Carnation Revolution Research Articles

Paisagens em trânsito: um retorno à cidade de Ulisses

Sabendo da importância da escritora portuguesa Teolinda Gersão no panorama lusófono, no âmbito do romance português contemporâneo, o propósito desta pesquisa é examinar de que forma os personagens apreendem subjetivamente a paisagem portuguesa na obra A cidade de Ulisses, publicada em 2011. Por se tratar de um romance que foi publicado após a Revolução dos Cravos, ocorrida em Portugal no ano de 1974, buscamos privilegiar o posicionamento crítico da autora, associando experiência e perspectiva imagética ao cenário cultural português.

Performando identidades desterritorializadas: uma leitura de ‘Trans Iberic Love’, de Raquel Freire

O romance português Trans iberic love (2013) narra a história de Maria, nascida com a Revolução dos Cravos e o trans-homem José, nascido nos anos 1990, que crescem em meio à austeridade econômica e afetiva causada pela crise do neoliberalismo nos anos 2000 e 2010, fazendo com que se sintam motivados a lutar por uma revolução queer anticapitalista e questionadora dos ideais da sociedade heteronormativa. Raquel Freire escreve um romance de formação que traz um reflexo da militância LGBTQ+, bem como do recente processo de desnacionalização da literatura portuguesa. Pretendemos ler o romance de Freire em consonância com vozes teóricas pós-estruturais e da teoria queer, de modo a averiguar como sua obra contribui com novos horizontes questionadores da atual conjuntura LGBTQ+. ---DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/abriluff2018n21a509.

Cape Verdean immigration in Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas trilogy: Narratives of deterritorialization

This article will focus on the narratives of space and deterritorialization in Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas trilogy. This trilogy is made up of Ossos (‘Bones’) (1997), No Quarto da Vanda (In Vanda’s Room) (2000) and Juventude em Marcha (Colossal Youth) (2006), which explore the lives and narratives of Cape Verdean immigrants and their descendants living in the famed shantytown outside Lisbon’s limits. The analysis of Pedro Costa’s trilogy will focus on Fontainhas inhabitants’ inability to possess their territory as the result of an existence shaped by a movement of perpetual deterritorialization. As I will argue, this process reflects Portugal’s failure to fulfil the promises of the Carnation Revolution, remaining inhospitable for immigrants.

Límites de la Transición española: análisis crítico de un proceso de transformación social y político

The Spanish Transition has left thousands of open questions and unresolved issues to history. The reform or the break with the authoritarian system that gave way to a liberal democracy opened for many, from very diverse sectors, an oasis of opportunities, with references in countries such as Portugal, which had just experienced the Carnation Revolution in 1974. The longings of democracy of many people were cut by a closed process, creating state structures with some of those who had been protagonists during the Franco regime. In this article we analyze the Transition process that Spain lived and its political and social consequent limitations

Revolutions negotiated in Portuguese songwriting and performance

Abstract This article examines the poetic use of the revolution in four songs written and played by the Portuguese rapper Sam the Kid, the bands The Soaked Lamb, Os Quais, and The Loafing Heroes. Despite these songs showing aesthetic and formal differences, the revolution is a common trope to discuss the post-revolutionary nation. The Portuguese singers did not experience the revolution because they were born in the 1970s. A close analysis of these compositions suggests that the revolution is part of the collective imaginary and stands as the moment utopia could have been made real in Portugal. In times of crisis, the revolution emerges as the impetus to change and 1974 becomes the Portuguese appropriation of utopia in the twenty-first century. Rap, bossa nova, indie and roots emerge as legitimate musical genres to discuss postmodern times and the post-revolutionary nation. In ‘Abstenção’ (‘Abstention’) (released by Sam the Kid in 2006) and in ‘Palhaços’ (‘Clowns’) (released by The Soaked Lamb in 2012), the present is gloomy and the memory of the Carnation Revolution is appropriated to give voice to the dispossessed of the Portuguese democracy and offered to make amends with the memory of the failed revolutionary solutions. ‘Meu Caro Amigo Chico’ (‘My Dear Friend Chico’) (released by Os Quais in 2012) and ‘The Shepherd’ (released by The Loafing Heroes in 2014) are compositions where the crisis of utopia is redeemed to reconfigure the conceptual limits of individualism and the body, an extension of the world, becomes the unchartered territory of utopia.

