10 
MuseoMag   N°IV 2024 
Listening and reading about the Carnation Revolution 
A DIVERSITY OF (POST)MEMORIES 
Remembering the Carnation Revolution 
© 
éric 
chenal 
“My father was in prison in Angola…” 
“Why? What did he do?” 
“Nothing, that’s how it was…” 
When schools visit the Nationalmusée um Fësch- 
maart’s exhibition about the Portuguese Carnation 
Revolution, La révolution de 1974, the participants, 
including most teachers, are too young to have 
memories of their own of that time. Nonetheless, 
many pupils with a Portuguese-speaking back- 
ground bring not only some knowledge about the 
events, but they react and comment in a way that is 
personal, bringing true emotions to the visit. These 
emotions are triggered by memories that are not 
their own, but “second-hand” memories of their 
parents or grandparents relating to events the older 
generation(s) experienced. And yet, they come 
across as real and strong, as if they were the 
children’s and grandchildren’s own memories. These 
second and third generation memories are often 
called post-memories.   
WHY MEMORIES? 
Memory, and post-memory even more so, are often 
deemed unreliable because they are subjective 
and there are seldom historical sources to back 
them up. Adding to memory’s bad reputation are 
the contradictions we find in different accounts of 
the same event. Each person remembers differently, 
even when the different “rememberers” are all being 
truthful. Still, society relies on mnemonic accounts, 
for example in witness statements in court or in truth 
commissions. What contribution can memory make 
when looking at the past and the way memories re- 
late to historical accounts? 
When a pupil of Angolan descent reveals that his 
father was imprisoned despite not having committed 
any crimes, just because “that’s how things were” in 
Angola, and then leaves it at that, there are indeed 
facts that are missing. There is no date, no specific 
region or city, no context to explain why this man 
went to prison. He could have been a combatant 
of one of the factions in the 1975–2002 civil war, 
an opponent of the dictatorship that governed the 
country, or merely randomly denounced for perso- 
nal reasons. What we do know is that he was locked 
up, not for a crime he committed, but because he 
was deemed undesirable or dangerous. 
In a group visit it is not possible to follow up on 
such observations and therefore they must stand