Óscar Carmona
António Óscar Fragoso Carmona, BTO, ComC, GCA, ComSE, was the 96th Prime Minister of Portugal and 11th President of Portugal, having been Minister of War in 1923. Carmona was a republican and a freemason, was a quick adherent to the proclamation of the Portuguese First Republic on 5 October 1910, he was, never a sympathizer of the democratic form of government and – as he would confess in an interview to António Ferro – he only voted for the first time at the National Plebiscite of 1933. During the First Republic, he served as War Minister in the government of António Ginestal Machado in 1923. Unlike the popular marshal Gomes da Costa, Carmona had not seen action in World War I. Carmona was active in the 28th May coup d'état of 1926 that overthrew the First Republic; the first Council President, commandant José Mendes Cabeçadas, a democratic sympathizer supported by the last republican president, Bernardino Machado, was succeeded in June by Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa. Carmona, the Minister for Foreign Affairs between 3 June and 6 July, was the leader of the most conservative and authoritarian wing of the military regime, which considered the more moderate Gomes da Costa a liability.
On 9 July, he led a countercoup together with general João José Sinel de Cordes, named himself President, assumed dictatorial powers. He was formally elected as the only candidate. In 1928 Carmona appointed António de Oliveira Salazar as Minister of Finance. Impressed by Salazar's charisma and qualities, Carmona nominated Salazar as Prime Minister in 1932, turned over control of the government to him. In 1933, a new constitution established the "Estado Novo". On paper, the new document codified the dictatorial powers Carmona had exercised since 1928. However, in practice he was now little more than a figurehead, he was reelected without opposition in 1942 for seven-year terms. In 1935, he reluctantly signed the law that forbade Freemasonary in Portugal, due to his Freemason past. Although the democratic opposition was allowed to contest elections after World War II, Carmona was not on friendly terms with it; when the opposition demanded that the elections be delayed in order to give them more time to organize, Carmona turned them down.
However, there were widespread rumours that Carmona supported the failed military uprising in 1948, led by general José Marques Godinho, to overthrow Salazar, under the condition that he would remain as President of the Republic. To end these rumours, Carmona accepted the title of Marshal. In 1949, Carmona, 79 years old, sought his fourth term as president. For the first time, he faced an opponent in General José Norton de Matos. However, after the regime refused to grant Matos any freedom to run a campaign, he pulled out of the race on 12 February, handing Carmona another term. Carmona died two years in 1951, after 24 years as the President of the Republic, he was buried in the Church of National Pantheon, in Lisbon. In January 1914, Carmona married Maria do Carmo Ferreira da Silva, daughter of Germano da Silva and wife Engrácia de Jesus. With this marriage he legitimized their three children, he is the grand-uncle of the former Mayor of Lisbon Carmona Rodrigues. He is cousin of Brazilian President Augusto Tasso Fragoso.
Commander of the Order of Aviz, Portugal Commander of the Order of Saint James of the Sword, Portugal Commander of the Order of Christ, Portugal Grand-Cross of the Order of Aviz, Portugal Grande Master of the Portuguese Honorific Orders, Portugal Grand-Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, Italy Grand-Collar of the Imperial Order of the Red Arrows, Spain Carmona wrote a book of rules for the Cavalry School in 1913. The town of Uíge, Angola was called Carmona after him, it had this name until 1975. Newspaper clippings about Óscar Carmona in the 20th Century Press Archives of the German National Library of Economics
António Maria da Silva
António Maria da Silva, GCTE was a Portuguese politician. An engineer, he was a prominent member of the Portuguese Republican Party, he was Prime Minister for four times, during the Portuguese First Republic. After his party victory in the legislative elections of 8 November 1925, he was invited to form government, he led a great campaign against President Manuel Teixeira Gomes. He would be the last Prime Minister of the 1st Republic, resigning two days after the 28 May 1926 military movement
Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa
Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa, GOTE, GCA, GOA known as Manuel Gomes da Costa, or just Gomes da Costa, was a Portuguese army officer and politician, the tenth President of the Portuguese Republic and the second of the Ditadura Nacional. Gomes da Costa was born to Madalena de Oliveira, he began his military career at the Colégio Militar at age 10. As a soldier, he stood out in colonial campaigns in the Indian colonies. After Portugal had entered the First World War on the Allied side in early 1917, he commanded the Second Division of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps. During the Battle of the Lys on April 9, 1918, the CEP lost 400 dead and around 6,500 prisoners, a third of its forces in the front line. Gomes da Costa's division was hit hard and was all but wiped out. For his command in the war, he was made a Grand Officer of the Military Order of Avis. Two years on October 5, 1921 he received the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Avis. A convinced monarchist, Gomes da Costa had consorted with people of various political convictions.
