Os novos cruzados ao ataque : os neomedievalismos de extrema-direita nos casos de Anders Breivik (Noruega) e Brenton Tarrant (Nova Zelândia)

Abstract

The use of the medieval past by politics is not a phenomenon of the beginning of the 21st century. In the mid-twentieth century, political groups, especially those on the extreme right, used representations of the Middle Ages in their speeches and advertisements. Thus, it is possible to mention the case of the Austrian painter Hubert Lanzinger (1880-1950) who produced the work The Standard Bearer depicting Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party of Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, as a medieval knight. At the present time, with the development of research that has addressed these issues, using elements from the Middle Ages has gained specific names: medievalism and neomedievalism. The first is consistent with an idea that has a historical claim, the second does not have such claim and trivializes the period with objectives focused on the present. Thus, today extreme right-wing groups use Neomedievalism to promote their attacks and disseminate their ideologies. With this research, which is still in its initial phase, I seek to explore the actions of Brenton Tarrant and Anders Breivik, men who promoted massacres that killed hundreds of people in New Zealand (2019) and Norway (2012), relating them to the neomedievalism present in each of these attacks and in the justifications of their authors.