“The President Does Not Consider March 31, 1964, a Military Coup”: The Armed Forces and Historical Revisionism Under Jair Bolsonaro, 2019–22

This article analyzes the politics of historical memory surrounding the 1964 Brazilian military coup during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Focusing on the Ministry of Defense’s annual “orders of the day” issued between 2019 and 2022, it treats these commemorative statements as ideologically charged interventions in ongoing struggles over the meaning of March 31, 1964. The article argues that the orders advance a coherent revisionist narrative. They frame the coup as a necessary response to Cold War polarization and the threat of communism, assert broad popular support for military intervention, and elevate the 1979 Amnesty Law as a foundational act of national pacification. In doing so, they recast the overthrow of President João Goulart as a democratic safeguard rather than a constitutional rupture. Under Bolsonaro, these commemorations became instruments of state-sponsored memory politics, aligning presidential authority with institutional military narratives and blurring the boundary between professional discourse and political propaganda.