The Historian’s Role, Public History, and the National Truth Commission in Brazil

Abstract In 2011, twenty-six years after the end of the military dictatorship, the Brazilian government took the initiative of implementing the right to memory and to the truth, as well as promoting national reconciliation. A National Truth Commission was created aiming at examining and shedding light on serious human rights violations practiced by government agents from 1946 to 1985. It worked across the entire national territory for almost three years and established partnerships with governments of other countries in order to investigate and expose the international networks created by dictatorships for monitoring and persecuting political opponents across borders. This article analyzes the relationship between historians and the National Truth Commission in Brazil, in addition to the construction of dictatorship public history in the country. In order to do so, the Commission’s relationship with the national community of historians, the works carried out, as well as historians’ reactions towards its works, from its creation until its final report in 2014, will be examined.