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The book addresses the Brazilian and Lusophone cultural identity discourse along the three-way path. Firstly, it is important to point out that it was marked, decisively, by Portuguese culture, first in its intersection with India and then with Africa. The culture of the colonizers of Brazil was eminently Catholic, a direct result of the religious discourse and the medievalisms that constituted this religion. The concept of a "cornerstone" is used for the role of Portuguese culture in colonization borrowed from the Christian Scriptures that apply it to the Biblical Christ as the one who determined Christianity in his life and teachings. Similarly, in the construction of the Brazilian identity building, Portuguese culture establishes itself as the main stone in its foundation, determining and giving base to everything that would follow its implantation in Brazil. As a constituent medievalism of the cultural identity discourse of the nation, a Portuguese heritage, the carnival, the at

tachment to the monarchy and the fears, today considered as "superstitions" in our society stand out. The second way that is explored for the analysis of the formation of Brazilian cultural identity discourse is in the application of Heidegger's thought as a tool for understanding the transition from religious to secular, the shift that occurred especially at the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth. From that philosopher, his concepts of memory, the Dasein, as well as beata vita Augustine secularized in his philosophy will be highlighted. The importance of Heidegger is already in its trajectory of militant catholic in the youth, for existentialist philosopher, being emphasized in the process of construction of its own identity, the "mundanización" that results from his writings. The third way is linked to the analysis of discourse by greimasian optics, where the essential interaction of religious discourse will be perceived in the life of the Brazilian until the nineteent

h century, when there is a great secular turn. This is due to the pressure of several modernist ideas that were already beginning to operate a detachment of a secular identity from the hitherto unique eminently Catholic national identity. It is demonstrated how the centrality of the Marian invocations contributed to this, attracting to itself the religious identification of the country, opening space so that the Christ Redeemer, already assimilated to the carioca landscape, became the great Brazilian cultural icon, having its original intention secularized to represent prosperous and happy life, open to all peoples and all cultures.