Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins

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Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins (1845 – 24 August 1894) was a Portuguese writer.

The historian, economist, anthropologist, social critic and politician Joaquim de Oliveira Martins’ actions and work were not only simultaneously controversial and influential among historians, critics and literati of both his own day and the 20th century, but have remained so in contemporary Portuguese political life.

From 1867 onwards Oliveira Martins experimented with various kinds of cultural media: historical novels and drama, and essays setting out historical, political and doctrinal thoughts. However, these early attempts, which varied in quality, were not very successful. His intellectual path took a new course when in 1879 he began to publish the Biblioteca das Ciências Sociais [Library of the Social Sciences], which he wrote himself. Although he was not subject to either the doctrinal intentions or the spirit of the dominant intellectual system of the day (positivism and various forms of determinism), he did sometimes express them in his writing. The scope and diversity of the subject matters he sought to address – the history of the Peninsula, Portuguese national and colonial history, the history of Rome, anthropology, religious myths, demography, economic and financial topics and more besides – made the collection a project that was unprecedented in the cultural milieu of Regeneration Portugal. Its objective was to make a whole range of areas of knowledge available to large numbers of people. This editorial venture was marked by Oliveira Martins’ autodidactic work, his limitless scientific curiosity and a very evident interdisciplinary and globalising bent. At the end of the day, it is possible to say that the historian’s autodidactic nature is indissociable from his biographical and professional path.

In reality, due to his father’s death Oliveira Martins had to leave high school early and instead go to work as an employee in two shops (1858-70), before moving on to become the director of a mine in Andalusia (Santa Eufémia, 1870-74). Back in Portugal he oversaw the building of the railway line from Oporto to Póvoa and Famalicão and was a director of the local railway company. In the meantime he was elected President of the Oporto Commercial Geographical Society (SGCP, 1880) and was then appointed Director of the Oporto Industrial and Commercial Museum (MICP, 1884). In addition he was a director of the Régie dos Tabacos (the tobacco monopoly) from 1888 and the Companhia de Moçambique in 1888-90, and was a member of the executive committee of the Portuguese Industrial Exposition (1888).

In 1885 Oliveira Martins expanded his experience as a press editor with the creation of A Província (1885), followed by O Repórter (1888) in Lisbon. In addition to these very varied professional experiences and following several unsuccessful attempts at election to parliament (1878-83), convinced of the need for a far-reaching reform of Portuguese political life he joined the Progressist Party (1885), as a member of which he was to be the driving force behind the so-called ‘New Life’. He became an MP (for successive terms from 1886 to 1894) and then in 1899 was appointed Finance Minister in José Dias Ferreira’s cabinet. However, due to differences of opinion with the Prime Minister, he only occupied this position for four months.

It is possible to discern a number of different phases in his extensive written output:

       1. 1867-1871: the beginning, using a variety of media (historical novels, drama, chronicles and literary, artistic, social and political criticism); this was a syncretic phase in which he experimented with ideas and made some initial attempts at criticism.

       2. 1872-78: first attempt at thematic history (1872 and 1878); social and political criticism; doctrinal texts and reflections about socialism (1872-73); current-day chronicles on a variety of topics (Revista Ocidental, 1875); he developed and broadened the problematical extent of his earlier experiments and focused on three major areas – social and political history and thoughts and studies on financial matters. Following the failure of the Republic in Spain, he quickly changed from being an apologist for a social and federalist republic to an acute critic of republicanism (1873-74) and a theorist of dogmatic socialism.

       3. 1879-1885: publication of the wide-ranging Biblioteca das Ciências Sociais, in which the results of the author’s self-taught knowledge were passed on to the public. He outlined a vast project for the dissemination of cultural and scientific knowledge, deepened the structure of the way in which the history of Portugal was seen and opened up new fields of interest for his scientific curiosity: geography, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, collective psychology and economics.

       4. 1885-1894: political chronicles in the press, historical essays (e.g. Portugal nos Mares [Portugal on the Seas]), historical biographies and travel stories (set in England and Spain). This partly corresponds to his most active political phase (1885-1892), the abandonment of the Biblioteca das Ciências Sociais project and the conception of a plan for a series of historical biographies (from 1889), in which he concentrated his attention on the golden period of Portuguese history (from the end of the 14th to the 16th centuries) and the personages who were most representative of it (the children of King Dom João I, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Dom João II). As he saw it, this powerful time offered the best political and ethical examples for the present day.

