A Ditadura Civil-Militar Brasileira nas Narrativas dos Livros Didáticos (1979-1987): Entre Encontros e Desencontros

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the narrative of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship in the textbook Sinopse da História da Civilização Geral e do Brasil (1979), by Roberto Bandeira Accioli and Alfredo Taunay, seeking to determine whether its narrative presents singularities in relation to the school literature produced during the dictatorship itself. This inquiry is justified by Accioli’s historical and institutional position during the dictatorship, which we believe is manifested in his didactic work. As a methodological strategy, we also analyze the narrative of three additional History textbooks by other authors, published between 1979 and 1987, a period prior to the standardization introduced to textbooks by the Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (National Textbook Program). Considering the regime as a constraining factor for all the books, and Accioli’s trajectory and institutional insertion as a distinctive feature, we investigate clues to the meanings constructed around the 1964 coup and the authoritarian regime across the set of works. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Paul Ricoeur, Mikhail Bakhtin, Helenice Rocha, Ângela de Castro Gomes, and Patrícia Hansen, we examine the textbooks as historical narratives structured by discursive, ideological, and editorial choices. Within each work, we conduct an analysis encompassing tables of contents, plot structures, vocabulary, the explicit presentation of historiographical contributions, and modes of representing the dictatorship, with particular emphasis on the Sinopse. The comparison among the four manuals reveals that, although there are differences in thematic organization and in the treatment of conflicts, conciliatory representations, moderate explanations, and versions that downplay the regime’s violence prevail, pointing to patterns widely disseminated during the dictatorship period. With regard to the Sinopse, it can be emphasized that the work presents singularities in terms of its form and organization, as well as in its explicit dialogue with historiography, as a narrative produced in the heat of the moment and as a space for mediating the social memory of the dictatorship.