Editorial – Maria Inácia Rezola
Abril, today and tomorrow
The celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of 25 de Abril Revolution gave me, for the first time, the opportunity to immerse myself in 1974-1975 Portugal. When I was invited to be part of a research team, which was preparing an exhibition for the anniversary, I entered the archives, I listened to radio reports and speeches; I watched television, films and photographs; I read the press of the time. The world that was opening up to me belonged to the past, to History. But it was a present history, full of passions, with visible and persistent marks, in the Portugal of 1994. Twenty years after the events, the history of the Revolution was still very much alive.
Three decades later, I face a new challenge: to coordinate the Executive Committee of the Commemorations of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 25 de Abril Revolution. Today, the 1974-1975 Revolution is recognised as an historical object, the target of interest of a multiplicity of social scientists, from the most varied areas, and a field of interdisciplinary research par excellence. Many of the archives on the period are already accessible. We also benefit from the work developed by academics and journalists in the gathering of testimonies. The history of the Portuguese revolution has already come of age and we have a particularly interesting collection of studies that allow us to reconstitute and understand this central moment in contemporary Portuguese history in its essential dimensions. However, the challenges are multiple, at a time when those who made and lived that history are disappearing and most of the Portuguese were born after the 25 de Abril Revolution. Understanding, explaining and disseminating the history and the memory of the Revolution are urgent tasks that can only succeed if there is an intense dialogue between the academy and society in general.
Maria Inácia Rezola, Executive Commissioner of the 50th anniversary commemorative commission of the 25th of April, is the author of the Editorial of the CEIS20 Newsletter which anticipates the 49th anniversary of the 25th of April Revolution.
