Public memory and power in Portugal (1880-1960)

Public memory is selectivc and given to myth. It chooses its events and its heroes to be commemorated as a function of the interests of the present. Therefore, in the period analysed, the great commemorations, prominent in the whole country and eventually in the colonies, had as their principal theme the heroic age mirrored in the epic of Os Lusíadas, transformed into a site of the nation's memory. The relation with ideology is evidenced by the way the commemorative rhetoric reflects the various regimes and politicai conjunctures. Nevertheless, certain themes, ideas and images are repeated in all the celebrations. These constituted the nucleus and most enduring of the representations that the politicai elites, holders of power, were forging as an identifying image of Portugal and of the Portuguese. This article has attempted to present the fundamental aspects of these representations that formed the public memory, supported by the state and by dominant social groups, from 1880 to 1960.