25 April is a national holiday both in Italy and in Portugal, and for the same reason: the liberation from a long-lasting dictatorship and the end of the war. Italy became free in 1945, after twenty-three years of fascist dictatorship and five years of war. Portugal ended forty-eight years of dictatorship and fourteen years of colonial wars (or War of Liberation, if you ask the former colonies) in 1974.
History is written by the victors, they say, which is why the point of view we take on historic events is crucial. How would we remember the insurgency of the partisans in Italy if fascism and Nazism had prevailed? How would we remember Celeste Caeiro, who offered the carnations to the tanks involved with the coup in Lisbon, had Marcelo Caetano managed to hold onto power? We do not have answers to these questions, because Italy and Portugal built a democratic political culture and wrote an anti-fascist constitution that repudiates the dictatorship and promotes freedom. Which is what they both celebrate on 25 April.
Seventy-five years ago, the National Liberation Committee of Upper Italy officially proclaimed the insurgency against Nazi-fascism in a radio announcement. Portugal celebrates forty-six years of freedom, meaning that the period of democracy is still shorter than the dictatorship was. Having spent a much longer time within the boundaries of democracy, Italy has a story to teach Portugal in this regard: memory is malleable and values can change. Glorifying a myth such as the Liberation by commemorating it every year can become a tired ritual. Commemorations, per se, do not guarantee the intergenerational transmission of collective memory.
