Brazilian Dictatorship Research Articles

Representações do passado traumático em obras de Roberto Drummond e Bernardo Kucinski

The Brazilian civil-military dictatorship was revisited by many contemporary novelists, being the literature of that period considered as a form of "dictatorship file" (Figueiredo 2017). The writers Roberto Drummond, in Hitler manda lembranças (1984), and Bernardo Kucinski, in K.Relato de uma busca (2011), put on stage characters who, inserted in the dictatorial period, are tormented by memories of The Second World War. As in an untraceable puzzle, the memory of the Jews persecution during Nazism re-emerges by establishing connections with the military regime in Brazil. Self-fiction or pastiche-like, the two novels propose particular analogies between non-competitive memories and possible traumatic intersections (Rothberg 2018). The narratives’ testimonial character also allows to establish relations between an exogenous past (the immigrant’s) and the national memory. The traumatic past fictionalization seems to contribute to the building of relations between different historical moments and the transference of an intergenerational and affiliative memory (Hirsch 2012)

Da mineração à hidrelétrica: a face recente das dinâmicas territoriais na Amazônia Oriental Brasileira

Since the period of military dictatorship in Brazil, Amazon has become the focus through public and credit policies to privilege the interests of capital over traditional people (riverine people, fishermen, quilombolas, indigenous people), secular settled population, and other subjects (landless workers, those settled in agrarian reform projects). They are forcibly deterritorialized in this logic of integration of national and international capital in the exploration and production of commodities in this space. This work aims to portray the recent perspective of the last two decades of territorialization process of international interest, with the inflow of large capital resources, such as mining, and hydroelectric energy production. The methodology used was the case study, with interviews, documentary and bibliography research. These enterprises, of great magnitude of socio-territorial transformations, tend to provoke a new process of deterritorialization of hundreds of families of rural workers, as in the case of those settled in agrarian reform projects, riverine people, quilombolas, and indigenous people.

The Political Uses of the Past During the Cold War: Conservative Intellectuals and the Military Dictatorship in Brazil

The aim of this paper is to examine how, in the context of the Cold War and Latin America’s National Security dictatorships, conservative Brazilian intellectuals turned to history to demonstrate the country’s ‘incompatibility’ with progressive values and left-wing government. It analyzes a selection of lectures given by acclaimed conservative intellectuals at the National War College during the 1960s and 70s. An examination of these lectures demonstrates that many of the elements chosen to define ‘national identity’ under the ‘Estado Novo’ dictatorship of 1937-45 – such as the valorization of miscegenation, a belief in the docile nature of the Brazilian people, the exaltation of work and the idea of a nation founded on cohesion and cooperation – were revived after 1964. Thus, conservative intellectuals made an important contribution to legitimizing the military dictatorship of 1964-85 by inscribing it within what they believed the Brazilian tradition to be, presenting it as the only regime capable of preserving national unity and culture against the threats posed by Marxism and communism.

