When the Past Does Not Pass: Public History and History Education in Portugal

Author: Filipe Oliveira, Invited Assistant and PhD student in Education (History and Social Sciences Education) at the University of Minho.

The collective nature of history is, in part, memory. In Portugal, the debate over the colonial past has been reignited by controversies surrounding symbols associated with the imperial mythologisation of the Salazarist dictatorship¹, revealing tensions within the national historical culture and disputes over the meanings attributed to the colonial legacy.

The most emblematic case in this context is the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries), designed by architect Cottinelli Telmo and sculptor Leopoldo de Almeida. Initially erected as a temporary structure for the 1940 Exhibition of the Portuguese World, it was built from perishable materials – a light iron and cement framework with sculptural elements moulded in staff (a composite of plaster and fibre reinforced by a wooden or iron armature). It was later rebuilt in concrete and pink limestone from Leiria, with the sculptural elements carved in Sintra limestone, establishing itself as an enduring symbol. The values the monument represents have, however, become the subject of growing public contestation.

Another significant case concerns the floral coats of arms at Imperial Square (Praça do Império), in Belém, which have recently returned to public debate. The contract was awarded nearly five years after Lisbon City Council approved the renovation of the public garden without providing for the restoration of the coats of arms representing the district capitals, the islands, and Portugal’s former colonies. As the work is nearly completed, there have been renewed protests, dividing political representatives within the council itself.

In 2016, under mayor Fernando Medina, the council justified the decision by invoking principles of historical garden restoration, arguing in interviews that where a garden has disappeared entirely, or where only vestiges remain, reconstruction should not be considered a historical garden. The president of the Belém parish council, Fernando Ribeiro Rosa, put forward a more financially advantageous proposal for the restoration of the coats of arms, while councillor José Sá Fernandes argued that the coats of arms had long since lost their dignity, that their original meaning had become illegible, and that the passage of time had rendered the garden work beyond recovery. The controversy reflects wider tensions in Portuguese public discourse over the colonial symbolic legacy. Historian António Araújo has argued that it is essential to move beyond colonialist mythology while equally rejecting what he describes as a masochistic mythology that seeks to inscribe guilt into the present and the future.

These cases reveal that the debate over the colonial past is not confined to the public sphere: it also runs through the way history is thought about and taught. Public history and history taught at school are two pathways to making sense of the past, and the educational challenge consists precisely in managing that relationship. History that is public, or that becomes public history, can either kill or awaken interest. This everyday public history exists largely independently of the history taught and learnt in schools. Therefore, what is the role of public history in schools? What challenges does it pose in the history classroom? What opportunities does it create?

At the historiographical level, the notion of a single History, whether national or global in scope, has long been superseded. The same cannot be said of public history, understood here as the domain in which the past is commonly narrated through monuments, objects and collective representations that, stripped of their original function, become instruments of collective memory and “a material support for the production of an imaginary that one seeks to construct” (Ricoeur, 2007, p. 9). In this domain, fixed portraits of the past continue to emerge with regularity, oscillating between omissions, silences and contested debates, remaining anchored in singular narratives and myth, in tension with historically situated accounts. This resistance persists even where master narratives might, in each context, function in more dynamic and open ways. Schools, however, reflect in their own way that plurality of thought and historical agency. It is precisely for this reason that History Education must recognise such complexity and, from there, diagnose the ideas that students construct about the past. Students far too often perceive history as a single, certain and complete story. Directly challenging a history they believe they already know can unsettle and perplex them, prompting questions that, in turn, open doors to understanding how history works.

The research by Barca and Gago (2001) demonstrated that, for children aged between 11 and 12, colonialism and decolonisation constitute unlived history², about which they nonetheless hold some ideas, however fragmented or confused. These tacit ideas may be formed within families who lived through the colonial war or “returned” from the former colonies. The media also plays a role, particularly around the time of the 25th of April (the Revolution of 25 April 1974, which marks the beginning of democratic life in Portugal), revisiting the subject through debates, images and music. History textbooks and lessons contribute equally, addressing it through texts, images, exhibitions and debates. The study was carried out in history classrooms and, through analyses of students’ performances, the majority proved capable of understanding historical sources conveying diverse messages. Some of these students even developed a decentred perspective on the sources they interpreted, drawing on knowledge of contemporary society to make sense of the past.

