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  • 21 Commemorations, Portuguese historic

       As in so many other activities of Portugal and its people, in historic commemorative work, the past always seems present. For more than a century, Portugal has planned and sponsored a variety of historic commemorations related to the glorious Age of Discoveries era of historic Portugal. The Columban centenary commemorations, involving Spain and Italy in particular, have gained greater world attention, Portugal, nevertheless, has a history of her own commemorations.
       Whatever the political ideology of the governmental system involved, Portugal's historic commemorations have been continuous and well-planned, and have sought to stir national pride as well as regime loyalty. Portugal's official efforts in public commemoration date at least back to 1880, when the Portuguese celebrated the 300th anniversary of the death of the national epic poet, Luís de Camões. Others followed that sought to arouse national remembrance and encourage notions of national revival, by focusing either on biographical or national discovery dates. The next major commemoration was in 1894, when Portugal commemorated the 500th anniversary of the birth in 1394 of Prince Henry of Aviz (Prince Henry the Navigator) and, in 1897-99, the 400th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India.
       The 20th century has seen the most elaborate and publicized historic commemorations for Portugal. Besides its extensive propaganda program beginning in the 1930s, the Estado Novo put considerable effort into extensive historic commemorations, with the purpose of encouraging national pride and international respect, as well as regime loyalty. At least three national commemorations are worthy of note here, although scores of other events were held on a smaller scale. From June to December 1940, Portugal held the grand Double Centenary celebrations, which celebrated Portugal's emergence as an independent monarchy and state in 1140 (800 years) and the restoration of independence from Spain in 1640 (300 years). More than five months of activities included expensive publications of books and tourist materials, exhibits, academic conferences, and an outstanding Lisbon "world's fair" known as the "Exposition of the Portuguese World," staged at Belém, in front of the Monastery of Jerónimos, and involving the unveiling for the first time of the new Monument of the Discoveries.
       Two other commemorations of the Estado Novo deserve mention: the 1947 celebration of the 800th anniversary of the Portuguese taking of Lisbon (1147) from Moorish forces and the 1960 commemoration activities marking the 500th anniversary of the death of the central figure of the Portuguese Discoveries, Prince Henry the Navigator. The latter set of events took place during a time of political sensitivity, when the government's African policy was under strong international pressures.
       Since the Revolution of 25 April 1974, democratic Portugal has put substantial resources into commemorating various persons and events of the Age of Discoveries. In 1980, Portugal's scholars celebrated the 400th anniversary of the death of the national poet Camões in many books, articles, exhibits, and conferences. But this would all be overshadowed by the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese Discoveries, which would run from 1988 to 2000. This elaborate effort involved the establishment of a government agency, the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Portuguese Discoveries, headed by one of Portugal's most eminent scholars on the subject, Dr. Vasco Graça Moura. Commemoration began in 1988 with the celebration and reenactment of the 1488 voyage of navigator Bartolomeu Dias from Lisbon to beyond the Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa. The 12-year cycle, the longest Discoveries commemorations of any century and of any Western country, put the 1992 Columban Quincentenary events somewhat in the shade.
       Between May and October 1998, Portugal held Expo '98 in Lisbon, a world's fair that was keyed to the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's discovery of an all-water route to India in 1498. This cycle ended in 2000, marking the 500th anniversary of the year that Portugal's Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Commemorations, Portuguese historic