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil by John D. French

Reviewed by: Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil by John D. French Jamie L. Worms John D. French Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil. Place of Publication: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. DXX + 508 pp. Maps, diagrams, tables, ills., notes, appendices, references, index. $28.94 paper (ISBN); $00.00 cloth (ISBN); $00.00 electronic (ISBN). This book tells the story of luiz Inácio da Silva and how his humble beginnings and family structure were the un likely reasons he rose through the ranks in his unique political career. John D. French, professor of history at Duke University, advances [End Page 193] the claim that Lula was part of a "working class intelligentsia" (p. 4) or vanguard during the 1970s in São Paulo which successfully unified the metalworking industry and charismatically navigated their confrontations with the educated, authoritarian elite. Relying heavily on several sources, French carves out space in the cannon for his own version of Lula's life as explained through the interpersonal relationships Lula maintained with others. French divides the book into three parts I) Origins and Roots, II) From Luiz Inácio into Lula, and III) Lula, the Peons of ABC, and the Pursuit of the Presidency. This book is incredibly well researched but is lengthy, and at times, uses inaccessible vocabulary in English, and at the strangest of times without translation in Portuguese, to detail the life and career trajectory of Luiz Inácio da Silva, the former, and still very well loved, President of Brazil. By using several books, films, and biopics, French fills Part I with dichotomies to explain Lula's unlikely circumstances. French retells the rich personal histories of Lula and his family and their somewhat unexpected migration from the rural Northeast of Brazil to São Paulo. Despite Lula's tumultuous and violent childhood, his familial structure and position as the youngest child allowed him the opportunity to study while his older family members worked. After completing the fourth grade, Lula also began working in the metal factories in São Paulo's ABC district, akin to the manufacturing belt in the United States. French explains that Lula's situation of being a "poor and working-class youth" (p. 67) amid a rapidly industrializing, heterogenous city is what set him on a path to the presidency and beyond. One of the strongest dichotomies that French repeats across chapters is the comparison between Lula "the good boy" and his brother Frei Chico "the rebel". French brilliantly uses the differences between these brothers to explain the divergent political beliefs held by Brazilians of different social classes during this period of rapid industrialization. After defying several odds, Lula graduated from a multi-year trade-school apprenticeship program in 1963, SENAI (Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial) to become a skilled machinist thus advancing his earning power and social status. While Lula initially shied away from politics, his "rebel" brother Frei Chico, who was an unskilled, rank-and-file worker, already understood the need for union representation and defense. It was only after Frei Chico was kidnapped and tortured by the military dictatorship that Lula decided to run, unopposed, for union President. Despite the risks and dangers that came with organizing an opposition of workers against the Brazilian military regime, French explains that it was Lula's personal experiences that made his reluctant political presence necessary and surprisingly effective. In Part II, French uses the relationships between Lula, his wives, and his brother, to provide testament to his redefining character. French begins by shedding "new light on how in 1971 the twenty-six-year-old expectant father became a grieving widow" (p. 163). French interprets and explains that Lula's "subsequent womanizing" after the death of his pregnant wife, was a product of the "the masculine sphere of working-class sociability" [End Page 194] (p. 163). In a way, this traumatic experience, and Lula's typical gender and class reaction to it, reminds us that he is just like everyone else. Lula had seen his "unfair share of pain, shame, and humiliation, feelings accompanied mostly by resignation, demobilizing anger, and...

The Bicha Louca (Crazy Fag) Character and the Construction of a Network of Actorial Work in Brazil during the Civil-Military Dictatorship (1964-1985)

ABSTRACT The article proposes the existence of an actorial network that created a character-type of the male homosexual, which could be called the bicha louca (crazy fag). Actors such as Nestor Montemar, Raul Cortez, Ítalo Rossi and Emiliano Queiroz participated in this network, contributing to the theatre being a space of visibility for the LGBT population and of resistance to the moral and political repression in the period of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Memória e Resistência: A Ditadura Brasileira em K. – Relato de uma Busca, de Bernardo Kucinski

In this study, we propose an analysis of K. – relato de uma busca (K. - a search report), by Bernardo Kucinski. In our reading, we privilege aspects aimed at recovering the memory of the post-64 Brazilian military dictatorship. The novel in question tells the story of K., a father who searches for his mysteriously missing daughter in 1974. Based on the understanding that the author uses a strong substratum of reality to write his narrative, we developed a study that is attentive to aesthetics and to the testimonial nature of the book. To do so, we used the theory of memory proposed by Maurice Halbwachs and Ecléa Bosi, essays by Márcio Seligman-Silva on testimony literature and Alfredo Bosi's reflections on literature as a possible form of resistance.

Aguilhão e culpa: Valter Hugo Mãe e Bernardo Kucinski em diálogo

A partir de um prisma comparatista, o presente estudo visa propor um diálogo entre as obras a máquina de fazer espanhóis (2011), de Valter Hugo Mãe, e K.: relato de uma busca (2016), de Bernardo Kucinski. Tanto o sa­lazarismo quanto a ditadura militar brasileira (guardadas as devidas di­ferenças e respectivos contextos históricos) podem ser lidos, metaforica­mente, como grandes males, que afetaram de modo cabal o corpo social português e o brasileiro. Os protagonistas dos dois romances, cada qual a seu modo, reagem de maneira distinta às pressões alienantes daquele “grande mal” elucidado por Hannah Arendt em Origens do totalitarismo (2012), vivenciando na própria pele o aguilhão da culpa, nos termos pro­postos por Elias Canetti em Massa e poder (1995).

