“The revolution and what it brought” is the title of the exhibition that opens this Tuesday in Reguengos de Monsaraz (Évora), with materials from Ephemera – Library and Archive of José Pacheco Pereira, the city council announced.
The exhibition, whose opening session is scheduled for 6pm, will be on display in the municipal library of the Alentejo municipality until the 28th of this month, the municipality said in a statement.
The initiative, promoted as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of April 25, exhibits newspapers and posters from the Ephemera archive about April 25, 1974 and the times that followed it.
The aim, according to the municipality, is to “portray the days of the revolution, its protagonists, symbols, the democratization of politics and the exercise of rights inherent to freedom”.
For the exhibition, “daily newspapers were selected from the day of the Carnation Revolution until 10 days later, including one with the proud mention that ‘This newspaper was not targeted by any censorship commission’, as well as newspapers published later by various political forces,” he said.
“In this way, we aim to give an image of the depth and vivacity of the revolution and the days that followed it, with several daily editions and constant news,” said the organization.
The exhibition of newspapers from various political organizations also aims to “demonstrate civic participation, through the formation of new parties and the legalization of others,” he added.
Among other materials, the first Avante! published in freedom and Povo Livre, published by the PPD, “the first party formally constituted after the revolution”, will be exhibited.
The chosen posters “portray the diversity of the forms of demonstration, illustrating the iconography of that time, such as the harpsichord, the dove, the chaimite, the soldiers and the people,” the town hall also said.
“Some of the posters on cultural dynamization, which also became famous for their aesthetic value, illustrate, with the authorship of João Abel Manta, this process that the Armed Forces Movement carried out,” the statement reads.
The library will also be exhibiting “two original cloths used in demonstrations in Porto, which reveal the atmosphere at the time”, during a period when “demonstrations after the revolution, whether they were of rejoicing and joy or demands, took place all over the country”.
According to the Municipality of Reguengos de Monsaraz, the Ephemera archive is dedicated to the rescue, preservation and public dissemination of Portuguese and foreign collections, books, manuscripts, documents, papers, pamphlets and objects related to the memory of contemporary social, cultural, trade union and political history.
On the Internet, it has published “around 20,000 folders of material”, he said, noting that Ephemera welcomes researchers and research projects from its collections, organizes and participates in public exhibitions with its funds and provides documentation and images for books and articles published in Portugal and abroad.