Brizola Vive? A construção da memória de Leonel Brizola (2004-2014)

Abstract

Leonel de Moura Brizola, a politician with more than 50 years of public life, died in 2004. Despite of his death, his name remained present in Brazilian politics, with positive and negative perspectives. Precisely for being a politician with such a long trajectory, the memory built on him went through several changes, even after his death. Therefore, the main objective of this thesis is to understand how the press of Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro helped to shape Leonel Brizola’s memory in the first ten years after his death (2004 – 2014). The choice for these states was due to the presence of brizolismo in these places, considering Brizola’s political performance. Three time frames of historical relevance were chosen to observe the construction of the his memory: his death, in 2004; the fiftieth anniversary of the Legality Campaign in August of 2011; and finally, the quadragenarian and fiftieth anniversary of the 1964 Military Coup, between March and April of 2004 and 2014, respectively. Seeking to solve the problem raised, the following newspapers were analyzed: Correio de Povo and Zero Hora, from Rio Grande do Sul; Jornal do Brasil and O Globo, from Rio de Janeiro. The research is part of the perspective of the History of the Present Time.