O DISCURSO FANTÁSTICO EM JOSÉ J. VEIGA COMO FORMA DE SUPERAR A OPRESSÃO

In Sombras de Reis Barbudos by José J. Veiga, underlying to the simple plot, the author presents tenacious criticism and denouncement to the Brazilian military dictatorship that occurred between 1964 and 1985 through the use of metaphors and hyperboles skillfully interwoven in a fantastic work. There are relevant articulations as the structure of the literary fantastic as one of the allusive meanings to the abuses of the dictatorship, denounced by the literature fantastic.

A PERSPECTIVA BAKHTINIANA DAS ENUNCIAÇÕES EMERGENTES NA DITADURA MILITAR BRASILEIRA: REVISÃO DE LITERATURA

The theme of this article is the bibliographic review of researches linked to the Bakhtinian approach to the enunciations emerging during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship period from 1964 to 1985. The objective of this article is to show an outline of the analyzes that Brazilian linguistic research, under a Bakhtinian approach, has developed on the emergent enunciations in the dictatorial context. The theoretical assumption of this research refers to the conception of language developed by Bakhtin and his Circle. The method used in this the research is the bibliography review, also known as “state of the art”. The analysis of the data showed that there is little research that articulates specific concepts of the Bakhtin Circle and emergent enunciations during the authoritarianism of the 1964s. It is concluded that the baktinian conception of language can contribute to a more accurate understanding of the enunciative processes during the dictatorship military of 64.

“Lembrar é resistir”(?): Discursos sobre o regime militar em disputa

Inscrito no quadro teórico-metodológico da análise de discurso de base materialista, que se desenvolve a partir das proposições de Michel Pêcheux, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar discursivamente sentidos em curso para o regime militar no Brasil, em diferentes materializações no espaço urbano. Com foco nas tensões e contradições que inscrevem tais discursos na cidade, em nossa conjuntura sócio-histórica, traz para análise um corpus constituído pelo vídeo institucional disponível no site do Memorial da Resistência, em São Paulo, e flagrantes urbanos de cartazes que fazem apologia à ditadura e aos métodos de tortura e morte por ela empregados no Brasil. As análises realizadas possibilitam vislumbrar a contradição entre os discursos de resistência, que ganham o espaço do Memorial, e o discurso cínico e(m) gestos de violência, flagrado no espaço urbano. Tais flagrantes apontam para a necessidade de questionamento das evidências de sentidos, de modo a fazer da lembrança um gesto de resistência.

Beyond Ideology. The “immortals”, the military and the palace

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between intellectuals and power from the perspective of the interests and rewards that both sides were able to obtain from a collaboration. To do so, we analyze a specific case, which occurred during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), and involves the donation of a piece of land, as well as a loan to construct a building granted by the military regime to the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL). The analysis enables us to shed new light on the relationship between conservative intellectuals and the Brazilian military regime. In the first segment, we retrace the trajectory of Austregesilo de Athayde, a journalist who presided over the institution between 1959 and 1994 and played a vital role in this donation and in financing the construction of the building. In the second segment, we detail how this process took place and how it provides a new angle with which to analyze the relationship of conservative intellectuals and the military dictatorship in Brazil.

Lesbian Voices and Radical Feminism within the Brazilian « Homosexual Movement » of the 1970s and Early 1980s

This essay is part of a project entitled « Generation 77: Politicized Youth in São Paulo and the Demise of the Brazilian Dictatorship ». It studies the roles that Paulistano students, youth, and new social movement activists, played in mobilizations against the military dictatorship. In this essay, I focus on the early years of the small lesbian movement in São Paulo that developed in the midst of the process of democratization and offered a radical critique of sectors of an emergent women’s movement and traditional Marxist ideas that still had purchase among many radicalized youth.