  • 22 Spínola, Antônio de

    (1910-1996)
       Senior army general, hero of Portugal's wars of African insurgency, and first president of the provisional government after the Revolution of 25 April 1974. A career army officer who became involved in politics after a long career of war service and administration overseas, Spinola had a role in the 1974 coup and revolution that was somewhat analogous to that of General Gomes da Costa in the 1926 coup.
       Spinola served in important posts as a volunteer in Portugal's intervention in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a military observer on the Russian front with the Third Reich's armed forces in World War II, and a top officer in the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR). His chief significance in contemporary affairs, however, came following his military assignments and tours of duty in Portugal's colonial wars in Africa after 1961.
       Spinola fought first in Angola and later in Guinea- Bissau, where, during 1968-73, he was both commanding general of Portugal's forces and high commissioner (administrator of the territory). His Guinean service tour was significant for at least two reasons: Spinola's dynamic influence upon a circle of younger career officers on his staff in Guinea, men who later joined together in the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), and Spinola's experience of failure in winning the Guinea war militarily or finding a political means for compromise or negotiation with the Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), the African insurgent movement that had fought a war with Portugal since 1963, largely in the forested tropical interior of the territory. Spinola became discouraged after failure to win permission to negotiate secretly for a political solution to the war with the PAIGC and was reprimanded by Prime Minister Marcello Caetano.
       After his return—not in triumph—from Guinea in 1973, Spinola was appointed chief of staff of the armed forces, but he resigned in a dispute with the government. With the assistance of younger officers who also had African experience of costly but seemingly endless war, Spinola wrote a book, Portugal and the Future, which was published in February 1974, despite official censorship and red tape. Next to the Bible and editions of Luís de Camoes's The Lusi- ads, Spinola's controversial book was briefly the best-selling work in Portugal's modern age. While not intimately involved with the budding conspiracy among career army majors, captains, and others, Spinola was prepared to head such a movement, and the planners depended on his famous name and position as senior army officer with the right credentials to win over both military and civil opinion when and where it counted.
       When the Revolution of 25 April 1974 succeeded, Spinola was named head of the Junta of National Salvation and eventually provisional president of Portugal. Among the military revolutionaries, though, there was wide disagreement about the precise goals of the revolution and how to achieve them. Spinola's path-breaking book had subtly proposed three new goals: the democratization of authoritarian Portugal, a political solution to the African colonial wars, and liberalization of the economic system. The MFA immediately proclaimed, not coincidentally, the same goals, but without specifying the means to attain them.
       The officers who ran the newly emerging system fell out with Spinola over many issues, but especially over how to decolonize Portugal's besieged empire. Spinola proposed a gradualist policy that featured a free referendum by all colonial voters to decide between a loose federation with Portugal or complete independence. MFA leaders wanted more or less immediate decolonization, a transfer of power to leading African movements, and a pullout of Portugal's nearly 200,000 troops in three colonies. After a series of crises and arguments, Spinola resigned as president in September 1974. He conspired for a conservative coup to oust the leftists in power, but the effort failed in March 1975, and Spinola was forced to flee to Spain and then to Brazil. Some years later, he returned to Portugal, lived in quiet retirement, and could be seen enjoying horseback riding. In the early 1980s, he was promoted to the rank of marshal, in retirement.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Spínola, Antônio de

  • 23 United States of America

    (USA)
       Portugal and the United States established full and formal diplomatic relations in 1791, and the first commercial treaty between them was signed in 1840. The two very different countries have been linked by geography and by Portuguese immigration to the United States. Both share the status of being Atlantic powers. Significant Portuguese immigration to the eastern seaboard, especially to coastal New England, began in the first half of the 19th century, but the numbers of Lusitanian immigrants reached their peak only after 1910. Although there was relatively little trade between the two countries until after 1880, Portugal's diplomats briefly toyed with the notion of using the United States as a counterweight ally to her oldest ally, Great Britain, especially during the era of bitter territorial and trade disputes between Britain and Portugal over south-central Africa after 1850.
       It was during the 20th century, however, that Luso-American diplomatic relations assumed a new importance, and again the Atlantic connection played a key role. On two occasions during world wars, in 1917-18 and 1944-45, the United States armed forces used the Azores Islands for air and naval bases. In 1951, Portugal and the United States signed the first major Azores base agreements, at first as part of America's Cold War defense strategy needs. The Azores base question has assumed an essential role in the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
       The United States also sponsored Portugal's entry in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). American trade and investment in Portugal increased significantly since the 1940s and, by 1980, the United States had become one of Portugal's main trade partners. By the 1990s, this relationship experienced some changes, as Portugal's membership in the European Union (EU) strengthened the trade positions of EU members such as Britain, Germany, France, and Spain. Luso-American cultural relations, however, including the increasing knowledge of English in Portugal, became closer. Among the factors responsible for this were the presence of a larger American community in Portugal, American investment, the Fulbright exchange program, and American-language schools, whose activity suggested that English taught in British-language schools in Portugal no longer held a clear monopoly.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > United States of America

  • 24 Teixeira, Nuno Severiano

    (1957-)
       Portuguese scholar and politician, example of a new generation of academically trained public servants who favor a pan-European vision. Born in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, in 1957, he received most of his education in Europe. Educated as a career academic, he received a master's degree in history from the Faculty of Letters, Classical University of Lisbon in 1981, and his doctorate in the history of international relations from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy in 1994. He also received a higher degree in 2005 in political science and international relations from the New University of Lisbon. He held various teaching and research posts in academia in Italy, the United States, and Portugal, as well as visiting professor post appointments at American universities, including Georgetown University and the University of California, Berkeley, between 2000 and 2003. He was active in international research networks and scholarly conferences and publications, including the American-based International Conference Group on Portugal (1972-2002).
       A member of the Socialist Party, Teixeira was director of the Instituto da Defesa Nacional, a government academy and think-tank, from 1996 to 2000 and, from 2000 to 2002, he served as minister of internal administration. From 2003 to 2006, he was the director of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations, at the New University of Lisbon. In July 2006, he became Portugal's minister of national defense in the government of Prime Minister José Sócrates. His scholarly publications are numerous, including books on modern history, the European Union, and defense and war studies. As defense minister, Teixeira was active in the pan-European activities of the European Union (EU) and made important contributions as a speaker and theorist. In EU meetings, he analyzed strategic defense planning in order to help determine the future military roles of the EU as it dealt with transnational terrorism, failed states, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Teixeira, Nuno Severiano

