Salazar's Portugal Research Articles

Fado and Fatima: Salazar's Portugal in US Film Fiction

Fado and Fatima: Salazar's Portugal in US Film Fiction

Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 (review)

Reviewed by: Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 Silvia A. Oliveira Sapega, Ellen W. Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2008. Pp. 160. ISBN 978-0-271-03410-2. Nearly four decades have passed since the fall of Oliveira Salazar's dictatorship that began in 1928 and ended in 1974. Given the current interest in the many facets of history making and memory building that occurred during Salazar's long reign and continued after his passing in 1968, Ellen W. Sapega's Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 is essential reading. Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal presents a well-documented and vivid portrait of how consensus building propaganda led to an official Salazarist culture, and explores the "middle course between open resistance and ready consent. . ." (3). Those interested in the fascistic shaping of national identities during the first half of the twentieth century, especially as it relates to Portuguese, African Lusophone, and Brazilian studies, will find Sapega's work invaluable. The opening chapter focuses on the actions of the Secretariat of Propaganda, created in 1933 for the manufacturing of Portuguese originality. Sapega analyzes the impact that visual constructs had on forming consensus at the national and international levels, and singles out two illustrative events. In 1938 a nostalgic competition was promoted to discover and recreate the most Portuguese village in Portugal. This national affair served to mobilize the media and center attention on the traditional values of religious and rural life, the central tenant of Salazar's agenda. The second event Sapega examines is the carefully designed and internationally publicized Exposition of the Portuguese World that took place in Lisbon in 1940, an event that was the crown of Salazar's apotheosis. Drawing on images and narratives that appeared in the press, Sapega reconstructs in virtual tour fashion, the experience of the visitor to the imperialistic exposition. She explores the aesthetic elaboration of these two events and documents Salazar's memory building mechanism by examining the strategies and processes used to create a national memory that was crystallized for its own and future generations. With the context of Salazar's designing of Portugalidade established, the remainder of her book is devoted to how three independent artists countered the Estado Novo's ideology by incorporating subtle elements of discord into their work. Having previously authored an admirable study of José de Almada Negreiro's narrative fiction in 1992, Ellen Sapega here scrutinizes Almada's use of modernist visual aesthetics in his assignments that were commissioned by the government. Through detailed analysis of the state sponsored stained-glass work for the Church of Our Lady of Fátima and the murals of the Rocha Do Conde De Óbidos and Alcântara maritime stations in Lisbon, Sapega persuasively describes how Almada Negreiros designed and imprinted "cracks in the façade" of the national text. These public projects would later prompt accusations of conflict-of-interest and make Almada Negreiros one of the most controversially esteemed Portuguese artists of the twentieth century. Sapega next turns to Irene Lisboa's literary works published in the 1940s to exemplify how creative writers resisted Salazar's patriarchal doctrine. Irene Lisboa's nearly overlooked importance in twentieth-century Portuguese literature and culture is revitalized as Sapega demonstrates how Lisboa effectively undermined the "God, Fatherland, and Family" slogan by including in her stories common men and women whose life circumstances contradict one or more elements of Salazar's national trinity. Lisboa rejected the melodramatic overtones of flowery official prose and opted instead for a minor tone and a more subtly inconspicuous fragmented narrative. Sapega then appropriately underscores her analysis of Irene Lisboa's texts by stating that Lisboa "implicitly reminds her readers that traditional literary forms can be just as oppressive as the laws that structure and govern the social body" (113). [End Page 714] Lastly, Cape Verdean writer Baltasar Lopes is introduced. His 1947 novel, Chiquinho, depicting Creole cultural practices, is established by Sapega as an important work...

Sapega, Ellen W. Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948. The Pennsylvania State UP, 2008.

At once tightly focused and wide-ranging, Ellen Sapega’s study offers a fascinating perspective on the politics of cultural production during the arguably most consequential decade and a half of the Portuguese Estado Novo regime.

Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 (review)

SAPEGA, ellen. Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948. University Park: Penn- sylvania State UP, 2008. 184 pp.The Portuguese Estado Novo (1933-1974), an authoritarian regime headed from its inception to 1968 by the charismatic prime minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, strove to create a homogeneous conception of nationality grounded on economic corporatism, colonial domination, conservative social values, and close ties between the government and the Catholic Church. In order to shape the Portu- guese nation into a community of supporters, the state developed a well-oiled propaganda machine, which appropriated images and heroes from the country's long history to justify the present and to convert the disbelievers, in the apt expression of Luis Reis Torgal. Salazarist propaganda forged collective memories of a glorious national past that necessarily culminated in the Estado Novo. This teleologica! narrative, according to which the figure of Salazar often acquired mes- sianic undertones, was conveyed through a variety of state-sponsored means, including theater performances, films, exhibitions, political celebrations, popular festivities, architecture, and sculpture. Ellen Sapega's well- researched book Consen- sus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal analyzes some of the ways in which the artists and intellectuals working for the regime deployed tradition and collective memory so as to generate a consensual adherence to the the government's policies. Yet, as she points out, the discerning eye can often glimpse alternative discourses to the official ideology in the fissures of propaganda. These contending views on the national project are all the more explicit in nonpropagandistic artworks. In spite of widespread censorship, several authors and artists deviated from the official narrative of national grandeur and presented other, often bleaker interpretations of the country's present. Sapega skillfully illustrates the nuances that characterized the Portuguese artistic and literary panorama in the first fifteen years of the Estado Novo, and her study is indispensable reading for all students and scholars working on this topic.One of the strengths of Sapega's book is the fact that she touches upon a variety of literary and artistic practices. While there have been numerous works that focus on one or another aspect of artistic production under the Estado Novo, it is less common to find scholarly analyses that attempt to encompass different perspec- tives under a unifying guiding thread. Undergirding Sapega's work is the assump- tion that, in the first years of the existence of the Estado Novo, there was a sometimes explicit but often subterraneous debate among the various sectors of the country's intellectual milieu about the definition of portugalidade (Portuguese- ness). The author begins by delineating the government's version of what it means to be Portuguese through the description of some of the projects undertaken by the Secretariat of Propaganda, later rebaptized the National Secretariat for Infor- mation, Popular Culture, and Tourism. One of these was a competition that took place in 1938 to identify the most Portuguese village in Portugal. The winner would be the village that most closely approximated an idealized notion of historical purity in terms of its architecture, traditions, arts, festivities, dress, and so on. The goal of the government was to reactivate the country's connection to its historical origins, while, at the same time, emphasizing that age-old rural traditions and hierarchichal social structures could be emulated by present-day society. Rich landowners and poor peasants supposedly lived in harmony in rural Portugal, and the patriarchal rules that bound them should serve as a model for structuring the relations between the Portuguese and their leaders.Another event organized by the Secretariat of Propaganda as a means to create a cohesive, nationalistic interpretation of the country's past was the Exhibition of the Portuguese World that took place in 1940 as a part of the celebrations to mark both Portugal's eight hundredth birthday as an independent nation and the commemoration of the country's independence from Castillian rule in 1640. …

Commemoration and Propaganda in Salazar's Portugal: The Mundo Português Exposition of 1940

Salazar's Portugal is often represented as a colourless, pale imitation of the fascist dictatorships in other parts of Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Yet, in its consolidation phase, the regime embraced the concept of the `festival state', and commemorative events and expositions became key ingredients in the attempt to forge a new, highly selective cultural identity for the Portuguese people. The centerpiece of these efforts was the Mundo Português Exposition of 1940, when the symbols of a new hybrid identity grafted the discourse of Empire onto the traditional conservatism of the New State ( Estado Novo). This major cultural event served a triple function for the regime's propagandists: in their quest for regime legitimacy, for propagating Salazar's nationalist version of the nation's history, and in shaping the national consciousness of the Portuguese people in order to eliminate the `anti-national'.

Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 (review)

Consensus and Debate in Salazar's Portugal: Visual and Literary Negotiations of the National Text, 1933-1948 (review)

A Companion to Luis Buñuel by Gwynne Edwards

258 Reviews Porte aperte, Isolina, and Sostiene Pereira as historical investigations. She argues that thehistorical novels display many of the same characteristics as the detective novels. In each case the enquiry is carried out by similar character-types: non-professional detectives, police investigators, lawyers, judges and journalists. All suffer,Cannon suggests, fromVittorini's notion of 'ilmale del mondo offeso'. The writers explore different social problems, with Sciascia focusing on abuses of power and the death penalty,Maraini examining violence against women, and Tabucchi highlighting tor ture,police brutality, and human rights violations, but all analyse the importance of testimony in combating such ills,which emerge throughout as perennial problems. In the introduction Cannon offersa brief portrait of the threeauthors' investigative texts,and of the connections between her chosen texts.Chapter i, 'The Power of the Pen inLeonardo Sciascia's Porte Aperte', analyses Sciascia's historical investigation into a judge's refusal topass thedeath sentence on a triplemurderer despite pressure by the Fascist authorities (the text is set in 1937) and examines the portrayal of the judge's ideological stance as an ethical (rather than political) decision informed by reading. Chapter 2, 'The Death of a Detective in II Cavaliere e lamorte', analyses Sciascia's last detective novel, inwhich the unnamed deputy (who bears a strong resemblance to Sciascia) struggles to prosecute the influential, and thus immune, culprit. Cannon argues that the text dramatizes the never-ending struggle against absolute power, while also exploring the thoughts of a dying man (both Sciascia and thedeputy), reflectingon the power ofwriting to combat injustice. Chapter 3, 'In search of Isolina', focuses onMaraini's historical investigation into theactual unsolved murder of ayoung woman in turn-of-the-centuryVerona. Cannon underscores the importance ofMaraini's act of bringing the story to light, arguing that the real object of study is an ethical interpretation of events in the past that are relevant to thepresent. Violence against women is also the theme ofChapter 4, 'Voci and theConventions of theGiallo', inwhich Cannon discusses Maraini's detective novel recounting a journalist's investigation into themurder ofAngela Bari. Cannon argues that the textultimately suggests thatpatriarchal society is the trueculprit, and questions whether thewritten word may be an effectiveweapon in ensuring justice. Cannon suggests thatTabucchi also questions whether the pen can be used to combat injustice inChapter 5, 'Ethics and Literature in Sostiene Periera: Una Te stimonianza'. The text is set in Salazar's Portugal and recounts the gradual 'presa di coscienza' of a journalist (Pereira) through his reading, and through contact with the young Monteiro Rossi, a revolutionary who is brutally murdered by the police. Violent police murder incontemporary Portugal forms thebackdrop fora laternovel by Tabucchi, examined inChapter 6, 'Detection, Activism andWriting inLa testa perduta diDamasceno Monteiro' . Cannon shows how thisnovel also explores the roles that reading and writing can play in shaping society. Cannon's analysis forges interesting new links between writers who, especially in thecase of Maraini, arenot usually read in tandem.Her emphasis on the roleplayed by thenarrators as active participants in Sciascia's andMaraini's historical texts ispar ticularly fascinating.Her reading of the threewriters balances detailed discussion of the selected texts with references to their wider opus. The author's focus on Sciascia's later texts, which often receive less critical attention, seems especially important. UNIVERSITY OFWARWICK Liz WREN-OWENS A Companion toLuis Buniuel. By GWYNNEEDWARDS. Woodbridge: Tamesis. 2005. I76 pp. C45. ISBN 978-I-85566-I08-0. This study followsGwynne Edwards's previous work on the director, including The Discreet Art ofLuis Buniuel: A Reading of his Films (London: Boyars, I982) and In MLR, I03.1, 2oo8 259 decent Exposures: Buniuel, Saura, Erice & Almod6var (London: Boyars, 1995). Its place among other 'companion' guides recentlypublished byTamesis would seem to explain theauthor's choice of structure, although thepurpose andmethodology of the volume are not explicitly established in the introduction. Edwards takes a thematic approach to the lifeand cinema ofBufnuel by focusing on surrealism, thebourgeoisie, and theChurch rather than devoting separate chapters to individual films as in his firststudy.Over fourchapters, he discusses films from all periods of Buniuel's career, including thosemade inMexico; with the latterhe mainly confines himself to those which aremost often considered to carry...

