Carnation Revolution: 50 years today
A quick reference to texts censored by the then overthrown authoritarian regime.
Medium declared a new holiday on 25th April, “Draft Day”. Coincidentally, today marks 50 years since the Portuguese Carnation Revolution. That means that Portuguese democracy celebrates 50 years today.
If today, here in Portugal, we can write whatever we want (even anti-democratic texts) we owe it to this revolution that ended a 41 years-long dictatorship and (re)instated democracy.
One of the common characteristics of authoritarian regimes is the prohibition of some books and other forms of personal and artistic expression. During the Portuguese “Estado Novo” regime, newspapers, magazines, plays, films and television were censored even before they were published, through the so-called “Prior Censorship”. In the case of books, censorship was generally carried out after their publication, worsening the publishers’ losses. Today, we do not have an exact idea of the extent of the activities of the Censorship Services Directorate, given that part of the documentation has been lost; but it is estimated that the censors examined between 7 and 10 thousand books, with some authors being monitored or persecuted by the regime’s political police.
Although the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic of 1933 supposedly enshrined “freedom of expression of thought in any form”, another law from the same year (“Decreto-Lei n.º 22:469”) legislated surveillance and repression of writers, editors, distributors and booksellers, under the alleged pretension to “prevent the perversion of public opinion”.
The black list of Portuguese authors included authors such as Urbano Tavares Rodrigues, Miguel Torga, Alves Redol, Natália Correia, Herberto Helder, Aquilino Ribeiro, Vergílio Ferreira, Manuel Alegre, José Cardoso Pires, among many others. But censorship also covered works by several foreign authors, including more obvious names (because they defended Marxist ideology that the national regime was opposed to) such as Marx, Engels or Lenin, but also other less obvious ones, such as Jorge Amado, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gustave Flaubert , D.H. Lawrence, Nietzsche, John Cleland, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, Maxim Gorkii, Tolstoi, Roger Vailland, or Simone Weil, due to their works being considered immoral, pornographic, communist, irreligious, subversive, antisocial, dissolute, anarchist or revolutionary.
In some cases, the reasons for the ban were almost ridiculous. For example, the use of the word “red” (“vermelho”) could lead to the censorship of a work simply because the censors could be in doubt as to whether the “red” referred to a communist or not; and, when in doubt, censor yourself!
Given that the purpose of Medium is precisely the dissemination of ideas, thoughts and knowledge in text format, I would like to take advantage of this day, this “draft day”, to leave some examples of writings that were prohibited in my country until the revolution that took place on this day 50 years ago.
I leave as examples only five fantastic works, all available in English, among a huge list of texts censored by the dictatorial regime that was overthrown 50 years ago, here in Portugal.
Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (PT) / Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (EN), by Jorge Amado
A lively novel that explores themes of love, loss and sensuality, all set in the vibrant city of Bahia, Brazil.
Amazon (EN)
Der Antichrist (DE) / The Antichrist (EN), by Friedrich Nietzsche
Given the strong connection between the “Estado Novo” regime and the Catholic Church, the work ended up being banned for its critical nature of Christianity.
Amazon (EN)
Les Mains sales (FR) / Dirty Hands (EN), by Jean-Paul Sartre
A political drama, in the form of a play, that tells the story of the assassination of a top politician in the fictional country of Illyria, focusing on the reasons for the murder.
Under Western Eyes, by Joseph Conrad
A novel taking place in St. Petersburg, Russia and Geneva, Switzerland, whose title alludes to a western vision with which the author contemplates a Russian soul personified in the main character, a young student and double agent wrapped in a web of espionage and revolutionary movements in the tsarist Russia.
Contos da Montanha (PT) / Tales from the Mountain (EN), by Miguel Torga
Book composed by twenty-three short stories, describing the behaviour, emotions and human feelings of a small village in the rural interior of the Trás-os-Montes region, in the north-east of Portugal.
References (in Portuguese):
