ANNALS OF THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL MUSEUM: a writing exercise in the field of museums

Abstract

The article investigates the Anais do Museu Histórico Nacional (Annals of the National Historical Museum), Brazilian journal of the institution of the same name that has, to date, 51 published volumes. To understand how the agents linked to the National Historical Museum appropriated the Anais the theme education in museums was selected for the purpose of an analytical deepening, with emphasis on the first phase of the magazine (1940-1975), three articles related to the theme were chosen: Educational Role of the National Historical Museum, by Nair de Moraes de Carvalho, published in the eighth volume (organized in 1947 and printed in 1957); The Museum and the Child, signed by Sigrid Pôrto de Barros in the ninth volume of the Anais (structured in 1948 and printed in 1958); and New Guideline for the Museum, by Dulce Cardozo Ludolf, that composed the thirteenth volume, of 1964 (although organized in 1952). The work identifies that the Anais do Museu Histórico Nacional was a diffuser instrument of specialized knowledge and legitimizing the institution in the field of museums, considered a reference for historical museums. It is concluded that it is possible to understand the Anais from the perspective of the document-monument concept, because as a monument it is an element of perpetuation of the trajectory of the National Historical Museum, support of a collective memory and, as a document, it is a source of research that, under scientific methods, allows it to be identified as a product of the agents that manufactured it.