Political (In)Justice: Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina

Political (In)Justice: Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. By Anthony W. Pereira. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 280p. $27.95.Pereira's new book is a fascinating comparison of the legal systems of the military dictatorships in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. It focuses on the concept of “authoritarian legality,” which at first seems to be an oxymoron. As the book unfolds, however, and the differences among the regimes' legal strategies become clear, the usefulness of the concept becomes apparent. This book highlights the importance of the legal dimension of authoritarian regimes, thereby providing important new insights into the nature of both authoritarianism and judicial systems. A broadly comparative chapter also extends the argument to Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, and the United States after 9/11.

Political (in)justice: authoritarianism and the rule of law in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina

Why do attempts by authoritarian regimes to legalize their political repression differ so dramatically? Why do some dispense with the law altogether, while others scrupulously modify constitutions, pass new laws, and organize political trials? Political (In)Justice answers these questions by comparing the legal aspects of political repression in three recent military regimes: Brazil (1964-1985); Chile (1973-1990); and Argentina (1976-1983). By focusing on political trials as a reflection of each regime's overall approach to the law, Anthony Pereira argues that the practice of each regime can be explained by examining the long-term relationship between the judiciary and the military. Brazil was marked by a high degree of judicial-military integration and cooperation; Chile's military essentially usurped judicial authority; and in Argentina, the military negated the judiciary altogether. Pereira extends the judicial-military framework to other authoritarian regimes - Salazar's Portugal, Hitler's Germany, and Franco's Spain - and a democracy (the United States), to illuminate historical and contemporary aspects of state coercion and the rule of law.

ΜΙΑ ΔΙΚΤΑΤΟΡΙΑ ΠΟΥ ΔΕΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΔΙΚΤΑΤΟΡΙΑ. ΟΙ ΙΣΠΑΝΟΙ ΕΘΝΙΚΙΣΤΕΣ ΚΑΙ Η 4η ΑΥΓΟΥΣΤΟΥ

<p>Konstantinos Katsoudas, "<em>A Dictatorship that is not a Dictatorship". Spanish Nationalists and the 4th of August</em></p> <p>The Spanish Civil War convulsed the international public opinion and prompted most foreign governments to take measures or even intervene in the conflict. Greek entanglement either in the form of smuggling war materiel or the participation of Greek volunteers in the International Brigades has already been investigated. However, little is known about a second dimension of this internationalization of the war: the peculiar forms that the antagonism between the two belligerent camps in foreign countries took. This paper, based mainly on Spanish archival sources, discusses some aspects of the activity developed in Greece by Franco's nationalists and the way Francoist diplomats and emissaries perceived the nature of an apparently similar regime, such as the dictatorship led by general Metaxas. The main objectives of the Francoist foreign policy were to avoid any escalation of the Spanish civil war into a world conflict, to secure international assistance for the right-wing forces and to undermine the legitimacy of the legal Republican government. In Greece, an informal diplomatic civil war broke out since Francoists occupied the Spanish Legation in Athens and Republicans took over the Consulate in Thessaloniki. The Francoists combined public and undercover activity: they worked hard to achieve an official recognition of their <em>Estado Nuevo, </em>while at the same time created rings of espionage and channels of anticommunist propaganda. The reason of their partial breakthroughs was that, contrary to their Republican enemies, the Nationalists enjoyed support by a significant part of the Greek political world, which was ideologically identified with their struggle. Francoist anti-communism had some interesting implications for Greek politics. An important issue was the Francoist effort to reveal a supposed Moscow-based conspiracy against Spain and Greece, both considered as hotbeds of revolution in the Mediterranean, in order to justify both Franco's extermination campaign and Metaxas' coup. Although this effort was based on fraudulent documents, forged by an anti-Bolshevik international organization, it became the cornerstone of Francoist and Metaxist propaganda. General Metaxas was the only European dictator to invoke the Spanish Civil War as a <em>raison d'etre </em>of his regime and often warned against the repetition of Spanish-like drama on Greek soil. Nevertheless he did not approve of Franco's methods and preferred Dr. Salazar's Portugal as an institutional model closer to his vision. For Spanish nationalist observers this was a sign of weakness. They interpreted events in Greece through the disfiguring mirror of their own historic experience: thus, although they never called in question Metaxas' authoritarian motives, the 4th of August regime was considered too mild and soft compared to Francoism (whose combativeness and fanaticism, as they suggested, the Greek General should have imitated); it reminded them the dictatorship founded in Spain by General Primo de Rivera in 1920s, whose inadequacy paved the way for the advent of the Republic and the emergence of sociopolitical radicalism. Incidents of the following years, as Greece moved towards a civil confrontation, seemed to strengthen their views.</p>