Trabalhadores, obras públicas e Justiça do Trabalho no “milagre econômico” em Alagoas

Este artigo busca analisar como a ditadura empresarial-militar brasileira provocou uma avalanche de obras que implicou no crescimento precarizado de trabalhadores empregados na indústria da construção civil. Nesse sentido, o “milagre econômico” operou através das obras públicas, de forma paulatina, entre os governos, edificando construções cada vez mais vultuosas, como é o caso do estádio de futebol Rei Pelé, popularizado Trapichão. Analisaremos as experiências dos operários nas construções aqui reunidas através da Justiça do Trabalho, uma instituição disputada por trabalhadores e patrões. Pensar em como se deu o “milagre” econômico para esses trabalhadores, significa olhar mais de perto para o barateamento de sua mão de obra, para o seu adoecimento e morte, para a superexploração e a precarização das suas condições de trabalho e de como o patronato e o Estado se beneficiavam das características de terceirização e de informalidade que predominaram naquele contexto.

Hoje (2011) e Trago Comigo (2016)

esta análise parte do vazio aberto pela perda de entes queridos durante a ditadura militar brasileira por ex-presos e perseguidos políticos e familiares de mortos e desaparecidos, para esboçar uma compreensão da elaboração da memória autoritária pela arte da memória do cinema. A discussão sobre o tema é encaminhada a partir de sua abordagem em duas produções do cinema nacional contemporâneo, os filmes Hoje (2011) e Trago Comigo (2016), da cineasta paulistana Tata Amaral. Nessas obras, a distância entre o passado ditatorial e o presente democrático é suprimida pelo prolongamento dos traumas provocados pela tortura e do sofrimento causado pelo desaparecimento e morte de pessoas no cotidiano dos que sobreviveram a essas experiências.

Cinema na ditadura militar

Da perspectiva dos historiadores, o cinema é considerado uma forma de ampliar as possibilidades de reflexão sobre o passado. Isso pressupõe entender os filmes além do caráter de mero entretenimento cultural, mas como fonte histórica. Desta forma, o presente artigo aborda a ditadura militar brasileira (1964-1985) através do filme A freira e a tortura (1984), dirigido por Ozualdo R. Candeias, que narra a conturbada e violenta relação entre um policial e uma freira acusada de subversão. Produção de baixo orçamento e com acentuado caráter erótico e político, o citado longa-metragem teve a exibição em território nacional vetada pela censura federal. Em vista do que foi afirmado, partimos do seguinte problema de pesquisa: quais as possibilidades de interpretação do filme A freira e a tortura como fonte histórica sobre a ditadura militar? O objetivo é contribuir para os estudos sobre a ditadura militar.

“O meu estranho mundo secreto”: identidade lésbica e homoerotismo em Eu sou uma lésbica, de Cassandra Rios

Este trabalho tem como objetivo fazer uma leitura crítica das representações da mulher lésbica no romance Eu sou uma lésbica (1980), da escritora paulistana Cassandra Rios, cujas obras foram consideradas pornográficas e censuradas durante o regime militar brasileiro. Ao acompanharmos as recordações da protagonista Flávia, observamos uma série de questionamentos em torno de sua identidade e de seus desejos por outras mulheres, o que evidencia questões relacionadas ao homoerotismo feminino, ao preconceito e à discriminação da mulher lésbica em um contexto histórico-social marcadamente repressor, sobretudo em relação às identidades consideradas como não hegemônicas. Para alcançar nossos objetivos na leitura do romance de Rios, valemo-nos dos conceitos teórico-críticos de George Bataille (1987), Judith Butler (2003), Tânia Navarro-Swain (2004), Adriane Piovezan (2005), Isabela Nóbrega (2015), e Anderson Guimarães (2013), dentre outros, que nos possibilitaram uma compreensão mais acurada sobre as representações da mulher lésbica na literatura de Cassandra Rios.

