ABSTRACT
Historians of that period of Brazilian history known as the Estado Novo claim that the common citizen retained certain impressions of it:
The social memory, represented by the common man, keeps some traces, however contradictory, of the period: censorship; the police of Filinto Müller (1900-73) [responsible for the crushing of the communist uprising]; the construction of Volta Redonda [the first steel mill, set up in 1943]; labour legislation and workers’ demonstrations in the Vasco da Gama stadium; the building of the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro; the figure of Villa-Lobos; the National Radio; Carmen Miranda (1909-55) [a singer and dancer mythicised by Hollywood as the personification of Brazilian popular culture]; Zé Carioca [a Walt Disney cartoon parrot who personified a citizen of Rio de Janeiro, see plate 15]; and, obviously, Vargas.1