Social Work Education: The Portuguese Story in a Local and Global Perspective

This article presents the general framework of social work education in Portugal covering its beginnings and more recent milestones. It focuses on the dynamics of break and continuity between its pivotal socio-political periods and international influences. The social work education itinerary in Portugal during the period between the Republican Regime foundation (1910), the constitution of Estado Novo (1933–1945), the succession of Salazar (1968), the revolutionary crises associated with the Carnation Revolution of 1974 , and the academicisation period (1989 to the present) will be revisited, paying special attention to the underpinnings of theory and knowledge, social and political issues, and the impact on social work practice.

O fio da memória na ficção de Francisco José Viegas

Este artigo apresenta, com base na análise do romance português contemporâneo Lourenço Marques (2002), de Francisco José Viegas, algumas considerações a respeito da constituição da memória e das identidades configuradas no contexto pós-colonial que atingiu a África de língua portuguesa e pós-Revolução dos Cravos, em Portugal. Destaca-se, num primeiro momento, a verificação e catalogação de romances contemporâneos publicados em língua portuguesa nas duas últimas décadas e que estabelecem relações com a memória histórica recente de países mantidos em regimes totalitários. Subsequentemente realiza-se a análise do romance Lourenço Marques enquanto narrativa que configura tais elementos.---DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/abriluff.2018n20a438

Carnation Atoms? A History of Nuclear Energy in Portugal

Drawing upon the concepts of civic epistemologies and sociotechnical imaginaries, this article delves into the history of nuclear energy in Portugal, analyzing the ways in which the nuclear endeavor was differently enacted by various sociopolitical collectives – the Fascist State, post-revolutionary governments and the public. Following the 1974 revolution - known as the Carnation Revolution - this paper analyzes how the nuclear project was fiercely contested by a vibrant anti-nuclear movement assembled against the construction of the Ferrel Nuclear Plant, the first sociotechnical controversy in Portugal, paving the way for the emergence of a combative civic epistemology. Supported by semi-structured interviews with scientists, activists and local residents of Ferrel and the analysis of historical material, this article presents the failed Portuguese nuclear endeavor as an emblematic case study to explore the co-production of science and society, in particular the role of revolutionary processes in the unfolding of sociotechnical controversies.

Paisagem e Monumentos de Portugal: Images do Ressurgimento Nacional

Será o Portugal contemporâneo corolário das conquistas da Revolução dos Cravos? Restringindo-nos ao caso da arquitectura, podemos indagar se esta readquiriu a sua autonomia disciplinar, lavrando na terra a desejada democratização do espaço e, ainda, averiguar se foi responsável pela memorização de muitos dos projectos elaborados no pós-25 de Abril. Conquanto julguemos pertinente a indagação, não nos propomos proceder a uma análise exaustiva da conjuntura actual, embora admitamos que esta evidencia a influência de mais de quarenta anos de salazarismo. Entre o fim da década de trinta e o início da de quarenta assistiu-se a um período de afirmação e consolidação das ideias desenhadas por Oliveira Salazar para o Império Português, durante o qual a imagem, tangível ou intangível, do território desempenhou um papel preponderante na pressagiada restauração material, moral e nacional. Com base sobretudo em publicações editadas pelo SPN, como Images Portugaises [1939], Paisagem e Monumentos de Portugal (1940), Obras Públicas: Caderno do Ressurgimento Nacional [1943] e outras com estas correlacionadas, comprovaremos como pouco antes do advento da 2.ª Guerra Mundial já se desvendava na paisagem portuguesa um vasto conjunto de traços distintivos do projecto salazarista, cuja memória ainda hoje remanesce em diferentes lugares.