On both the historiographical and the politico-ideological planes, Oliveira Martins occupies a singular place in the Portuguese cultural and political panorama of the second half of the 19th century and one that steadfastly refuses any attempt at labelling. A theoretician of Proudhon-inspired socialism who then evolved towards a recognition of the importance of authority and raison d’état? The mentor of the ‘Vencidos da Vida’ (Vanquished by Life) group at the end of the 1880’s? A romantic historian who cultivated a narrative and dramatic history that was also expressed in an artistic vein? A metaphysical, pessimistic historian who was an historical philosopher? The disseminator of an evolutionist and Darwinian anthropology? It is undoubtedly possible to see him as all these things; but it is also true that he never ceased to display a scientific (see História da Civilização Ibérica [History of the Iberian Civilisation], 1879, for example) and theoretical intentionality that entailed the integration of a variety of methods and types of knowledge (geography, anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, history) in a global interpretation of the historical evolution of both his own nation and humanity as a whole.

Just as he also revealed – above all in the historical biographies he wrote towards the end of his life – both undeniable literary and essayistic qualities and a true commitment to the use of sources, which he used to attempt to support his works. Nor should we forget his concern to unceasingly review his earlier output and points of view: we may recall the successive restructurings to which he subjected the Biblioteca das Ciências Sociais, the revision of História de Portugal in the light of the various criticisms that had been aimed at it, the reworking of Os Lusíadas. Ensaio sobre Camões e a sua obra ([Os Lusíadas. An essay on Camões and his work] original version, 1872) in 1891, or the different proposals for dividing Portuguese history into periods that he adopted one after another. Which is not to say that his qualities as a very artistically gifted writer of prose did not sometimes override the demands of historical rigueur.

On the political level the uneven way in which his contemporaries judged his interventions in Portuguese society is symptomatic. It is a fact that he accepted support from ‘regenerators’ when he ran for parliament on an independent ticket (1878), just as he agreed to be an official candidate for the Portuguese Socialist Workers’ Party during the 1879 elections and to join a republican electoral list for the municipal elections in Oporto in 1883. His reforming intentions when he joined the Progressist Party are well known (1885). However, this episode, which has been heavily criticised and widely discussed, must be seen in the light of Oliveira Martins’ assessment of both Portuguese political life and its inadequacies in terms of the relationship between politicians and society at large and above all the limitations to which public opinion was subject. Nor must we ever loose sight of the overall framework posed by his reformist, independent and supra-party project – one for which he nonetheless sought the participation of the political parties – or fail to take into account his subordination of the formal issue of the regime (an attitude which he shared with Antero de Quental). The multiplicity of points of view on which he continually touched in his extremely diverse theoretical reflections make understanding his legacy a very much more complex task.

Even today the work of Oliveira Martins generates interpretations and judgements that are as divergent as they were a century ago – above all when it comes to his historiography and the social and political thoughts he left us. What continues to be impossible to deny is the indelible presence among us of both his critical spirit and the fine lucidity with which he understood the Portuguese problems.

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Active Bibliography (selected works)

       · Febo Moniz, Lisbon, Empresa Lusitana Ed., undated (1867);

       · Os Lusíadas. Ensaio sobre Camões e a sua obra, em relação à sociedade portuguesa e ao movimento da Renascença, Oporto, Imprensa Portuguesa Ed., 1872;

       · Teoria do socialismo (pref. by António Sérgio), Lisbon, 1952 (1st ed., 1872);

       · Portugal e o Socialismo (pref. by António Sérgio), 2nd ed., Lisbon, 1953 (1873);

       · A circulação fiduciária. Memória apresentada à Academia Real das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon, PAMP, 1923 (1878);

       · História da civilização ibérica, 8th ed., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1946 (1st ed., 1879);

       · História de Portugal. Critical edition (intro. by Isabel de Faria e Albuquerque and pref. by Martim de Albuquerque), Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, undated [1988];

       · Portugal Contemporâneo, 3 vols., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores,, 1953 (1st ed., 1881);