  • 25 Armed forces

       Although armed force has been a major factor in the development of the Portuguese nation-state, a standing army did not exist until after the War of Restoration (1641-48). During the 18th century, Portugal's small army was drawn into many European wars. In 1811, a combined Anglo-Portuguese army drove the French army of Napoleon out of the country. After Germany declared war on Portugal in March 1916, two Portuguese divisions were conscripted and sent to France, where they sustained heavy casualties at the Battle of Lys in April 1918. As Portugal and Spain were neutral in World War II, the Portuguese Army cooperated with the Spanish army to defend Iberian neutrality. In 1949, Portugal became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). When the nationalist quest for independence began in Portugal's colonies in Africa ( Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea- Bissau) in the 1960s, the military effort (1961-74) to suppress the nationalists resulted in an expansion of the Portuguese armed forces to about 250,000.
       Since the Revolution of 25 April 1974, the number of personnel on active duty in the army, navy, and air force has been greatly reduced (43,200 in 2007) and given a more direct role in NATO. New NATO commitments led to the organization of the Brigada Mista Independente (Independent Composite Brigade), later converted into the Brigada Aero-Transportada. (Air-Transported Brigade) to be used in the defense of Europe's southern flank. The Portuguese air force and navy are responsible for the defense of the Azores-Madeira-Portugal strategic triangle.
       Chronic military intervention in Portuguese political life began in the 19th century. These interventions usually began with revolts of the military ( pronunciamentos) in order to get rid of what were considered by the armed forces corrupt or incompetent civilian governments. The army overthrew the monarchy on the 5 October 1910 and established Portugal's First Republic. It overthrew the First Republic on 28 May 1926 and established a military dictatorship. The army returned to the barracks during the Estado Novo of Antônio de Oliveira Salazar. The armed forces once again returned to politics when the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) overthrew the Estado Novo on 25 April 1974. After the Revolution of 25 April 1974, the armed forces again played a major role in Portuguese politics through the Council of the Revolution, which was composed of the president of the Republic, Chiefs of the general staff, three service chiefs, and 14 MFA officers. The Council of the Revolution advised the president on the selection of the prime minister and could veto legislation.
       The subordination of the Portuguese armed forces to civilian authority began in 1982, when revisions to the Constitution abolished the Council of the Revolution and redefined the mission of the armed forces to that of safeguarding and defending the national territory. By the early 1990s, the political influence of Portugal armed force had waned and civilian control was reinforced with the National Defense Laws of 1991, which made the chief of the general staff of the armed forces directly responsible to the minister of defense, not the president of the republic, as had been the case previously. As the end of the Cold War had eliminated the threat of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, Portuguese armed forces continues to be scaled back and reorganized. Currently, the focus is on modernization to achieve high operational efficiency in certain areas such as air defense, naval patrols, and rapid-response capability in case of terrorist attack. Compulsory military service was ended in 2004. The Portuguese armed forces have been employed as United Nations peacekeepers in East Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Armed forces

  • 26 Dance

       The history of Portuguese dance includes traditional, regional folk dances, modern dance, and ballet. Portuguese folk dances have historic origins in the country's varied regions and are based on traditions associated with the historic provinces. At least by the 18th century, these folk dances, performed in traditional garb, were popular and became differentiated by region. In the south of the country, there were colorful, passionate lively dances by rural folk in the Algarve, the corridinho; and in the Ribatejo, the fandango, the dance most celebrated and known outside Portugal. In northern Portugal, even more folk dances were developed and preserved in each historic province. In Trás-os-Montes, there were the chulas and dancas do pauliteros, in which dancers used sticks and stick play. Each region had its own special folk dances and costumes, with typical jewelry on display, and with some dances reflecting regional courting and matrimonial traditions. Perhaps richest of all the provinces as the home of folk dance has been the Minho province in the northwest, with dances such as the viras, gotas, malháo, perim, and tirana. For the most part, folk dances in Portugal are slower than those in neighboring Spain.
       Various factors have favored the preservation of some of these dances including local, regional, and national dance organizations that, for recreation, continue this activity in Portugal, as well as abroad in resident Portuguese communities in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. As a part of entertainment for visitors and tourists alike, performances of folk dances with colorful costumes and lively movements have continued to interest onlookers from abroad. Such performances, usually accompanied by singing traditional folk songs, can occur in a variety of settings including restaurants, fado houses, and arenas. Such dances, too, are performed in traditional, commemorative parades on the Tenth of June from Lisbon and Oporto to Newark, New Jersey, Toronto, and France.
       In modern dance activities, Portugal has made a diversified contribution, and in recent decades ballet has received intense attention and commitment as a performing art. An outstanding example has been the professional company and its performances of the notable Ballet Gulbenkian, established and financed by the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. Founded in 1964, Ballet Gulbenkian became an outstanding ballet company, featuring both Portuguese and international ballet dancers and directors. For decades, Ballet Gulbenkian made a distinguished contribution to the performing arts in Portugal. In 2005, unexpectedly and controversially, by fiat of the Foundation's administration, the Ballet Gulbenkian was closed down. The extinction of this ballet company provoked strong national and international protest among fans of ballet, and amounting as it did to a crisis in one division of the performing arts in a country that had expected unstinting financial support from the Foundation established from the financial legacy of notable collector, philanthropist, and financier Calouste Gulben- kian, a resident of Portugal from 1942 to 1955.
        See also Music.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Dance