A Avaliação do Mérito na Administração Pública do Liberalismo ao 25 de Abril

A Avaliação do Mérito na Administração Pública do Liberalismo ao 25 de Abril

Introduction: Portugal, Forty-Four Years after the Revolution

Portuguese Studies vol. 34 no. 1 (2018), 5–19© Modern Humanities Research Association 2018 Introduction: Portugal, Forty-Four Years after the Revolution Sebastián Royo Suffolk University, Boston, MA The year 2018 marks the forty-fourth anniversary of the Portuguese Revolution. After decades of relative isolation under an authoritarian regime, the success of the democratic transition paved the way for full membership of the European Community in 1986. The combined processes of democratization and European integration have shaped the country’s development during the last four decades, and to this day they are still crucial in policy-making and policy outcomes. This special volume reflects on the legacies of the revolution, and seeks to examine Portugal’s transformation over the last four decades. The pattern of Portuguese history has been described, crudely, as a graph shaped like an upside-down V. The graph rises, bumpily at times, through 600 years under the Romans, 700 years or so partly under the Moors, and a century of empire-building, to the peak of Portuguese power in the sixteenth century. The discovery of the largest gold deposits in South America at the end of the seventeenth century led to the Brazilian gold rush, with hundreds of thousands of Portuguese moving to the region to seek their fortune. After that, though, the riches of the American and African colonies were squandered in wars and a vast empire was gradually lost, leaving Portugal poor and powerless. The years following the assassination of the king in 1908 and the subsequent overturn of the monarchy were a period of political chaos, which led to forty years of authoritarian rule under Salazar and Caetano. After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, however, the line on the graph turned upward again. The democratic transition was turbulent and included a revolutionary period, but it culminated in the establishment of a parliamentary democracy. These developments were followed by the progressive return of the country to the international arena — having been relatively isolated during the dictatorship — bringing a new era of modernity. The purpose of this special volume is to reflect on the legacies of the revolutionary transition and examine what has happened in the country during the last four decades. The articles identify the basic changes in the economy and society of Portugal that occurred as a result of the democratization process. They also assess the impact that these changes have had on the ‘quality’ of Portuguese democracy, as well as the country’s economic and social development. In sum, Sebastián Royo 6 the main goal of the special volume is to reflect on how far Portugal has come since 1974, in order to better understand where it is headed as we near the start of the third decade of the twenty-first century. To this end, it provides a series of original analyses of the development of Portuguese politics, sociology and economics since the transition to democracy. Drawing on research by established scholars, the volume offers an up-to-date assessment of political and economic issues that will help us to understand contemporary Portugal. This Introduction outlines the main objectives of this special volume and provides a very brief snapshot of where Portugal stands forty-four years after the Revolution. While there are limitations to such a brief and static political and economic overview, this section of the Introduction is important in order to provide a record of where Portugal stands at the time of publication, as well as to present the economic and political context for the rest of the volume. In addition, this brief overview seeks to underscore the enormous social, political and economic progress that Portugal has made since the Revolution, and also to emphasize the challenges that the country still faces. Finally, it will also provide a starting point upon which new research on the topics addressed in this volume can be built.1 Objectives This special volume examines the impact and legacy of the revolution as regards the subsequent traits and the quality of democracy in Portugal. It addresses the following questions: how did the revolution contribute to reduce political and economic inequalities? what was its role in shaping party politics and in the strengthening of...

From Enemies to Allies? Portugal's Carnation Revolution and Czechoslovakia, 1968–1989

This article analyses the relationship between Portugal and Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1989, with a specific focus on the influence of the Carnation Revolution. This analysis includes the Portuguese communist migration to Czechoslovakia, the contact between the Portuguese and Czechoslovak communists during Portugal's transition process, a diplomatic incident in 1982 and the specific conditions within the Portuguese student community at Czech and Slovak universities. The article also explores the fact that Czechoslovak communists, despite hopes that southern Europe might ‘go socialist’, did in fact very little to support communist forces in Portugal after the collapse of the Caetano regime. Likewise, the post-dictatorial governments in Portugal did little to help Eastern European dissidence. Instead, political players in both countries saw each other much more in terms of economic advantage and realpolitik.

