Shifting silence, enduring shame, ambivalent memories: an oral history of the Portuguese colonial war (1961 – 1974)

This Thesis explores the lived memory of the Portuguese colonial war (1961-1974), having at its core an analysis of thirty-six oral history interviews with ex-combatants of this conflict. The meanings that the combatants attributed to their war experiences then and now are its analytical focus. This life history approach is framed by a wide assessment of the public memory of this event from 1974 until the first decade of the new millennium, as well as by a review of the war memory theory field and a methodological reflection on doing oral history interviews with Portuguese war veterans. Through the historical analysis of the public memory of this war the Thesis offers its general intervention. A methodological intervention occurs through providing an analysis of the colonial war based upon personal narratives of its ex-combatants, typically absent in the Portuguese context. Combined, both facets unravel not only this war’s lived experience but also significant insights about the individual and collective impact of the conflict in Portugal. This Thesis navigates the memorial complexities at play in a post-colonial, postauthoritarian society oscillating between remembrance and forgetting. It highlights not only the challenges faced by historical research on such a sensitive, underexplored topic, but also the vital role to be assumed by history – and particularly by oral history – in expanding our understanding of this colonial war and of the men who fought it