That, his reputation as a soldier, led to his choice by right-wing revolutionaries to lead the 28 May 1926 coup d'état in Braga that overthrew the Portuguese First Republic, after General Alves Roçadas, their original choice, had died. After the success of the revolution he did not assume power at first, entrusting the posts of President of the Republic and President of the Council of Ministers to José Mendes Cabeçadas, the leader of the revolution in Lisbon. Soon the coup leaders disliked the attitude of Mendes Cabeçadas, a choice of the previous president Bernardino Machado and still sympathetic towards the old republic, he was replaced by Gomes da Costa in both posts in a meeting in Sacavém on June 17, 1926. The new government was the first to include the prime minister and dictator of Portugal, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, as finance minister. Gomes da Costa's government lasted about as long as Cabeçadas', because it was overthrown by a new coup on July 9 of the same year; this attempt was initiated by João José Sinel de Cordes and Óscar Carmona, after Gomes da Costa attempted to have Carmona removed as minister for foreign affairs.
Carmona, the new President of the Republic and of the Council of Ministers, used the pretext that Gomes da Costa was "unfit for office" and had him sent to exile in the Azores Islands. However, he made him a Marshal of the Portuguese Army. In September 1927, he returned to mainland Portugal very ill. On May 15, 1885 in Penamacor Gomes da Costa married Henriqueta Júlia de Mira Godinho, by whom he had three children. Gomes da Costa was the father-in-law of Pedro Francisco Massano de Amorim, Governor of Gaza, Angola and India. Grand Officer of the Order of Aviz, Portugal Grand Officer of the Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour and Merit, Portugal Grand Cross of the Order of Aviz, Portugal List of Presidents of Portugal List of Prime Ministers of Portugal Portuguese First Republic Ditadura Nacional Estado Novo History of Portugal Timeline of Portuguese history Politics of Portugal
First Portuguese Republic
The First Portuguese Republic spans a complex 16-year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May 1926 coup d'état. The latter movement instituted a military dictatorship known as Ditadura Nacional that would be followed by the corporatist Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar; the sixteen years of the First Republic saw nine presidents and 44 ministries, have been described as consisting of "continual anarchy, government corruption and pillage, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution". As far as the October 1910 Revolution is concerned, a number of valuable studies have been made, first among which ranks Vasco Pulido Valente’s polemical thesis; this historian posited the Jacobin and urban nature of the revolution carried out by the Portuguese Republican Party and claimed that the PRP had turned the republican regime into a de facto dictatorship. This vision clashes with an older interpretation of the First Republic as a progressive and democratic regime which presented a clear contrast to Salazar’s ensuing dictatorship.
A republican Constitution was approved in 1911, inaugurating a parliamentary regime with reduced presidential powers and two chambers of parliament. The constitution accorded full civil liberties, the religious liberties of Catholics being an exception; the First Republic was intensely anti-clerical. The leaders of the Republic were secularists and, were following liberal tradition of disestablishing the powerful role the Catholic Church once held. Historian Stanley Payne points out, "The majority of Republicans took the position that Catholicism was the number one enemy of individualist middle-class radicalism and must be broken as a source of influence in Portugal." Under the leadership of Afonso Costa, the justice minister, the revolution targeted the Catholic Church: churches were plundered, convents were attacked and clergy were harassed. Scarcely had the provisional government been installed when it began devoting its entire attention to an anti-religious policy, in spite of the disastrous economic situation.
On 10 October – five days after the inauguration of the Republic – the new government decreed that all convents and religious orders were to be suppressed. All residents of religious institutions were expelled and their goods confiscated; the Jesuits were forced to forfeit their Portuguese citizenship. A series of anti-Catholic laws and decrees followed each other in rapid succession. On 3 November, a law legalizing divorce was passed and there were laws to recognize the legitimacy of children born outside wedlock, authorize cremation, secularize cemeteries, suppress religious teaching in the schools and prohibit the wearing of the cassock. In addition, the ringing of church bells to signal times of worship was subjected to certain restraints, the public celebration of religious feasts was suppressed; the government interfered in the running of seminaries, reserving the right to appoint professors and determine curricula. This whole series of laws authored by Afonso Costa culminated in the law of Separation of Church and State, passed on 20 April 1911.