The revolution in local government: mayors in Portugal before and after 1974

AbstractIn 1974, Portugal's Carnation Revolution, initiated by the military, received huge popular support. Army officers, mostly of the rank of captain, started the Revolution, but then the politicians took over. While it was largely a ‘top down’ revolution, at the local government level ordinary people assumed control. In this article we consider those who made up the local elites before the Revolution, during the transition period that followed, and thereafter. We compare the local elites in Portugal during Salazar's dictatorship with those under the Democratic regime, using a database of 6,000 entries containing details of 3,102 mayors and deputy mayors and 402 civil governors who held office between 1936 and 2013. Our main conclusions are that during the transition period the elite who had ruled under Salazar were almost completely replaced. A new group, from different professions and social backgrounds, took up the reins of local government. The Revolution produced a population willing to participate in the new order and take on roles within local government, but they did not always retain their seats after the first democratic elections.

Rendezvous With a Revolution: British Socialists in Portugal 1974–5

This essay traces the presence of British left-wing radicals in Portugal during the Carnation Revolution of 1974–5, a phase of significant sociopolitical change that fired the imagination of layers of activists across Europe. The revolution, sparked by a captain’s coup within the military, also effectively ended Portugal’s colonial wars, and with its new armed forces movement and proliferation of workers’ commissions, held out the possibility of revolutionary socialism – and not simply the transition to a Western-style democracy. The revolution acquired wider international significance given the shock to the global Left of the right-wing military coup in Chile in September 1973. Moreover, British respondents refer to the period as a key moment of “revolutionary tourism” in the arc of revolt that swept the 1960s and 1970s. Groups such as the International Socialists sent delegations to Portugal to forge links with trade unions and left parties, and numerous individuals came as observers, or indeed to participate more fully in the events. Beyond generic analyses on the course and impact of the Portuguese Revolution, I conduct an oral and archival history which identifies the visitors’ motivations and experiences, their exchanges with Portuguese militants, the “lessons learned” and any political reorientation of the British radical Left prompted by the uprising. Indeed, the military counter-coup of 1975 proved a decisive moment, leading ultimately to a “normalization” of Portuguese society, and dashing the hopes of the European radical Left. For some on the British Left, Portugal 1975 came to represent the end of the European revolutionary movement that had begun in the late 1960s.

What Shall I Do With This Sword? Narrative, Speech and Politics in the Carnation Revolution

The vast grassroots movement triggered by the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal represented an enormous challenge to filmic and literary representation. This article analyses how writers and filmmakers tried to come to terms with the event, in particular how they managed to incorporate the proliferation of written and oral discourses during the revolutionary process into their narratives. In the context of an event so deeply influenced by Marxist political cultures that aimed to collapse the distinction between theory and practice, these narratives will also allow us to consider the challenges posed by the history of communism to cultural history.

Literatura e história: possibilidades de diálogo entre a Revolução dos Cravos e a ficção em As vésperas esquecidas, de Maria Isabel Barreno

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo analisar o preconceito - enquanto elemento presente na constituição e formação de sociedades patriarcais - a partir da leitura e interpretação de textos literários produzidos por autores gaúchos que abordam as relações de autoritarismo e poder existentes na sociedade sul-rio-grandense. Inicialmente, algumas considerações a respeito das relações entre literatura e sociedade são tecidas, seguidas pela discussão das relações de poder e preconceito presentes nas obras. A investigação se desenvolverá a partir dos contos Terça-feira gorda, de Caio Fernando Abreu e O negro Bonifácio, de João Simões Lopes Neto. É importante salientar que, apesar da distância histórica das obras e dos autores, ocorre uma aproximação temática quando se evidencia a presença de uma crítica aos preconceitos da sociedade na qual estão inseridas as personagens das obras. Para tanto, este trabalho fundamenta-se em autores como Theodor Adorno (2003), Walter Benjamin (1985), Antonio Candido (2000), entre outros.

In communist Geneva: Portuguese political opposition and Czechoslovakia, 1950s–1970s

Abstract This article deals with the activities of the opposition in Czechoslovakia to the Portuguese New State government during the 1950s to 1970s. It focuses on the most important personalities living in the country and explores their encounters with the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. The article also analyses the approach of the Czechoslovak government towards the Portuguese activists and the assistance is offered to Portuguese emigrants in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR – Československá Socialistická Republika). Special attention is paid to the meeting of representatives of the Portuguese opposition in Prague in January 1964, and to the perception these Portuguese residents had of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. It follows the activities of the remaining emigrants in Czechoslovakia up until the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974. Finally, the author describes the relations between both countries on cultural exchanges and Portuguese students in Czechoslovakia after 1974.