Another pertinent study by Marques Alves and Ribeiro (2022)  illustrates this dimension well. The researchers questioned students about whether the Colonial War might occupy a place among the “most painful pasts”, and it is equally noteworthy that dissenting voices appear timid in the face of a vocal majority. The students’ positions are telling: “I think it could all have been avoided, if we had given them their independence”; “When Portugal had colonies, they treated people with a certain wretchedness”; “We were preventing the colonies from being independent.” With regard to reflection on the historical legacy and the responsibility that may derive from it, nuances emerge that deepen as the debate unfolds. Some responses reveal moral indecision or ambiguity: “We don’t feel directly guilty, but all of Portugal, don’t you think?”; “Of course we weren’t to blame, we had no decision-making power, but…”. Others dismiss any responsibility, in a logic that appears to preserve an untroubled conscience: “I don’t think so, because those countries that suffered because of us, in a way, treat us in the same manner as our ancestors treated them.” The authors conclude that students show considerable motivation for debating ideas and expressing their views; sustained dialogue revealed a degree of tolerance towards the opinions of peers; even students who openly disliked history were able to articulate their ideas, thinking historically. The way in which they regard the “partial history” presented in school textbooks leads them to seek further information elsewhere, recognising that research allows them to go well beyond the basics.

It is precisely in this complexity that history education presents itself as an essential laboratory for public history. Working with sources in the history classroom cannot be a mechanical task: it must be grounded and contextualised within a situation that carries human meaning. Recent practicum reports developed within initial teacher education programmes illustrate this possibility. Lopes (2023) engaged twelfth-grade students with Estado Novo propaganda as historical evidence; Vasconcelos (2022) explored multiperspectival approaches to colonial policy with ninth-grade students; and Azevedo (2024) examined students’ ideas about change and continuity in the role of women in twentieth-century Portugal. Taken together, these experiences demonstrate how the history classroom can become a meaningful space for fostering historical understanding and forms of engagement that connect school history with the broader field of public history.

It is therefore necessary to rethink the experience of historical culture and the needs to which it responds, taking our context into account whilst privileging dialogue guided by equity and respect for the dignity of human beings of the past, present and future. It is important to foster intersubjective dialogues about historical cultures that do not slide into agendas of identity or nationalist exacerbation. The teaching of subjects such as slavery, colonisation, wars or human rights demands the overcoming of homogeneous narratives and the assertion of the critical social function of history, countering the null curriculum and the uncritical uses of memory. There is an urgent need to develop a historical consciousness capable of integrating plural perspectives in critical dialogue, building narrative competences that attribute meaning to the past, present and future. This is about promoting a history oriented towards the transition from an exclusive humanity to an inclusive humanity.

References 

Barca, I. (2020). Educação histórica: desafios epistemológicos para o ensino e a aprendizagem da história. In L. Alves & M. Gago (Eds.), Diálogo(s) epistemologia(s) e educação histórica. CITCEM/Edições Afrontamento.

Ricoeur, P. (2007). A memória, a história, o esquecimento. Editora da Unicamp.

1. The Salazarist dictatorship, formally known as the Estado Novo (‘New State’), was the dictatorial regime that governed Portugal from 1933 to 1974 under António de Oliveira Salazar (and his successor Marcello Caetano from 1968). The regime actively promoted an imperial ideology that presented Portuguese colonialism as a civilising mission and a marker of national identity, constructing a mythologised image of empire that persisted and persists in public symbols, monuments, and official memory, long after the regime’s end with the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974. ↩︎
2. Unlived history refers to historical events that fall outside the direct or intergenerational experiential reach of those who encounter them. Historical conceptualisation of such events necessarily entails the recognition of a multiplicity of perspectives, both in lived history and in its historical interpretation. This operates on a principle of relativity, though not of total relativism: while perspectives are diverse, rational criteria exist to evaluate the consistency and scope of the conclusions reached, which remain always provisional (Barca, 2000). ↩︎

Bridging Editor

Cassandra is a public historian, artist, and teacher in the History & Classics Department at Dawson College, in Montreal, QC.… Read more

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