POMBAL, A SHADOW OVER SALAZAR

Abstract

This article discusses the ways in which the Marquis of Pombal was represented in the early years of the Portuguese Estado Novo, identifying the instances, authors and works that supported such representations, especially in the context of the inauguration of the monument in his honor, in 1934. To this end, we make use of some theoretical assumptions related to myths and representations (Eliade, 2000, Barthes, 2007; Chartier, 2002), as well as some historiography related to the period (Franco, 2009; Eliade, 2010; Martins, 2017; Braga, 2021; Fernandes, 2023). Our conclusion is that the medievalist mythology embraced by historians who supported the regime, in their eagerness to associate it with the idea of ​​a profound Portugal, was incompatible with the enlightened Europeanism sought, at least discursively, by Pombaline politics, which is why the figure of Pombal, despite having been accepted from the end of the 1940s onwards, joining him to the pantheon of national heroes, was not symbolically associated with Salazar's dictatorship.