Os grandes homens do passado são fontes de inspiração : os usos da imagem de Olavo Bilac pela ditadura civil-militar na busca pelo consenso (1965-1974)

Abstract

During the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship, Olavo Bilac, Brazilian poet and journalist, was elected by the regime as Patron of the Armed Forces of the country, being, then, the first civilian to make up the pantheon. In this way, it is clear that the use of the figure of the poet was part of a search to attract the adhesion of the civil strata to the government established after the 1964 coup. Different artifices were used to reach this end, including the production of works by biographical imprint, such as the one produced by General Moacir Araújo Lopes entitled "Olavo Bilac, the civic man" of 1968, as a result of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, which occurred on December 18, 1918. From 1965 year of commemorations of the centenary of the poet's birth) to 1968, there were a series of commemorations by the civil-military dictatorship in an attempt to bring to the population a model of citizen to be followed. In life, Olavo Bilac was, in addition to being a poet and journalist, a civic man, actively participating in education within the civic spirit of children, but, above all, he was an important figure in the formulation and dissemination of the Mandatory Military Service. As a result of his participation in the MMS postulations, the National Defense League was created, in which Bilac played an important role as he traveled the country speaking to different social groups: young people, politicians and the military. His speech to youth at the Faculty of Law became a symbol of his civility, claiming to be a "popularizer of ideas", the poet knew how to lead debates often closed to intellectuals, whether civil or military, to a greater number of people , encouraging their participation in the life of the country. Thus, the military regime installed after the coup that took place on March 31, 1964 uses the figures of the past to build its legitimacy and the figure of Olavo Bilac to list a model of citizen in the same way as, from the idea of an imminent danger of a communist invasion, it seeks to intensify civility, making the population understand the need to abdicate their rights in favor of protecting the nation. It is then, through civic commemorations and the postulations of writers aligned with the regime, that this process of framing Bilac's memory took place. The work presented here is formed, then, through the intersection between Political and Social History, in an attempt to understand, in a broader way, the different forms of dialogue with the society and the instruments used to create legitimacy for the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship, understanding that the relationship authoritarian state and civil society is often complex.