Agricultural dispossessions during the 1964–1985 Brazilian dictatorship

The objective of this study is to analyze dispossession processes in rural Brazil that took place during the dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985, when Brazilian capitalist agriculture had its most significant impulse. From a theoretical perspective, dispossessions that served capital expansion can be distinguished from those that did not. The first group includes processes that led to proletarianization of immediate producers who had been peasants, or to the capitalization of lands that they had been using for subsistence. Among processes that did not expand capital are those that involved the simple redistribution of the means of production—including land—or surpluses. State violence was one of the mechanisms used to execute many of these processes, which supported the expansion project of the dictatorial regime, particularly in northern Brazil. By converting means of subsistence—land—into capital, or immediate producers—peasants—into proletarians, these processes reproduced in contemporary formats what Marx had called primitive accumulation and that in late capitalism I call expanding dispossession.

Politics in Uniform: Military Officers and Dictatorship in Brazil, 1960–1980. By Maud Chirio. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Pp. xii, 280. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $28.95 paper.

Politics in Uniform: Military Officers and Dictatorship in Brazil, 1960–1980. By Maud Chirio. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Pp. xii, 280. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $28.95 paper.

Ou ficar a pátria livre ou morrer pelo brasil: a ALN e sua natureza “anti-estadunidense”

Na segunda metade do século XX, no contexto da política de poder bipolar decorrente da Guerra Fria, a América Latina vivenciou o surgimento de ditaduras civil-militares as quais, em parte, estruturam-se com a finalidade de manter a hegemonia estadunidense na região. Como resposta armada aos regimes de exceção, grupos guerrilheiros foram fundados tanto para reverter o cenário político interno quanto para denunciar a subordinação daqueles regimes aos interesses econômicos e geopolíticos estadunidenses. Partindo dessa conjuntura e apoiado nos documentos originais que tratam do tema, o artigo analisa a maneira pela qual a Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN) denunciou, interpretou e reagiu à participação dos Estados Unidos tanto no golpe de Estado de 1964 quanto na consolidação da ditadura brasileira.
 
 
 Abstract: In the second half of the twentieth century, in the context of the bipolar power policy resulting from the Cold War, Latin America experienced the emergence of civil-military dictatorships which, in part, were structured with the purpose of maintaining US´ hegemony in the region. As an armed response to the regimes of exception, guerrilla groups were founded both to reverse the internal political scenario and to denounce the subordination of those regimes to US economic and geopolitical interests. Within this conjuncture and guided by the original documents that illustrate the theme, the article analyzes the way in which the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN) denounced, interpreted and reacted to the participation of the United States both in the 1964 coup d'état and in the maintenance of the Brazilian Dictatorship .
 Keywords: Inter-American Relations; Civic-Military Dictatorships; Armed Struggle; Ação Libertadora Nacional.
 
 
 Recebido em: abril/2020.
 Aprovado em: setembro/2020.

A revista Paz e Terra: um lugar da memória da comunicação religiosa, ecumênica e política no Brasil

Este artigo tem por objetivo examinar a relevância de produções de contra-informação desenvolvidas durante a ditadura militar no Brasil por grupos religiosos. O objeto é a revista Paz e Terra, da Editora Civilização Brasileira nos anos 1960, como iniciativa ímpar no campo da comunicação religiosa, ecumênica e política. A fim de se responder à questão-problema “qual o lugar da revista Paz e Terra na memória das produções midiáticas religiosas no Brasil?” são tomados por base estudos sobre “suportes da memória” e “lugares de memória”. A articulação entre a narrativa da memória de Paz e Terra e a descrição do conteúdo dos dez exemplares publicados, que forma a metodologia da pesquisa empregada, foi feita com base no acervo da revista, em pesquisa documental, em depoimentos de personagens envolvidas, colhidos durante pesquisa para o Mestrado em Memória Social da autora, e em obras sobre a Editora Civilização Brasileira e seu editor Ênio Silveira, sobre as lideranças evangélicas envolvidas no projeto e sobre a própria revista. Busca-se, com este texto, contribuir com a ampliação das abordagens sobre os estudos em mídia, religião e política no Brasil, alargando o foco das análises críticas centradas em produções contemporâneas e aplicando a chave referencial da memória