  • 27 Philippa of Lancaster, queen

    (1360-1415)
       Wife of King João I of Portugal and daughter of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III. Born in England, she was educated at home within the bosom of the royal family and little is known of her life until she was 26 and sailed to Castile with her father. The marriage of King João I and Philippa was celebrated in Oporto in 1387, and during the next 15 years of the queen's life, at least half of the time was expended in pregnancy and childbearing. From age 27 to 42, a remarkable physical feat for that era or any other, Philippa bore the so-called "illustrious generation" of children that included Prince Henry of Aviz (Prince Henry the Navigator), Prince Pedro, and King Duarte (r. 1433-38). Her six sons alone dominated politics for generations, and although what precise role she had in their education is unclear, her influence was present in continuing the Anglo- Portuguese Alliance and in encouraging the expansion of Portugal into North Africa.
       Philippa maintained a long correspondence with her family in England, was very religious, and introduced a new liturgy into the Portuguese Church services. Philippa, who was a strong influence in encouraging the crusade to attack Muslim North Africa, died of the Black Plague on the eve of the epoch-making Ceuta expedition in 1415. Although she died at Odivelas, eventually her remains were transferred to the great Monastery of Batalha (1416), where the effigy on her fine tomb is the only faithful likeness of her in Portugal.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Philippa of Lancaster, queen

  • 28 Balsemão, Francisco

    (1937-)
       Lawyer, journalist, publisher, political leader, and media magnate. From a wealthy, well-connected family, Balsemão was educated as an attorney at the Law Faculty, University of Lisbon, like so many of his country's leaders in modern times. He began to practice law and write for newspapers in the early 1960s. In the 1969 general elections, he entered politics as a leader in the "liberal wing" of the regime's sole political party or movement, the Acção Nacional Popular, successor of the União Nacional. Soon discouraged by the failure of reform efforts, he resigned his seat in the National Assembly during the last years of Marcello Caetano's governance. In January 1973, he began publishing and editing a new newspaper, the independent Lisbon weekly Expresso, whose modern format, spirit, reform ideas, and muted criticism of the regime attracted much public interest.
       As part of a new wave of more liberal urban opinion among the better-educated classes, Balsemao's influential weekly paper helped prepare public opinion for change and for "an opening" in a closed system while Portugal moved toward revolutionary times, 1974-75. Expresso took as its models contemporary French and British investigative journalism, adapted to Portugal, and the paper was instrumental in promoting the colonial war hero General Antônio Spínola as a new leader who could solve the political impasse. The paper also featured excerpts from General Spinola's sensational book on Portugal's future and the wars in Africa, published in February 1974. Expresso thus helped prepare Portuguese public opinion for the military's intervention in the coup that brought about the Revolution of 25 April 1974. Following 1974, Balsemão became a leader in the Social Democratic Party (PSD). After the sudden death of the PSD leader, Sá Carneiro, in a mysterious air crash in 1980, Balsemão became PSD leader and served as prime minister from January 1981 to June 1983. In the 1990s, he helped finance and launch one of Portugal's first private television channels.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Balsemão, Francisco

  • 29 Tenth of June

       An official Portuguese national holiday, called "Camões Day" or "Portugal Day" in official literature. It commemorates the death, on 10 June 1578, of Portugal's national epic poet, Luís de Camões, after the Moroccan disaster of the loss of King Sebastian and his army to Muslim forces in North Africa. The Tenth of June has become the principal national independence day of Portugal, a time when Portuguese in Portugal and in overseas Portuguese communities from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Macau, China, to Caracas, Venezuela, celebrate national independence and history. This is a day also when traditionally various honors and awards for the year are conveyed by the national leaders in ceremonies and when citizens in parades mark this historic day.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Tenth of June

