A Biblioteca Nacional e a censura à literatura erótica na Ditadura Militar

o depósito legal e as ações de resistência bibliotecária

Abstract

During the Brazilian military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985, one of the weapons used by the authoritarian government against the free circulation of ideas was the censorship, and this practice was also exercised in the artistic-cultural sphere, including literary publications. Therefore, in this research, we seek to identify whether during this period the government interfered with censorship acts in the National Library, which is the legal depository of Brazilian literary productions. We also seek to investigate and report on acts of resistance by librarians active at the time. To achieve these objectives, we used documentary research in administrative archives of the National Library and interviews with two librarians of the institution. In the survey, we identified a deficit in the submission of works published during the period, but it was not possible to detect that this was due to government interference. However, we found that censorship occurred a posteriori, carried out with visits by military personnel to carry out official on-site inspections of the warehouses where periodicals were stored, and camouflaged as regular researchers searching for bibliographic publications disapproved by the government. We also identified actions carried out by librarians, among other employees, aimed at protecting prohibited works, such as: hiding them in safes and cabinets, removing identification cards from the dictionary catalog, physically moving works from shelves and sections. We concluded that there was government action to attempt to remove the collection, although there was no direct interference in the Legal Deposit. There was also a reaction by librarians to these attempts at elimination, applying silent techniques to safeguard censored publications.