The republicans were anticlerical and had a "hostile" approach to the issue of church and state separation, like that of the French Revolution, the future Mexican Constitution of 1917 and Spanish Constitution of 1931. On 24 May 1911, Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Iamdudum which condemned the anticlericalism of the new republic for its deprivation of religious civil liberties and the "incredible series of excesses and crimes, enacted in Portugal for the oppression of the Church." The PRP had to endure the secession of its more moderate elements, who formed conservative republican parties such as the Evolutionist Party and the Republican Union. In spite of these splits the PRP, led by Afonso Costa, preserved its dominance due to a brand of clientelist politics inherited from the monarchy. In view of these tactics, a number of opposition forces resorted to violence in order to enjoy the fruits of power. There are few recent studies of this period of the Republic's existence, known as the ‘old’ Republic.
An essay by Vasco Pulido Valente should be consulted, as should the attempt to establish the political and economic context made by M. Villaverde Cabral; the Republic repelled a royalist attack on Chaves in 1912. The PRP viewed the outbreak of the First World War as a unique opportunity to achieve a number of goals: putting an end to the twin threats of a Spanish invasion of Portugal and of foreign occupation of the colonies and, at the internal level, creating a national consensus around the regime and around the party; these domestic objectives were not met, since participation in the conflict was not the subject of a national consensus and since it did not therefore serve to mobilise the population. Quite the opposite occurred: existing lines of political and ideological fracture were deepened by Portugal's intervention in the First World War; the lack of consensus around Portugal's intervention in turn made possible the appearance of two dictatorships, led by General Pimenta de Castro and Sidónio Pais.
Sidonismo known as Dezembrismo, aroused a strong interest among historians as a result of the elements of modernity that it contained. António José Telo has made clear the way in which this regime predated some of the political solutions invented by the totalitarian and fascist dictatorship
Portuguese Communist Party
The Portuguese Communist Party is a major political party in Portugal. It is a Marxist–Leninist party, its organization is based upon democratic centralism; the party considers itself patriotic and internationalist. The party was founded in 1921 as the Portuguese section of the Communist International. Made illegal after a coup in the late 1920s, the PCP played a major role in the opposition to the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. During the five-decades-long dictatorship, the party was suppressed by the political police, the PIDE, which forced its members to live in clandestine status under the threat of arrest and murder. After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, which overthrew the 48-year regime, the 36 members of party's Central Committee had, in the aggregate, experienced more than 300 years in jail. After the end of the dictatorship, the party became a major political force in the newly democratic state among the working class. Despite being less influential since the fall of the Socialist bloc in eastern Europe, the party still enjoys popularity in large sectors of Portuguese society in the rural areas of the Alentejo and Ribatejo, in the industrialized areas around Lisbon and Setúbal, where it holds the leadership of several municipalities.
The Party publishes the weekly Avante!, founded in 1931. Its youth organization is the Portuguese Communist Youth, a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. At the end of World War I, in 1918, Portugal fell into a serious economic crisis, in part due to the Portuguese military intervention in the war; the Portuguese working classes responded to the deterioration in their living standards with a wave of strikes. Supported by an emerging labour movement, the workers achieved some of their objectives, such as an eight-hour working day. In September 1919, the working-class movement founded the first Portuguese Labour Union Confederation, the General Confederation of Labour; the goal of FMP was to promote socialist and revolutionary ideas and to organize and develop the worker movement. After some time, members of the FMP began to feel the need for a "revolutionary vanguard" among Portuguese workers. After several meetings at various trade union offices, with the aid of the Comintern, this desire culminated in the foundation of the Portuguese Communist Party as the Portuguese Section of the Comintern on 6 March 1921.
Unlike all other European communist parties, the PCP was not formed after a split of a social democratic or socialist party, but from the ranks of anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary syndicalist groups, the most active factions in the Portuguese labour movement. The party opened. Seven months after its creation, the first issue of O Comunista, the first newspaper of the party, was published; the first congress of the party took place in Lisbon with Carlos Rates as leader. The congress was attended by about a hundred members of the party and asserted its solidarity with socialism in the Soviet Union and the need for a strong struggle for similar policies in Portugal. After the military coup of 28 May 1926, the party had to operate in secrecy. By coincidence, the coup was carried out on the eve of the second congress, forcing the suspension of party business. In 1927, the party's main office was closed; the party was first re-organized in 1929 under Bento Gonçalves. Adapting the its new illegal status, the party re-organized as a network of clandestine cells.
Meanwhile, in 1938, the PCP had been expelled from the Comintern. The reason for the expulsion was a sense of distrust in the Comintern caused by a sudden breakdown in the party's activity after a period of strong communist tumult in the country, accusations of alleged embezzlement of money carried out by some important members of the party and the weak internal structure of the party, dominated by internal wars; the action against the PCP, signed by Georgi Dimitrov, was in part taken due to some persecution against Comintern member parties or persons led by Joseph Stalin. These series of events would, in part, lead to the end of the Comintern in 1943; the PCP would only re-establish its relations with the communist movement and the Soviet Union in 1947, after sporadic contacts made through the communist parties of Spain and France and through Mikhail Suslov. After the 1933 rise of Salazar's dictatorial Estado Novo regime, suppression of the party grew. Many members were arrested and executed.