  • 30 Lisbon

        Lisboa in Portuguese, is the capital of Portugal and capital of the Lisbon district. The city population is just over half a million; greater Lisbon area contains at least 2.5 million. Located on the north bank of one of the greatest harbors in Europe, formed from the estuary of the Tagus River, which flows into the Atlantic, Lisbon has a long and illustrious history. A site of Phoenician and Greek trading communities, Lisbon became an important Roman city. Its name, Lisboa, in Portuguese and Spanish, is a corruption of its Roman name, Felicitas Julia. The city experienced various waves of invaders. Muslims seized it from the Visigoths in the eighth century, and after a long siege Muslim Lisbon fell to the Portuguese Christian forces of King Afonso Henriques in 1147.
       Lisbon, built on a number of hills, saw most of its major palaces and churches constructed between the 14th and 18th centuries. In the 16th century, the city became the Aviz dynasty's main capital and seat, and a royal palace was built in the lower city along the harbor where ships brought the empire's riches from Africa, Asia, and Brazil. On 1 November 1755, a devastating earthquake wrecked a large part of the main city and destroyed the major buildings, killed or displaced scores of thousands of people, and destroyed important historical records and artifacts. The king's prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, ordered the city rebuilt. The main lower city center, the baixa ("down town"), was reconstructed according to a master plan that laid out a square grid of streets, spacious squares, and broad avenues, upon which were erected buildings of a uniform height and design. Due to the earthquake's destruction, few buildings, with the exception of the larger cathedrals and palaces, predate 1755. The Baixa Pombalina, as this part of Lisbon is known, was the first planned city in Europe.
       Lisbon is more than the political capital of Portugal, the site of the central government's offices, the legislative, and executive buildings. Lisbon is the economic, social, and cultural capital of the country, as well as the major educational center that contains almost half the country's universities and secondary schools.
       The continuing importance of Lisbon as the country's political heart and mind, despite the justifiable resentment of its northern rival, Oporto, and the university town of Coimbra, was again illustrated in the Revolution of 25 April 1974, which began with a military coup by the Armed Forces Movement there. The Estado Novo was overthrown in a largely bloodless coup organized by career junior military officers whose main strategy was directed toward the conquest and control of the capital. Once the Armed Forces Movement had the city of Lisbon and environs under its control by the afternoon of 25 April 1974, its mastery of the remainder of the country was assured.
       Along with its dominance of the country's economy, politics, and government, Lisbon's cultural offerings remain impressive. The city is a treasure house that contains hundreds of historic houses and squares, churches and cathedrals, ancient palaces, and castles, some reconstructed to appear as they were before the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. There are scores of museums and libraries. Among the more outstanding museums open to the public are the Museu de Arte Antiga and the museums of the Gulbenkian Foundation.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Lisbon

  • 31 Carlos I, King

    (1863-1908)
       The second to last reigning king of Portugal and second to last of the Braganza dynasty to rule. Born in 1863, the son of King Luis I, Carlos was well-educated and became an accomplished sailor, as well as an artist of maritime scenes in oil paintings. A selection of his paintings remains on display in various museums and halls. His reign began in 1889, when his father died, and was immediately marked by controversy and conflict. In January 1890, the monarchy was weakened and Carlos's authority placed in question in the crisis of the " English Ultimatum" (see also Ultimatum, English) Portugal's oldest ally, Great Britain, threatened an end to the 517-year-old alliance, and hostilities arose over the question of territorial expansion in the "Scramble for Africa." Although Carlos was a talented diplomat who managed to repair the damaged Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and to promote other foreign policy initiatives, his reign was marked by the failure of monarchist politics, the weakening monarchy, and rising republicanism. As monarchist politics became more unstable and corrupt, the republic opposition grew stronger and more violent. Carlos's appointment of the dictatorial João Franco government in 1907 and Franco's measures of January 1908 repressing the opposition were, in effect, the king's death warrant. While returning from a royal trip to the Alentejo on 1 February, 1908, King Carlos and his heir apparent, Prince Luís, were shot in their open carriage in Lisbon by carbonaria (anarchist republicans). Although their two murderers were killed by guards on the spot, the official investigation of their murders was never completed.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Carlos I, King

