Echoes of the ‘politics of the spirit’ at the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute.

This article discusses the participation of the Portuguese delegates at the Fourth National History Congress promoted by the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute, in 1949, to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the city of Salvador. It seeks to demonstrate how the official delegation, appointed by António de Oliveira Salazar and led by Júlio Dantas, tried to convert the congress into a continuation of Portugal’s Centenary Commemorations (1940), when the idea was put forward to bring together intellectuals from both countries, with the aim of developing a Portuguese-Brazilian historiographical project based on a unified interpretation.