FOREWORD

In 2011 Revista Brasileira de História celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. Created in 1981 with the aim of becoming a channel for the dissemination of the production of Brazilian historians and professors, its initial purpose was to fill the vacuum left by the ending of the publication of Anais dos Simpósios da Anpuh in 1978, and to meet the need to bring together achievements in the scientific field and the need for their dissemination. According to the presentation of Professor Alice Canabrava in the first issue, part of the journal was intended to give publicity to original articles about research in history or of interest to it. Permanent updating in relation to historical bibliography was the object of another section. Initially this was especially dedicated to the production of Brazilian and foreign history journals, in order to provide professors and researchers with a contribution which could overcome absences in university libraries. This bibliographic information would be expanded to divulge comments on historic works. Finally the News section was intended to make the activities of the regional groups better known, to "give greater publicity to the history conclaves held in the country and abroad and other subjects of interest to those active in the field of history" (RBH, vol.1, no.1, 1981, p.9).

With two numbers a year, RBH has now published 62 issues. With no. 59 the Revista entered a new stage, now being published digitally only and being translated into English. These innovations aimed to expand the journal's circulation, giving a public who cannot read Portuguese access to our production, as well as facilitating the consultation of new and old volumes. An overview of the accesses to the most recent issues of RBH on the internet shows us the dimension and the repercussion which our production can reach through the web. For the last ten numbers the number of accesses per month has been over 20,000 (more than 240,000 per year), a figure unthinkable for a printed journal, confirming the great importance of the internet in the dissemination of the Revista's content and making the web a precious instrument for the divulgation of historiography produced in and about Brazil.

In the second half of 2011 we achieved a new important mark. With the aim of internationalizing Brazilian academic production, Capes decided to support two journals per area, with the intention of converting them into references. In our area it was decided to have an internal contest in which all the journals classified between Qualis A1 and B2 could participate. 12 journals responded to the invitation, which were then evaluated by a committee chosen specifically for this purpose. Among the two selected Revista Brasileira de História was unanimously chosen. This approval not only represents the recognition of the importance of the role of RBH and Anpuh, but will also allow us achieve a new level, expanding the number of articles published, producing a trilingual edition - in Spanish and English - and achieving great interaction with the international community of historians.

In this issue we have chosen the theme Festivities for the dossier. This emerged without prior announcement and as a result of the great interest which the dossier in the previous issue - Commemorations - had attracted. In fact, the more than 110 texts focusing on celebrations, festivities and events linked to the construction of memories and identities approved by peer review, led us to decide to have a new dossier. As historians we know that to commemorate is not an act without greater implications, since it involves choices and projects and functions to establish ties of identity between different social groups. It is precisely because they legitimate and update identities that public celebrations occupy a central role in the contemporary universe.

Five articles were selected for this dossier. We begin with Petrônio José Domingues' text "'The Redemption of Our Race:' the commemorations of the abolition of slavery," which focuses on São Paulo in the first decades of the twentieth century, when parts of the black population took to the streets every year to commemorate 13 May - the date of the abolition of slavery -, in pilgrimages, masses, civic conferences, solemn talks, artistic and cultural festivals, balls, music, dance and theater, almost always wrapped in a mood of emotion and joy. The second article, by Jocelito Zalla and Carla Menegat, deals with the "History and Memory in the Farroupilha Revolution" with the aim of presenting a panorama of manifestations related to this revolution, from the revolution itself until its consolidation as the founding myth of regional identity in Rio Grande do Sul. Isabel Bilhão, in "'Brazilian Workers!': The commemorations of the First of May during Vargas' Estado Novo," analyzes the changes and permanencies in its commemorative rituals, as well as the strategies for the preparation, presentation and legitimation of its commemorations by the government. Crislane Barbosa Azevedo in the article "The Celebration of Civism and the Promotion of Education: the ritualized daily life of elementary schools in Sergipe at the beginning of the twentieth century," seeks to understand the daily functioning of these institutions through the identification and analysis of different events with a school and civic nature. Lucileide Costa Cardoso in "The commemoration speeches of the '1964 Revolution'" deals with the discourses constructed by the military between 1964 and 1999, through which they sought to explain the motives of the articulation of the coup d'état, the structuring of the regime, and its outcome in 1985. The article aims to analyze concepts of history, the meaning and the nature of the commemorations, establishing regularities which can elucidate the structuring of anti-communist and authoritarian thought in dispute in the field of memory for a determined appropriation of the past.

In the individual articles section there are seven papers: Andre de Lemos Freixo in "An 'architect' of Brazilian historiography: history and historians in José Honório Rodrigues," analyzes the history of Brazilian historiography according to the perspective of José Honório Rodrigues (1913-1987), as part of the efforts which began to invest in the 1930s in professional aspects of history as a discipline in Brazil - emphasizing for example the central function of historical methodology as a differential regarding amateur writings. Juliana Pirola da Conceição and Maria de Fátima Sabino Dias in the article "History teaching and Latin American historical consciousness" present research about the contribution of Latin American content in the teaching curriculum to the historic formation of young people in school. Letícia Borges Nedel in his text "Between the beauty of death and the excesses of the living: folklore and traditionalism in Southern Brazil" examines Gaucho participation in the self-named Brazilian Folklore Movement between the 1940s and 1960s. Cássia Rita Louro Palha in "Television and politics: the myth of Tancredo Neves - between death, legacy and redemption" looks at the cultural production of Brazilian television, especially Globo Television Network and its Globo Repórter news program in emptying the so-called 'political opening,' with the central theme being the transmission of the political image of Tancredo de Almeida Neves and the processes of symbolic construction which involved its mythification. Carolina Amaral de Aguiar in the article "Cinema and History: archive documentaries as a site of memory" analyzes the film L'Espiral (1975), a documentary which focuses on the Unidad Popular government in Chile based on materials researched in archives. José Iran Ribeiro in "The strengthening of the Imperial State through Military Recruitment in the context of the Farrapos War" analyzes the significant growth and actions of the Imperial Brazilian Army and the capacity of the authorities to recruit the forces necessary to strengthen imperial authority. Jorge Pimentel Cintra and Júnia Ferreira Furtado in the text "The Carte de l'Amérique méridionale of Bourguignon D'Anville: a comparative Amazonian cartography in perspective" analyze from the point of view of cartography some maps of the Amazon region from the middle of the eighteenth century which were aimed at producing a document to serve as the basis for the negotiations of the Treaty of Madrid.

We are also publishing in this issue an interview with Prof. Bartolomé Clavero, from Universidad de Sevilla with a vast work in the area of history of law and of institutions. The interview was coordinated by Ivan de Andrade Vellasco and carried out in April 2011.

In addition there are two reviews. Tereza Maria Spyer Dulci writes about the book O dia em que adiaram o Carnaval: política externa e a construção do Brasil (Ed. Unesp, 2010), by Luís Cláudio Villafañe Santos, and Carlos Roberto Figueiredo Nogueira analyzes Inventar a heresia? Discursos polêmicos e poderes antes da Inquisição (Ed. Unicamp, 2009), organized by Monique Zerner.

This foreword also consists of texts in honor of Maria Yedda Leite Linhares (Full Professor from UFRJ) and Eni de Mesquita Samara (Full Professor from USP), both important Brazilian historians and professors who died this year.

Once again we invite our readers to consult the Anpuh and SciELO sites and download to their computers or digital readers the articles of interest to them.

Marieta de Moraes Ferreira

December 2011

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 Apr 2012
• Date of issue
  Dec 2011