Ideological Contours of Modern Memory Politics in Brazil in the Context of the Polarization of the Political Process

The purpose of the article is to identify the key models of memory politics in modern Brazil and analyze the mechanisms of their confrontation in the context of the polarization of the political process and the ongoing struggle for interpretation of the legacy of the military dictatorship of 1964–1985. The memory of the dictatorship has become a central element of political discourse, reflecting the confrontation between leftist forces and civil initiatives seeking to comprehend and work out the traumatic past through the tools of transitional justice (“transitional justice”), and right-wing mnemonic actors, including representatives of the military environment, appealing to the times of the junta order and interpreting trials against former military as a manifestation of political revanchism. The author focuses on the transformation of Brazilian memory policy: from attempts to institutionalize truth and justice under the presidency of D. Rousseff, for whom the creation of the National Truth Commission was an act of personal and political reconciliation with the past, to the dismantling of memorial initiatives under J. Bolsonaro and the ambivalent position of Lula da Silva in his third term, accompanied by ignoring the 60th anniversary of the military coup in 2024. Particular attention is paid to the demands of indigenous peoples for the establishment of a National Commission for the Establishment of Truth about Indigenous Peoples, reflecting the desire to include collective and territorial experiences in the framework of national memory. The research methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach and includes an analysis of cultural trauma in line with the concept of J. Alexander, the study of mnemonic conflicts and commemorative practices. These approaches are used to analyze government and public interpretations of the legacy of the military dictatorship, as well as to identify competing memory models in modern Brazilian political discourse. The article emphasizes that universal models of transitional justice do not always take into account local contexts and ethnocultural features, such as the memory of indigenous communities, when faced with difficulties of national reconciliation. Analyzing the ideological landscape of memory, the author comes to the conclusion that modern Brazil exists within the framework of a clash of two models of memory.— “vertical elite-military”, aimed at protecting the institutional authority of the army and preserving the symbolic image of the defender of sovereignty in the Cold War from the Communists, and “horizontal-grassroots civil”, focused on public understanding of the difficult past, restoring historical justice to the victims of the repressed and affirming the principle of “never again” as the basis of modern Brazilian identity.

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