  • 32 Pedro of Avis, prince

    (1392-1449)
       One of the many talented sons of King João I and Philippa of Lancaster, regent and older brother of Prince Henry of Aviz (Prince Henry the Navigator). Pedro's life and work were important in consolidating an independent Portuguese monarchy and in promoting the maritime discoveries and explorations down the coast of Africa. Well-educated for a member of royalty in his day, Infante Dom Pedro was present as a warrior at the auspicious conquest of Ceuta in Morocco in 1415, and was named Duke of Coimbra that same year. From 1425 to 1428, he traveled and studied in Europe, including in England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Aragon and Castile. He returned from his travels with a copy of Marco Polo's famous book and introduced this to his country.
       Among royalty and nobility, Prince Pedro's views were cautious regarding further Portuguese expansion in Morocco, and during the troubled times of 1436-38, he opposed the planned but ill-fated attack on the Moroccan city of Tangier; he called for the surrender later of Ceuta, in order to ransom the life of Prince Fernando, a prisoner in Moroccan hands. Following the death of King Duarte in 1438 and the subsequent succession crisis, including a civil war among factions, Prince Pedro acted as regent until 1446, when Prince Afonso reached his majority and was acclaimed King Afonso V, called "The African" (r. 1446-81).
       After Prince Pedro's powers were given up finally in 1448, his formerly exiled enemies returned to Portugal and vowed vengeance against him. Warfare ensued and, with the defeat of his army at the battle of Alfarrobeira in 1449, Prince Pedro was killed. His many accomplishments and talents off the battlefields were forgotten over the generations. Beginning in the late 19th century, the memory of his distinction and greatness was increasingly obscured by the growing fame, legend, and myth of his younger brother, Prince Henry of Aviz (Prince Henry the Navigator). An effort to rehabilitate the memory and public knowledge of Prince Pedro began in the early 1960s among a handful of foreign scholars, and was carried on by Portuguese scholars in the 1990s, but it appeared to have little effect against the pervasive cult of Prince Henry the Navigator.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Pedro of Avis, prince

  • 33 The Lusiads

       Portugal's national epic poem of the Age of Discoveries, written by the nation's most celebrated poet, Luís de Camões. Published in 1572, toward the end of the adventurous life of Camões, Os Lusíadas is the most famous and most often-quoted piece of literature in Portugal. Modeled in part on the style and format of Virgil's Aeneid, Os Lusíadas is the story of Portugal's long history, and features an evocation of the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama's epic discovery of the sea route from Portugal to Asia. Part of the epic poem was composed when Camões was in royal service in Portugal's Asian empire, including in Goa and Macau. While the dramatic framework is dominated by various deities from classical literature, much of what is described in Portugal, Africa, and Asia is real and accurately rendered by the classically educated (at Coimbra University) Camões, who witnessed both the apogee and the beginning of decline of Portugal's seaborne empire and world power.
       While the poet praises imperial power and greatness, Camões features a prescient naysayer: "The Old Man of Restelo," on the beach where Vasco da Gama is about to embark for Indian adventures, criticizes Portuguese expansion beyond Africa to Asia. Camões was questioning the high price of an Asian empire, and gave voice to those anti-imperialists and "Doubting Thomases" in the country who opposed more overseas expansion beyond Africa. It is interesting to note that in the Portuguese language usage and tradition since the establishment of The Lusiads as a national poem, "The Old Man of Restelo" ("O Velho do Restelo") came to symbolize not a wise Cassandra with timely warnings that Portugal would be fatally weakened by empire and might fall prey to neighboring Spain, but merely a Doubting Thomas in popular sentiment. The Lusiads soon became universally celebrated and accepted, and it has been translated into many languages. In the history of criticism in Portugal, more has been written about Camões and The Lusiads than about any other author or work in Portuguese literature, now more than a thousand years in the making.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > The Lusiads

  • 34 Architecture

       Portugal maintains an important architectural legacy from a long history of contact with invaders and other visitors who brought architectural ideas from Western Europe and North Africa. Among the migrants were Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Germanic peoples, and Arabs, as well as visitors from France, Italy, Holland, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain.
       Architecture in Portugal has been influenced by the broad Western architectural styles, including Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassicism. Two Portuguese architectural styles are unique, the Manueline architectural style and the Pombaline, named after the dictator the Marquis of Pombal. Pre-Roman-esque styles include early Megalithic structures, Roman styles, and Moorish or Arab styles, when Portugal was occupied by Muslims (711-1290). This period of Moorish castles and mosques, most but not all of which were razed, was followed by the Romanesque period (1100-ca. 1230), when many churches, monasteries, castles, and palaces were constructed.
       There followed the Gothic period (ca. 1200-1450), which was dominated by buildings for the Church, the monarchy, and the nobility. Related to Portugal's overseas empire, the kingdom's new role briefly as a world power, especially on the seas, and to the reign of King Manuel I, is the Manueline architectural style, described by scholars as "Atlantic Baroque" (ca. 1490-1520), a bold Portuguese version of late Gothic style. This was followed by styles of Renaissance and Mannerism (ca. 1520-1650), including the "Plain style," which was influenced by Castilian styles under King Felipe I.
       Following the period 1580 to 1640, when Spain ruled Portugal, there was restoration architecture (1640-1717) and then the Baroque style (1717-55). The largest and most unusual building from this era, the Mafra Palace, is said to be even larger than Spain's El Escorial. Following the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, was Pombaline style (1755-1860), a blend of late Baroque and Neoclassicism, which began when Pombal's government oversaw the reconstruction of large sections of central Lisbon. Modern architecture followed this period, a style influenced in the 20th century by one of Europe's best architecture schools, the so-called Escola do Porto (School of Oporto). This school is the Faculdade de Arquitectura (School of Architecture), and alumni include celebrated architects Fernando Tavora; Álvaro Siza Vieira, designer of the Portuguese pavilion at Expo '98, Lisbon; and Eduardo Souto de Moura. Despite tragic losses of historic structures due to urban development, since the 1930s many Portuguese governments have sought to preserve and restore the remaining historic legacy of architecture.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Architecture