       · O Brasil e as colónias portuguesas, 5th ed., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1920 (1st ed., 1880);

       · Elementos de Antropologia, 7th ed., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1954 (1880);

       · As raças humanas e a civilização primitiva, 4th ed., 2 vols., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1921 (1881);

       · Sistema dos mitos religiosos (pref. by José Marinho), 4th ed., Lisbon, 1986 (1882);

       · Quadro das instituições primitivas, 3rd ed., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1909 (1883);

       · O Regime das riquezas, 3rd ed., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1917 (1883);

       · Tábuas de cronologia e geografia histórica, Lisbon, Livraria de António Maria Pereira Ed., undated (1st ed., 1884);

       · Política e economia nacional, 2nd ed., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1954 (1st ed, 1885);

       · História da República Romana, 4th ed., 2 vols., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1927 (1885);

       · Camões, Os Lusíadas e a Renascença em Portugal, 4th ed., Lisbon, Guimarães Ed., 1986 (text is that of the 2nd ed., 1891);

       · Portugal nos Mares, Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1994 (1889 and 1924);

       · Os filhos de D. João I, 2 vols., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1983 (1st ed., 1891);

       · A vida de Nun'Álvares, 9th ed., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1984 (1st ed., 1893);

       · A Inglaterra de hoje, Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1951 (1893);

       · Cartas peninsulares, Lisbon, Liv. António M. Pereira, 1895;

       · O Príncipe Perfeito (pref. by H. Barros Gomes), 6th ed., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1984;

       · Dispersos (select., pref. and notes by António Sérgio), 2 vols., Lisbon, Oficinas Gráficas da Biblioteca Nacional, 1924;

       · Correspondência de J.P. de Oliveira Martins, (pref. and annotations by F.A. de Oliveira Martins), Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1926;

       · Perfis (pref. by Luís de Magalhães), Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1930;

       · Páginas desconhecidas (Intro., co-ord. and notes by Lopes de Oliveira), Lisbon, Seara Nova, 1948;

       · Literatura e filosofia (pref. by Cabral do Nascimento), Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1955;

       · O Jornal, Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1960;

       · Política e história, 2 vols., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1957;

       · Fomento rural e emigração, 3rd ed., Lisbon, Guimarães Editores, 1994.

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Passive Bibliography

       · Cadernos do Noroeste. Actas do Colóquio Oliveira Martins, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, vol.7, nº 1, 1994;

       · Pedro CALAFATE (intro. and select. of texts), Oliveira Martins, Lisbon, Ed. Verbo, 1990;

       · Fernando CATROGA, "História e ciências sociais em Oliveira Martins", in História da História em Portugal sécs. XIX-XX, Lisbon, Círculo de Leitores, 1996, pp. 117-159;

       · Fidelino de FIGUEIREDO, História d'um "Vencido da Vida", Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1930;

       · Paulo FRANCHETTI, "No centenário da morte de Oliveira Martins", J.M. Eça de Queiroz, J.P. Oliveira Martins, Correspondência, São Paulo, UNICAMP, 1995;

       · V. Magalhães GODINHO, Ensaios III. Sobre teoria da história e historiografia, Lisbon, Sá da Costa, 1971;

       · Manuel Viegas GUERREIRO, Temas de antropologia em Oliveira Martins, Lisbon, ICLP, 1986;

       · Amadeu Carvalho HOMEM, "Oliveira Martins", História de Portugal (dir. by João Medina), vol. IX, Lisbon, Ediclube, 1993, pp.145-148;

       · Inventário do espólio de Oliveira Martins (org. by Maria José Marinho and A. Braz de Oliveira; chrono. by Carlos Maurício), Lisbon, 1995;

       · Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins. In Memoriam, no location, undated (1902);

       · Eduardo LOURENÇO, "Lembrança de Oliveira Martins - história e mito", Oliveira Martins e os críticos da História de Portugal, Lisbon, IBNL, 1995;

       · Álvaro M. MACHADO, Les romantismos au Portugal. Modèles étrangers et orientations nationales, Paris, CGF, 1986;

       · Guilherme de Oliveira MARTINS, Oliveira Martins. Uma biografia (pref. by Eduardo Lourenço), Lisbon, undated;

