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1 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
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2 EXPO '98
Portugal's world's fair, held from May to October 1998, set in Lisbon. Designed to commemorate and celebrate the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's 1498 discovery of an all-water route to India, this was an ambitious undertaking for a small country with a developing economy. The setting of the exposition was remote eastern Lisbon, along the banks of the Tagus estuary. To facilitate logistics, Portugal opened a new Metro station (Oriente) for the Expo and the new Vasco da Gama Bridge, just northeast of the site. More than 10 million visitors, many of them from abroad but a large proportion from Spain and Portugal, arrived at the site by Metro, bus, taxi, or car and were guided by signs in three languages: Portuguese, Spanish, and English. To the dismay of Francophones, the choice of English and Spanish reflected both the nature of the globalization process and Portugal's growing connections with Europe and the wider world.The theme of Expo '98 was "The Oceans, Heritage for the Future," and the official mascot-symbol was "Gil," a cartoon characterization of a drop of ocean water, based on the suggestion of schoolchildren from the small town of Barrancos. Somewhat in the spirit of Disney's Mickey Mouse, "Gil" reflected cheeriness, but his message was serious, alerting the public to the fact that the oceans were endangered and fresh drinking water increasingly in short supply for a burgeoning world population. Among the outstanding structures at Expo '98 was the Pavilion of Portugal, designed by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, and the Pavilion of the Oceans or the Oceanarium (which remained open to the public after the exposition closed), which was designed by an American architect.Despite the general success of the fair, critics gave mixed reviews to the historic commemoration of the Discoveries facets of the effort. No vessel from Vasco da Gama's 1497-99 famous voyage was reproduced at the fair's dockside exhibit—although there was a 19th-century sailing vessel and a reproduction of one of the vessels from Christopher Columbus's first voyage, constructed by Portuguese in Madeira—nor was there much else on Vasco da Gama in the Pavilion of Portugal. Instead, visitors were impressed with a multimedia show based on knowledge of a Portuguese shipwreck, a 17th-century nau, found by archaeologists in recent years. The sound and light show in this lovely space was magnificent. The most popular exhibits were the Oceanarium and the Utopia Pavilion, where lines could be hours long. Despite the fact that Expo '98 made only a weak effort to attract visitors from outside Europe, the general consensus was that it was a successful enterprise, unique in Portugal's record of historic and contemporary expositions since 1940. -
3 Luso-Tropicalism
An anthropological and sociol ogical theory or complex of ideas allegedly showing a process of civilization relating to the significance of Portuguese activity in the tropics of Africa, Asia, and the Americas since 1415. As a theory and method of social science analysis, Luso-Tropicalism is a 20th-century phenomenon that has both academic and political (foreign and colonial policy) relevance. While the theory was based in part on French concepts of the "science of tropicology" in anthropology, it was Gilberto Freyre, an eminent Brazilian sociologist-anthropologist, who developed Luso-Tropicalism as an academic theory of the unique qualities of the Portuguese style of imperial activity in the tropics. In lectures, articles, and books during the period 1930-60, Freyre coined the term Luso-Tropicalism to describe Portuguese civilization in the tropics and to claim that the Portuguese, more than any other European colonizing people, successfully adapted their civilization to the tropics.From 1960 on, the academic theory was co-opted to lend credence to Portugal's colonial policy and determination to continue colonial rule in her large, remaining African empire. Freyre's Luso-Tropicalism theme was featured in the elaborate Fifth Centenary of the Death of Prince Henry the Navigator celebrations held in Lisbon in 1960 and in a massive series of publications produced in the 1960s to defend Portugal's policies in its empire, the first to be established and the last to decolonize in the Third World. Freyre's academic theory and his international prestige as a scholar who had put the sociology of Brazil on the world map were eagerly adopted and adapted by the Estado Novo. A major thesis of this interesting but somewhat disorganized mass of material was that the Portuguese were less racist and prejudiced toward the tropical peoples they encountered than were other Europeans.As African wars of insurgency began in Portugal's empire during 1961-64, and as the United Nations put pressures on Portugal, Luso-Tropicalism was tested and contested not only in academia and the press, but in international politics and diplomacy. Following the decolonization of Portugal's empire during 1974 and 1975 (although Macau remained the last colony to the late 1990s), debate over the notion of Luso-Tropicalism died down. With the onset of the 500-year anniversary celebrations of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries and Exploration, beginning in 1988, however, a whiff of the essence of Luso- Tropicalism reappeared in selected aspects of the commemorative literature. -
4 Tourism
Although certain places in Portugal have attracted travelers since the 18th century, mass tourism did not begin until the 1960s. After 1780, English romantics such as Robert Southie, Lord Byron, and other foreign writers put the town of Sintra on the map of romantic places to visit. In the 1920s and 1930s, the town of Estoril, about 32 kilometers (18 miles) west of Lisbon, along the coast, began to be developed as a high-class resort town. During the 1930s, Estoril attracted wealthy Spaniards escaping from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and, after World War II, displaced and dethroned ex-royalty from Europe. Tourism was encouraged in the late 1930s, when the Estado Novo began to restore Portuguese castles in connection with the Double Centenary Exposition of the Portuguese World in 1940, an event designed to attract visitors to Portugal. In the 1960s, the Estado Novo began to develop the infrastructure for a mass tourist industry. Hotels and golf courses were built, especially in the Algarve, and a national system of pousadas (government subsidized inns) was established in restored castles and other historic structures.During the 1960s, the number of tourists visiting Portugal reached 6 million per year. Tourists stayed away from Portugal during the turbulent years immediately after the Revolution of 25 April 1974, but returned during the 1980s, and the tourist industry has grown at a phenomenal rate ever since. The number of tourists rose from 7.3 million in 1981-82 to about 18.4 million in 1990. Expo '98, Portugal's worlds fair of 1998, attracted hundreds of thousands of additional visitors, mostly from Europe. -