Many were sent to the Tarrafal concentration camp in the Cape Verde Islands. This included Bento Gonçalves; the vast wave of arrests led to a major re-organization in 1940 and 1941, named the "Reorganization of'40". The first congress held after these changes was held in 1943, stated that the party should unite with all those who wanted an end to the dictatorship. Another important conclusion was the need to increase the party's influence inside the Portuguese army; the party was able, for the first time, to assure a strong clandestine organization, with a network of clandestine cadres, which would aid the resistance against Salazar's regime. In 1945, with the defeat of th
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar was a Portuguese statesman who served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He was responsible for the Estado Novo, the corporatist authoritarian government that ruled Portugal until 1974. A trained economist, Salazar entered public life with the support of President Óscar Carmona after the Portuguese coup d'état of 28 May 1926 as finance minister and as prime minister. Opposed to democracy, socialism and liberalism, Salazar's rule was conservative and nationalist in nature. Salazar distanced himself from fascism and Nazism, which he criticized as a "pagan Caesarism" that recognised neither legal nor moral limits. Salazar promoted Catholicism, but argued that the role of the Church was social, not political, negotiated the Concordat of 1940. One of the mottos of the Salazar regime was "Deus, Pátria e Família". With the Estado Novo enabling him to exercise vast political powers, Salazar used censorship and a secret police to quell opposition that related to the Communist movement.
He supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War and played a key role in keeping Portugal and Spain neutral during World War II while still providing aid and assistance to the Allies. Despite not being a democracy, Portugal under his rule took part in the founding of important international organizations. Portugal was one of the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1949, joined the European Payments Union in 1950, was one of the founding members of the European Free Trade Association in 1960, a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1961. Under his rule Portugal joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1962, began the Portuguese Colonial War; the doctrine of Pluricontinentalism was the basis of his territorial policy, a conception of the Portuguese Empire as a unified state that spanned multiple continents. The Estado Novo collapsed four years after Salazar's death. Evaluations of his regime have varied, with supporters praising its outcomes and critics denouncing its methods.
However, there is a general consensus that Salazar was one of the most influential figures in Portuguese history. In recent decades, "new sources and methods are being employed by Portuguese historians in an attempt to come to grips with the dictatorship which lasted 48 years." Salazar was born in Vimieiro, near Santa Comba Dão, to a family of modest income on April 28, 1889. His father, a small landowner, had started as an agricultural labourer and became the manager for the Perestrelos, a family of rural landowners of the region of Santa Comba Dão who possessed lands and other assets scattered between Viseu and Coimbra, he was the only male child of two fifth cousins, António de Oliveira and his wife Maria do Resgate Salazar. His four older sisters were Maria do an elementary school teacher. Salazar attended the primary school in his small village and went to another primary school in Viseu. At age 11, he won a free place at Viseu's seminary, where he studied for eight years, from 1900 to 1908.
Salazar considered becoming a priest, but like many who entered the seminary young, he decided not to proceed to the priesthood after receiving holy orders. He went to Coimbra in 1910 during the first years of the Portuguese First Republic to study law at the University of Coimbra. During these student years in Coimbra, he developed a particular interest in finance and graduated in law with distinction, specialising in finance and economic policy, he graduated in 1914, with 19 points out of 20, a rare achievement which earned him instant fame, in the meantime, became an assistant professor of economic policy at the Law School. In 1917, he became the regent of economic policy and finance by appointment of the professor José Alberto dos Reis. In the following year, Salazar was awarded his doctorate. Salazar was twenty-one years old at the time of the revolution of 5 October 1910, which overthrew the Portuguese monarchy and instituted the First Portuguese Republic; the political institutions of the First Republic lasted until 1926, when it was replaced by a military dictatorship.
This was first known as the "Ditadura Militar" and from 1928, as the "Ditadura Nacional". The era of the First Republic has been described as one of "continual anarchy, government corruption and pillage, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution", it witnessed the inauguration of 44 cabinet re-organisations and 21 revolutions. The first government of the Republic lasted less than 10 weeks and the longest-ruling government lasted little over a year. Revolution in Portugal became a byword in Europe; the cost of living increased twenty-fivefold, while the currency fell to a 1⁄33 part of its gold value. Portugal's public finances and the economy in general entered a critical phase, having been under imminent threat of default since at least the 1890s; the gaps between the rich and the poor continued to widen. The regime led Portugal to enter World War I in 1916, a move that only aggravated the perilous state of affairs in the country. Concurrently, the Catholic Church was hounded by the anti-clerical Freemasons of the Republic and political assassination and terrorism became commonplace.