West Germany and the Portuguese Dictatorship, 1968–1974: Between Cold War and Colonialism

Reviews 251 Rui Lopes, West Germany and the Portuguese Dictatorship, 1968–1974: Between Cold War and Colonialism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). xi + 269 pages. Index. Print and e-book. Reviewed by Paulo de Medeiros (University of Warwick) In spite of enormous challenges still facing most sectors, Portugal appears to have snapped out of the spiralling destructive race to the bottom that threatened to reverse many of the gains of thirty years of democracy as forced regimes of austerity held it in an asphyxiating grip. The strangeness of Portugal’s current situation is captured in the editorial article of the most recent issue of the New Left Review (106, July–August 2017). Under the title of ‘Luso-Anomalies’ Daniel Finn sets out a sharp and succinct analysis of just how anomalous the Portuguese situation is in light of the non-abating malaise of European affairs. He writes: Since the end of 2015, Portugal has been the scene of an unusual political drama. After failing to win a majority in parliament, the country’s longestablished centre-left machine rejected the offer of a ‘grand coalition’ with its conservative rival to implement the demands of Brussels and Frankfurt. Straying from the beaten path of European social democracy, the Portuguese Socialist Party came to an arrangement instead with radical-left forces of the kind ostracized everywhere else in the EU. [...] Dismissed by hostile critics as a rickety geringonça (‘contraption’), the alliance between the Socialists and Portugal’s radical left has confounded predictions that it would collapse in a matter of months. [The Prime Minister António] Costa’s own approval ratings have soared, along with those for his party, in pointed contrast with the fiasco of Hollande, the bubble of Renzi and the capitulation of Tsipras. (p. 5) Not since 1974 and the Carnation Revolution that ushered in a return to democratic rule and decolonization has such analytical attention and (guarded) optimism been lavished on Portugal by academics who do not specialize in Portuguese affairs. Cautious (and realist) as Finn is, his branding of the Portuguese present situation as ‘Luso-Anomalies’ is radically different from what would have been understood by such an epithet before 1974, as Portugal endured one of the longest periods of oppression in Europe under the regime headed initially by Salazar and then passed on to Marcello Caetano. When the army finally put an end to that long night of fascism that lasted for almost fifty years, Portugal had become an almost intolerable anomaly in Western Europe. Rui Lopes’s clear and painstakingly documented study takes us back to that time as it examines in detail the troubled relationship between Portugal and West Germany (the FRG) in the last phase of Portugal’s desperate attempt to hold on to its African colonies and what remained of its deluded and dangerous imperial fantasies. Central to its argument is the ambivalent and ambiguous position Bonn took towards Portugal. While Portugal was a key NATO ally, whose strategic position — and especially its concession of the Reviews 252 Lajes airbase in the Azores — guaranteed its support from other Western European countries, its intransigent, anachronistic, and destructive decision to hold on to the colonies was a serious problem for countries whose own views on colonialism were, at least publicly, sharply different. The period analysed by Lopes is especially important, as the succession of Salazar by Caetano had signalled a promised liberalization of the regime that in effect never came to pass, as Portugal only expanded its war efforts in Africa. Lopes does take into account nuances and differences in the foreign policy of the several nations that were crucial for sustaining Portugal at the time, besides West Germany: France, the United Kingdom, and the USA. His focus on West Germany, however, is crucial: not only was West Germany then still just one generation removed from the horrors of WWII, Hitler, and the Holocaust, it was a polity that had to deal with its other half, the GDR, both as a threat and as the object of a desire for eventual reunification. Indeed, some of the finest work done by Lopes concerns the careful unravelling of the subtle shifts in the relation between the two...