5 Gama, Vasco da
(1468?-1524)Navigator, conqueror, and fleet commander of the Portuguese ships that discovered the sea route to India in 1497-98. Born in Sines and trained in navigation, Vasco da Gama was named commander of four—by today's standards very small—vessels, which left the Tagus from Belém on 8 July 1497. The fleet sailed via the Cape Verde Islands down the African coast and passed the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, on 18 November 1497. After cruising up the coast of East Africa, Vasco da Gama's ships reached Mombasa and then Melinde, where a friendly sultan permitted an Indian Ocean pilot to assist da Gama in the voyage east to the west coast of what became Portuguese India. The Portuguese reached Calicut, India, on 18 May 1498. Vasco da Gama's missions were to discover the route to India, tap into the spice markets of Asia, and contact and make treaties with Christian rulers there.Perhaps the greatest of Portugal's discoverers and sea explorers, da Gama accomplished these missions, although liaison with Christian princes proved illusory; Portugal broke the spice monopoly of the Venetian-Asian system and began the process of prying open Asia to Western trade, conquest, and empire.The first of da Gama's ships returned to Lisbon in July 1499, and da Gama himself returned later in the summer. In the age of exploration, in a different league even than Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the West Indies, da Gama's feat stands unequaled: the distance from Portugal to India by the most direct route around the Cape of Good Hope was 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) by sea under severe conditions typical of the age of sail. The entire round trip took two years, and out of about 170 crew members only 55 returned to Lisbon. King Manuel I showered the navigator-commander with honors. Da Gama made another voyage to Calicut (1502-04) and died in government service in India in 1524. Along with other famous navigator-conquerors of the Age of Discoveries, as well as the national epic poet Luís de Camões, Vasco da Gama is buried in the Jerônimos Monastery. -
6 Henry of Aviz, Prince
(1394-1460)Known to the Portuguese as "O Infante Dom Henrique," as an heir to his father's throne, Prince Henry the Navigator was born in Oporto. His Father was King João I (r. 1357-1433) and his mother was Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt. As a young prince, Henry won his knighthood as a member of the Portuguese expedition that captured the Moroccan city of Ceuta in 1415, the beginning of Portugal's overseas expansion and the onset of the European age of exploration and discovery.The life and work of Prince Henry are steeped in centuries of myth and legend. Reliable historical research suggests that the prince played a key role in the early phases of the Portuguese discoveries due to his patronage of expeditions, sailors, and navigators and his use of the important funds of the knightly Order of Christ, of which he was in control. Prince Henry, nevertheless, was not solely responsible for more than one-third of the exploration ventures during his time, possessed strongly medieval ways, did not create the so-called "School of Sagres" for navigators, and certainly was ignorant of much Renaissance science. Although he did participate nobly in the Ceuta adventure, as far as the voyages down the coast of Africa and into the Atlantic until his death in 1460 are concerned, Prince Henry was an armchair navigator who did not visit Africa beyond Morocco. -
7 Jerónimos, Monastery of
(Mosteiro do Jerónimos)Located at Belém, west of Lisbon, the Monastery and Cathedral of Jerônimos is the most magnificent of the Age of Discoveries monuments. Ordered built as a gift to the monastic Order of Hieronymites by King Manuel I ( 1469- 1521), following the return of Vasco da Gama from India in 1499, Jerónimos was constructed between 1502 and 1525. The purpose of this massive building was to commemorate the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India. Its location, at the time of its building very close to the water, was near the Restelo beach, the departure point for da Gama's voyage.One of Portugal's premier tourist attractions, Jerónimos consists of a church and claustrum and a portion of the convent, partially destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The Manueline architectural style was an innovation (named for King Manuel I, who helped finance constructions from the new imperial wealth from Africa and Asia; more recently, students employ the term Atlantic Baroque), with columns, pillars, and door frames decorated elaborately with stone sculpted in the form of maritime objects such as ship ropes, coral, sea life, sailors, and seaweeds.Jerónimos is inland from the Monument of the Discoveries, in an open square once the main site of the 1940 Double Centenary Exposition of the Portuguese World, a kind of Lisbon world's fair. -
8 Discoveries, Monument of the
Located on the Tagus shore in Belém, not far from the Tower of Belém and the Jerónimos Monastery, the Monument of the Discoveries is a stone tribute of relatively recent origin. Built originally in 1940, as part of the Estado Novo's Double Centenary Exposition of the Portuguese World, the Monument of the Discoveries was constructed of temporary, lightweight materials. Unlike most of the exposition's constructions, however, the monument was not torn down after the exposition closed in December 1940. It remained in place and was reconstructed out of permanent materials and stone in time for the 1960 celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry of Aviz (Prince Henry the Navigator).The monument is the work of sculptor Leopoldo de Almeida. It is complemented by an enormous mosaic wind rose showing the points of the compass, which was contributed by the Union of South Africa and is set in the open square just inland from the monument. This modern construction forms an imposing caravel in full sail, with Prince Henry the Navigator at the prow and a group of the country's chief navigators and sailors behind him. Notably, Columbus, who sailed for Spain, is not among them.Historical dictionary of Portugal > Discoveries, Monument of the
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