Between 1920 and
Braga
Braga is a city and a municipality in the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga, in the historical and cultural Minho Province. The city has a resident population of 192,494 inhabitants, representing the seventh largest municipality in Portugal, its area is 183.40 km². Its agglomerated urban area extends from the Cávado River to the Este River, it is the third-largest urban centre in Portugal The city was the European Youth Capital in 2012. It is host to the oldest Portuguese archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church and it is the seat of the Primate Archbishop of Portugal and of the Hispanias. Under the Roman Empire known as Bracara Augusta, the settlement was the capital of the province of Gallaecia. Inside of the city there is a castle tower that can be visited. Nowadays, Braga is a major hub for inland Northern Portugal. Human occupation of the region of Braga dates back thousands of years, documented by vestiges of monumental structures starting in the Megalithic era. During the Iron Age, the Castro culture extended into the northwest, characterized by Bracari peoples who occupied the high ground in strategically located fortified settlements.
The region became the domain of the Callaici Bracarii, or Bracarenses, a Celtic tribe who occupied what is now northern Portugal and Asturias in the northwest of Iberia. The Romans began their conquest of the region around 136 BC, finished it, by pacifying the northern regions, during the reign of Emperor Augustus; the civitas of Bracara Augusta was founded in 20 BC. The city of Bracara Augusta developed during the 1st century and reached its maximum extension around the 2nd century. Towards the end of the 3rd century, the Emperor Diocletian promoted the city to the status of capital of the administrative area Conventus bracarensis, the southwestern area of the newly founded Roman province of Gallaecia. During the Germanic Invasions of the Iberian Peninsula, the area was conquered by the Suebi, a Germanic people from Central Europe. In 410, the Suebi established a Kingdom in northwest Iberia covering what is present-day's Northern half of Portugal and Asturias, which they maintained as Gallaecia, had Bracara as their capital.
This kingdom was lasted for over 150 years. By about 584, the Visigoths took over control of Gallaecia from the Suebi, they renounced the Priscillianist heresies during two synods held here in the 6th century. As a consequence, the archbishops of Braga claimed the title of Primate of Portugal a county, for a long period, claimed supremacy over the entire Hispanic church. Yet, their authority was never accepted throughout Hispania. Braga had an important role in the Christianization of the Iberian Peninsula; the first known bishop of Braga, lived at the end of the 4th century, although Saint Ovidius is sometimes considered one of the first bishops of this city. In the early 5th century, Paulus Orosius wrote several theological works that expounded the Christian faith, while in the 6th century Bishop Martin of Braga converted the pagan Suebi and Visigoths from Arianism to Catholicism. At the time, Martin founded an important monastery in Dumio, it was in Braga that Archbishopric of Braga held their councils.
The transition from Visigothic reigns to the Muslim conquest of Iberia was obscure, representing a period of decline for the city. The Moors captured Braga early in the 8th century, but were repelled by Christian forces under Alfonso III of Asturias in 868 with intermittent attacks until 1040 when they were ousted by Ferdinand I of León and Castile; as a consequence, the bishopric was restored in 1070: the first new bishop, started rebuilding the Cathedral. Between 1093 and 1147, Braga became the residential seat of the Portuguese court. In the early 12th century, Count Henry of Portugal and bishop Geraldo de Moissac reclaimed the archbishopric seat for Braga, with power over a large area in Iberia; the medieval city developed around the cathedral, with the maximum authority in the city retained by the archbishop. Braga as the main center of Christianity in Iberia, during the Reconquista, held a prominent stage in medieval politics, being a major factor/contributor to the Independence of Portugal with the intervenience of the Archbishop D. Paio Mendes in the Vatican and the Pope Alexander III, which lead to the promulgation of the Bula Manifestis Probatum in 1179 recognizing Portugal as an independent Kingdom under D. Afonso I Henriques.
The following centuries marked a slow decline in its prestige and influence marked by the infamous theft of Holy Relics by the Archbishop of Santiago of Compostela Gelmirez. The relics only returned to Braga in the 1960s. In the 16th century, due to its distance from the coast and provincial status, Braga did not profit from the adventures associated with the Age of Portuguese Discoveries. Yet, Archbishop Diogo de Sousa, who sponsored several urban improvements in the city, including the enlargement of streets, the creation of public squares and the foundation of hospitals