Mário Soares (1924–2017)

Mário Soares (1924–2017) João Carlos Espada Mário Soares, a figure widely hailed as the founding father of Portuguese democracy and a member of the Journal of Democracy’s International Advisory Committee, died on 7 January 2017 at the age of 92. Three days of official mourning and a state funeral marked his passing. This formal tribute to his service as prime minister and later president of Portugal was also an occasion to honor and reflect on the key role that Soares had played in his country’s 1974 transition to democracy, which initiated the “third wave” of global democratization. For decades prior to the 1970s, Portugal had lived under a right-wing military dictatorship that was nearly as old as Soares himself—it had begun in 1926, when he was not quite two-years old. A Lisbon attorney and well-known foe of the dictatorship, he suffered no fewer than twelve arrests. In 1968, the regime sent him into exile on the Atlantic island of São Tomé (at that time still a Portuguese colony) off the west coast of Africa. In 1970, he was allowed to leave São Tomé for Paris. A few years after that, at a semi-clandestine meeting in West Germany, Soares and his wife Maria Barroso founded the Socialist Party of Portugal. He served as its first general secretary. On 25 April 1974, a nearly bloodless military coup ended autocratic rule in Portugal, and, as Samuel P. Huntington later put it, “implausibly and unwittingly” began “the third wave of democratization in the modern world.” In the early phase of what would come to be called the Carnation Revolution, Soares became foreign minister in a coalition government that included the Portuguese Communist Party, an unreconstructed Soviet-aligned organization. But Soares’s freedom struggle had not ceased. During the period of uncertainty after the dictatorship’s end, hard-line Communist elements in the Lisbon government began tightening their authoritarian grip on military, political, and civil institutions. Mário Soares resigned from that government in 1975, and then led a spontaneous coalition that managed to thwart the Communists’ power play, with the decisive moment coming in the form of a failed pro-Communist coup in Lisbon on November 25. Immediately after defeating that antidemocratic coup, Soares stood tall against attempts to outlaw the Communist Party, reasserting his vision of Portugal as a country firmly committed to liberal-democratic principles. In 1976, Soares became Portugal’s first elected prime minister and guided the process of joining the European Economic Community (the [End Page 176] precursor to the European Union), which admitted Portugal as a full member in 1985. In 1986, after starting with just 8 percent support in opinion polls, Soares won election as the first civilian president in the history of Portugal’s young democracy. Five years later, he was reelected with an overwhelming 70 percent of the vote. During the January 10 state funeral, a speech that Soares had made during his 1986 presidential campaign was replayed as his coffin was borne to its final resting place. Once again, Soares’s summoning words rang out: After the 25th of April [1974], some of those who had fought against the dictatorship started opening new prisons. They and their predecessors had mainly a blind lack of respect for their fellow citizens. They and their predecessors believed themselves to be the sole owners of the truth. They conceived of themselves as being predestined to save the Portuguese. There is a certainty that I have always had: that truth does not belong to anybody in exclusivity and that nothing can replace toleration. This is one of my great principles. I have always been on the side of those who were and are oppressed, those who felt and feel excluded from their own country. In Lisbon, in exile on São Tomé, as well as at Fonte Luminosa [the site of a landmark anticommunist rally in Lisbon on 19 July 1975], I have always fought for the Portuguese to be allowed to live with one another under liberty, for all to be allowed to feel that we all are an integral part of Portugal. While Mário...

Os fins do tempo do fim: descolonização, negação, pertença

Very few topics mobilize both the thought -just to use a porous category of difficult definition- and the Portuguese decolonization in the mid-70s, after the Carnation Revolution. Multiple imaginations were elaborated from this event that fractured an expansion and a secular colonial theory. However, as Eduardo Lourenco fully shows ( Do colonialismo como nosso impensado , 2014) the dereliction of the Atlantic history produces a multitude of ontological and symbolic specters and critical problems for the country called to articulate a new inscription outside of the Atlantic-Europe dialectics, exclusively turned to the European mythologies and destiny. The article deals especially with the conceptual plan of the Portuguese decolonization, in particular deepening the topic in terms of conceptual history, connected to two involved categories: negation and belonging. A reflection on the temporal tangle of decolonization in particular valorizes the messianic aspect of a time of the leading to a reconsideration of the connection to an event that for some actors of the processes meant a end of the time.