The Activism of an educator and writer: Iracema Furtado Soares de Meireles and the Vargas Dictatorship (1937–1945)

Abstract

This article is situated at the intersection of the History of Education and biographical history, adopting a theoretical and methodological perspective grounded in culture, politics, and education. Focusing on the life stories of women writers and educators as essential themes for renewing Brazilian educational historiography, we seek to examine the historical and biographical aspects of Iracema Furtado Soares de Meireles (1907–1982), author of the primer A Casinha Feliz (1970), in dialogue with her condition as a woman, a leftist activist, a teacher, and a writer of educational materials. The objective is to problematize, in particular, the professional trajectory of this Pernambuco-born author in light of the alliances, confrontations, and forms of resistance she established and experienced during the presidency of Getúlio Vargas, with emphasis on the Estado Novo (1937–1945), a dictatorial period marked by persecution, imprisonment, torture, exile, and death. The temporal scope extends back to the early decades of the twentieth century, given Iracema’s complex relationship with Marxist thought and the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). This article proposes a reflection on a life marked by struggle and various forms of political activism through protests, confrontations, and other engagements. Sources include interviews, biographical records, and the periodical press, revealing the experiences, constraints, choices, and conditions Iracema faced along the arduous paths shaped by patriarchy and dictatorship.