Comment: Fascism, Single-Party Dictatorships, and the Search for a Comparative Framework

Salazar's Portugal, Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany were roughly contemporaneous departures from what had come to seem the progressive democratic mainstream. Seeking greater authority and effectiveness, each revolved around a strong leader and a single party. So there was unquestionably a family resemblance among them, and comparison surely illuminates each. Moreover, it is useful to pinpoint the variables that account for the differences among them. By doing so, in fact, we can devise a comparative array, a scale of radicalisation, understood in the neutral sense as the extent of departure from the norm and/or the prior situation.

Review Article : Salazar's Portugal: The 'Black Book' on Fascism

Review Article : Salazar's Portugal: The 'Black Book' on Fascism

Contemporary Portugal: The Revolution and Its Antecedents

* Foreword * Acknowledgments * Introduction (Harry M. Makler and Lawrence S. Graham) *1. d'Exception That Became the Rule: Forty-Eight Years of Authoritarian Domination in Portugal (Philippe C. Schmitter) *2. Evolution of Portuguese Corporatism under Salazar and Caetano (Manuel De Lucena) *3. Corporatist Tradition and the Corporative System in Portugal: Structured, Evolving, Transcended, Persistent (Howard J. Wiarda) *4. Portuguese Industrial Elite and Its Corporative Relations: A Study of Compartmentalization in an Authoritarian Regime (Harry M. Makler) *5. Peasants and Politics in Salazar's Portugal: Corporate State and Village Nonpolitics (Joyce Firstenberg Riegelhaupt) *6. Military and the Portuguese Dictatorship, 1926-1974: The Honor of the Army (Douglas L. Wheeler) *7. Military in Politics: Politicization of the Portuguese Armed Forces (Lawrence S. Graham) *8. Electoral Behavior and Political Militancy (John L. Hammond) *9. Emigration and Its Implications for the Revolution in Northern Portugal (Caroline B. Brettell) *10. Analysis and Projection of Macroeconomic Conditions in Portugal (Rudiger Dornbusch, Richard S. Eckaus, and Lance Taylor) *11. Present Economic Situation: Its Origins and Prospects (Mario Murteira) * Epilogue (Stanley G. Payne) * Appendix

Controlled Repression in Salazar's Portugal

The first of Portugal's two experiments with liberal democratic forms ended in 1926 when the civilian right, the landed oligarchy, and the military joined forces in a counter-revolutionary movement that seized power and laid the ground for Europe's lengthiest dictatorship of the right. For the next forty-eight years, organized opposition to Portuguese authoritarianism was miniscule and ultimately it was contradictions within the apparatus of state that caused the regime to topple in 1974. This was a sudden demise, but over the long term, the regime's dependence on the capability of a single individual Professor Ant6nio d'Oliveira Salazar had been a fatal weakness. At no time did the dictator virtually a reclusive personality encourage internal debate or establish mechanisms for choosing a successor. His was an informal personalist regime that might have come under sustained challenge sooner but for a key mitigating circumstance. Portuguese authoritarianism consistently displayed a high degree of rationality in the area of internal security. For many years, an extremely efficient undercover police apparatus kept down opposition without resorting to total repression: over four decades, political murders committed in metropolitan Portugal amounted to less than 500. However, opposition forces remained continually diffuse and inactive in a country where, after the first few years, the governing elite was not popular, to say the least.

Oldest Ally. A Portrait of Salazar's Portugal

In this study the authors analyze Portugal's economic situation, Prime Minister Salazar's rise to power, the colonies in Africa and Asia, the secret police functions, and the various personalities and trends in the Portuguese Opposition.

Oldest Ally: A Portrait of Salazar's Portugal and Portugal and its Empire: The Truth

Oldest Ally: A Portrait of Salazar's Portugal and Portugal and its Empire: The Truth

Salazar's Portugal

Salazar's Portugal