  • 35 Emigration

       Traditionally, Portugal has been a country with a history of emigration to foreign lands, as well as to the overseas empire. During the early centuries of empire, only relatively small numbers of Portuguese emigrated to reside permanently in its colonies. After the establishment of the second, largely Brazilian empire in the 17th century, however, greater numbers of Portuguese left to seek their fortunes outside Europe. It was only toward the end of the 19th century, however, that Portuguese emigration became a mass movement, at first, largely to Brazil. While Portuguese-speaking Brazil was by far the most popular destination for the majority of Portuguese emigrants in early modern and modern times, after 1830, the United States and later Venezuela also became common destinations.
       Portuguese emigration patterns have changed in the 20th century and, as the Portuguese historian and economist Oliveira Martins wrote before the turn of the century, Portuguese emigration rates are a kind of national barometer. Crises and related social, political, and economic conditions within Portugal, as well as the presence of established emigrant communities in various countries, emigration laws, and the world economy have combined to shape emigration rates and destinations.
       After World War II, Brazil no longer remained the favorite destination of the majority of Portuguese emigrants who left Portugal to improve their lives and standards of living. Beginning in the 1950s, and swelling into a massive stream in the 1960s and into the 1970s, most Portuguese emigrated to find work in France and, after the change in U.S. immigration laws in the mid-1960s, a steady stream went to North America, including Canada. The emigration figures here indicate that the most intensive emigration years coincided with excessive political turmoil and severe draft (army conscription) laws during the First Republic (1912 was the high point), that emigration dropped during World Wars I and II and during economic downturns such as the Depression, and that the largest flow of Portuguese emigration in history occurred after the onset of the African colonial wars (1961) and into the 1970s, as Portuguese sought emigration as a way to avoid conscription or assignment to Africa.
       1887 17,000
       1900ca. 17,000 (mainly to Brazil)
       1910 39,000
       1912 88,000 (75,000 of these to Brazil)
       1930ca. 30,000 (Great Depression)
       1940ca. 8,800
       1950 41,000
       1955 57,000
       1960 67,000
       1965 131,000
       1970 209,000
       Despite considerable efforts by Lisbon to divert the stream of emigrants from Brazil or France to the African territories of Angola and Mozambique, this colonization effort failed, and most Portuguese who left Portugal preferred the better pay and security of jobs in France and West Germany or in the United States, Venezuela, and Brazil, where there were more deeply rooted Portuguese emigrant communities. At the time of the Revolution of 25 April 1974, when the military coup in Lisbon signaled the beginning of pressures for the Portuguese settlers to leave Africa, the total number of Portuguese resident in the two larger African territories amounted to about 600,000. In modern times, nonimperial Portuguese emigration has prevailed over imperial emigration and has had a significant impact on Portugal's annual budget (due to emigrants' remittances), the political system (since emigrants have a degree of absentee voting rights), investment and economy, and culture.
       A total of 4 million Portuguese reside and work outside Portugal as of 2009, over one-third of the country's continental and island population. It has also been said that more Portuguese of Azorean descent reside outside the Azores than in the Azores. The following statistics reflect the pattern of Portuguese emigrant communities in the world outside the mother country.
       Overseas Portuguese Communities Population Figures by Country of Residence ( estimates for 2002)
       Brazil 1,000,000
       France 650,000
       S. Africa 600,000
       USA 500,000
       Canada 400,000
       Venezuela 400,000
       W. Europe 175,000 (besides France and Germany)
       Germany 125,000
       Britain (UK) 60,000 (including Channel Islands)
       Lusophone Africa 50,000
       Australia 50,000
       Total: 4,010,000 (estimate)

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Emigration

  • 36 Rose-colored map

       The famous map presented to the Chamber of Deputies in 1887, which indicated that Lisbon intended to occupy, claim, and annex a disputed corridor of central African territory. The pink or rose-colored area on the map was the area that linked up the Portuguese colonies of Angola in West Africa and Mozambique in East Africa. Portugal's territorial interests in tropical Africa shifted from the coasts to the interior after the settlement reached at the 1884-85 Berlin West Africa Conference. Thereafter, Portugal concentrated on participating in the European race for central Africa, part of the larger movement, the "Scramble for Africa."
       By means of dispatching expeditions of explorers and soldiers to the hinterlands of both Angola and Mozambique, Portugal sought to fulfill the Berlin Conference's "rule" about "effective occupation." In Portugal, the old colonialists' dream of linking up the interiors of Angola and Mozambique, a notion that dated at least to the mid-l8th century, was known as the contra-costa ("opposite coast") project. Much of the rose-colored section of the map comprises what is now Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. The plan failed when Great Britain opposed Portuguese expansion into this disputed area in 1890 and sent Lisbon a threatening ultimatum that obliged Portugal to back down.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Rose-colored map

