despite their social, cultural and informational significance in each epoch, these booklets were almost lost, especially in Brazil, with few scattered collections left. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the way of existence of these cultural objects, focusing on their social circulation, the editorial strategies employed by their producers, as well as their reading and permanence traces. For this purpose, some bibliographies and a particular collection are used, in order to reach an understanding of the documentary dimension of almanacs.