Major Figures Of History And Culture

Holy Queen Elizabeth of Portugal (750th Birthday)

“They are roses, sir!” is most likely the phrase uttered by Elizabeth of Aragon (1271-1336), queen consort of Portugal, when her husband, King Dinis (1261-1325) asked her what she was holding in her lap as she left Leiria Castle one winter’s morning. And roses were indeed what appeared in place of the bread destined for the poor. This apocryphal episode is entrenched in the European tradition of similar tales, but for the Portuguese it is the key element justifying the epithet Holy Queen Elizabeth or simply the Holy Queen. And it provides further proof of a life devoted to the poor.

After the king’s death, she retired to the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha, in Coimbra, where she wore the habit of the Order of Saint Clare. She was beatified in 1516 and canonised in 1625.

Infanta Dona Maria (500th Birthday)

The life of Infanta Maria (1521-1577), daughter of King Manuel I (1469-1521) and Eleanor of Austria (1498-1558), was more than merely a sentimental impasse born of an abundance of virtues. Her beauty and kindness, paired with erudition and integrity, not to mention her wealth from income and business, meant that she was seen as an object of desire. Reason enough, so they say, for her brother, King João III (1502-1557), never to allow her to leave the country or get married, because of the damage it might cause the kingdom. She received eight proposals, and was even engaged to Francis de Valois (1518-1536), Dauphin of France.

She devoted herself to religion, financing the construction of the temple that would become the Church of Santa Engrácia, now the National Pantheon.

King João III (500th Anniversary of his Proclamation)

The son of Manuel I (1469-1521) and Maria of Aragon and Castile (1482-1517) left a somewhat chequered legacy in the wake of his 36-year reign, which began in 1521.

Initially, on inheriting a vast empire, King João III (1502-1557) was considered tolerant and cosmopolitan, favouring the Portuguese Renaissance, where figures such as Camões, Pedro Nunes and Garcia de Orta were prominent. But his growing religious fervour, from the 1540s, which earned him the nickname The Pious, along with the arrival of the Jesuits and the start of the Inquisition in Portugal, led to the flight of Jews and New-Christians, and major financial losses for the Empire, requiring recourse to loans. He established new colonies in Asia and began the colonisation of Brazil, but also had to relinquish certain fortified cities in Africa, due to the high costs of defence.

Afonso Costa (150th Birthday)

“For many fewer crimes than those committed by King Carlos I, the head of Louis XVI rolled on the scaffold in France!” This phrase, uttered by Afonso Costa (1871-1937) in the Chamber of Deputies, in 1906, became a mark of the unrest, promoted by him, that led to the fall of the Portuguese monarchy.

A brilliant politician, lawyer and university professor, his notorious anticlericalism earned him the nickname “friar killer”. He put this into practice through the Law of Separation of Church and State (1911), still under the provisional government of the Republic. Two years later, as finance minister, he was able to balance public accounts and present the first non-deficit budget since the liberal revolution.

Rui Grácio (100th Birthday)

A discreet man, Rui Grácio (1921-1991) devoted his life to education, as a teacher, pedagogue, essayist, researcher, and government member. He was responsible for the creation of unified secondary education, as Secretary of State for Educational Guidance, from the second to the fourth provisional governments following the 25 April revolution. His political commitment earned him three months in prison, when he joined the leadership of the youth wing of MUD (Movement of Democratic Unity), in 1947. In the same year, he started teaching at the École Française de Lisbonne, later Lycée Français Charles Lepierre, which he continued to do until 1972, when he joined the Gulbenkian Foundation Educational Research Centre. He defended school as the «workshop for humanity», ensuring universal access to education and culture.

Carlos de Oliveira (100th Birthday)

There was no surprise in the far-from-consensual reception to Finisterra (1978), which marked the return of Carlos de Oliveira (1921-1981) to the novel, following a long hiatus. The poetic, “broken” narrative gave a non-conformist feel to the book, which won the City of Lisbon Prize, from the Portuguese Writers Association. And readers were shocked by the dictates of national neo-realism, a trend that Oliveira helped create and consolidate, particularly during the period between his first novel, Casa na Duna (House in the Dune, 1943) and Uma Abelha na Chuva (A Bee in the Rain, 1953), his masterpiece and obligatory reading in Portuguese schools until the end of the 20th century. With a writing style that was regarded as the embodiment of lyrical refinement and intensity, he also made his name as a poet.

Samuel Alemão