       · Sérgio Campos MATOS, "Na génese da teoria do herói em Oliveira Martins", Estudos em homenagem a Jorge Borges de Macedo, Lisbon, INIC, 1992, pp. 475-504;

       · Id., Historiografia e memória nacional no Portugal do século XIX (1846-1898), Lisbon, Ed. Colibri 1998;

       · Carlos C. MAURÍCIO, A imagem humana. O caso de Oliveira Martins, 1867-1955, Lisbon, ISCTE, 1995 (typed);

       · João MEDINA, As Conferências do Casino e o socialismo em Portugal, Lisbon, Pub. D. Quixote, 1984;

       · Augusto Santos SILVA, Oliveira Martins e o socialismo, Oporto, Afrontamento, 1987;

       · Id., Palavras para um país, Lisbon, Celta, 1997;

       · Albert SILBERT, "Oliveira Martins et l'Histoire", Regards sur la génération portugaise de 1870, Paris, CGF, 1970;

       · Abdoolkarim A. VAKIL, "Caliban na Biblioteca: Oliveira Martins, ciências sociais, cidadania e colonialismo", Estudos Portugueses e Africanos, nº 25/26, 1995, pp.109-127;

       · Id., "Leituras de Oliveira Martins. História, ciências sociais e modernidade económica" (1995), Actas do Congresso Internacional Oliveira Martins: literatura, história e política (at press).

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Works Translated into Spanish

       · História de la Civilización Ibérica (trans. Luciano Taxonera), Madrid, 1894 (there are several other editions dated 1926, 1946, etc.; there are also two editions pub. in Buenos Aires, with revision and prologue by Xavier Bóveda, 1944 and 1951, and one entitled La Civilización Ibérica, Mexico, Ed. Intercontinental, 1944);

       · Los Hijos de D. Juan I. princepes, guerreiros y navegadores fundadores de un imperio, Buenos Aires, Ed. Atalaya, 1946;

       · Navegaciones y Descobrimentos de los portugueses anteriores al viaje de Colon, Madrid, 1892 (there is a French translation by Alexandre Boutroue, Paris, 1893).

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Works Translated into English

       · The History of Iberian Civilization (trans. by Aubrey Bell and pref. by S. Madariaga), London, Oxford University Press, 1930;

       · The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator (trans. of Os filhos de D. João I with annotations by Johnston Abraham and W. E. Reynolds, London, Chapman and Hall, 1914;

       · The England of Today (trans. by C.J. Wildey), London, G. Allen, 1896.

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Iconography

Two photographs reproduced in Guilherme de Oliveira MARTINS, Oliveira Martins. Uma biografia (pref. by Eduardo Lourenço), Lisbon, undated, opposite p.208, and a third reproduced in António José Saraiva, História ilustrada das grandes literaturas. Literatura portuguesa, Lisbon, Ed. Estúdios Côr, 1966, p.240.

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Significant Extracts from a Few Works

História de Portugal. Critical edition (intro. by Isabel de Faria e Albuquerque and pref. by Martim de Albuquerque), Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, undated [1988];

"Advertência, vol. I, pp. VII-VIII (concept of history: "History is above all a moral lesson (...) an undeniable fact in the life of societies", 1.32, p. VIII);

Idem, vol. II, p. 262 (on King D. João VI: "Almost posthumous representative.... daughter of Barbadão[the King’s mistress]")

História da Civilização Ibérica, 8th ed., Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1946 (1st ed., 1879): book IV, chap. 11 pp.221-222 (Spanish mysticism: "The creative force of nature spontaneously produced a phenomenon that is unique in Europe (...) Morocco and Spain"; the future of the peoples of the Peninsula: Book Five, chap. III, pp.327-328: "We firmly believe and will even say with hand on heart (...) Spain of the past");

Portugal contemporâneo, vol. 3, Lisbon, Guimarães Ed., 1953, Book VI, chap. IV - Conclusions, pp.302-310 (reflection on Portugal and its problems in about 1881: "What it is of interest to us to know (...) Will it be graced with an awakening in time?"

História da República Romana, 4th ed., vol. II, Lisbon, Parceria A.M.Pereira, 1927 (1885), pp.357-359: "Finally! The provinces were subjected (...) had just reduced the ancient strength of the Senate to dust." (on Caesar).

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.