  • 37 João II, king

    (1455-1495)
       Known in Portuguese history as "The Perfect Prince," he ruled Portugal from 1481 to 1495. The son of King Afonso V and Dona Isabel, his life and reign reflected Portugal's ongoing struggle with Castile, a suppression of Portugal's more powerful nobility in order to reassert royal authority, and a continuation of Portugal's search for an all-water route to India around the coast of Africa. During his reign, two further exploratory steps were taken in this overseas strategy: the key voyages of Diogo Cão (as far south as the coast of Angola) and of Bartolomeu Dias, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean in 1488. As part of Portugal's quest to find and help "Prester John," supposedly a Christian king in Africa or Asia, King João also encouraged the departure in the late 1480s of Afonso de Paiva and Pero de Covilhã, at least one of whom reached Ethiopia, on an expedition overland in Africa.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > João II, king

  • 38 Mozambique

       Presently an independent African state and formerly Portugal's main colonial territory in East Africa. After Angola, Portugal's largest colony in Africa, with some 784,090 kilometers (297,000 square miles) of territory. Lisbon controlled sections of what is now Mozambique from the early 16th century to 1975. In its long history as a Portuguese colony and outpost, Mozambique was influenced by its geography and its position in the Portuguese empire. Mozambique's location adjacent to industrializing South Africa was an important factor in its economic life. The colony's location on the sea route to Portugal's empire in India, mainly Goa, and its administrative subordination to Portuguese India during the centuries were also important historical factors.
       Until the 20th century, except for sections of the disease-ridden Zambezi valley, what little Portuguese colonization there was remained coastal. After 1910, Portuguese colonization in the interior burgeoned and plantations of sugar, cotton, and other crops were developed. As in Angola and other African colonies of Portugal, long after slavery was abolished in the 19th century, forced labor of Africans continued into the 1960s in Mozambique. In 1964, a colonial war in Mozambique began, a conflict between Portuguese armed forces and nationalist forces of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO). This conflict ceased following the Revolution of 25 April 1974 in Portugal. Mozambique obtained its independence in July 1975.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Mozambique

  • 39 Ultimatum, English

    (1890)
       A painful and, for Portugal, embarrassing, diplomatic incident with Great Britain during the "Scramble for Africa." On 11 January 1890, England presented the Lisbon government with an ultimatum stating that, unless Portugal withdrew her armed forces from what is today a section of Malawi in central east Africa, Britain would consider breaking the ancient Anglo- Portuguese Alliance and would dispatch naval units to Mozambique and possibly to Portugal itself. The center of the conflict was disputed claims over an area to the west of northern Mozambique, a region in which Britain claimed to have special interests. Portugal requested international arbitration of the dispute, but London refused and presented the ultimatum. At the time, Portugal had an armed force in the disputed sector and was claiming sovereignty.
       The English Ultimatum led to the fall of the Lisbon government of the day, which gave in and withdrew Portugal's forces, as well as to unprecedented public agitation over the question. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance came under great strain, although it was mended and renewed with the 1899 Treaty of Windsor. The monarchy was badly damaged by the national humiliation, and the Republican Party gained supporters. Portugal's current national anthem, A Portuguesa, was inspired by it.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Ultimatum, English

  • 40 Windsor, Treaties of

       Various Anglo-Portuguese treaties bear the name of Windsor. Among others were the treaties of 1386 and 1899. Signed at Windsor, England, on 9 May 1386, the former treaty confirmed the Alliance Treaty between England and Portugal of 1383 and committed both signatories to defend the other against all enemies and to participate in a "perpetual" league, friendship, and confederation. The 1899 Treaty of Windsor (a misnomer since it was signed in London) followed the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa. Portugal pledged to allow the movement of British forces through its east-African colony of Mozambique to South Africa and to prevent arms from reaching the Boers through the same colony. At the same time, there was a reaffirmation of the ancient Anglo- Portuguese Alliance, as spelled out in articles of the 1642 and 1661 Anglo-Portuguese treaties, thus signifying a mutual defense treaty for both countries. Especially vital for Portugal, concerned about secret negotiations between Great Britain and Germany over the possible breakup of Portugal's African empire due to Portugal's bankruptcy, was the 1899 treaty's reconfirmed pledge on Britain's part that it would defend Portugal as well as her overseas empire against all enemies "future and present."

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Windsor, Treaties of

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