José Hermano Saraiva

José Hermano Saraiva
Portugal Ambassador to Brazil
In office 1972–1974
President	Américo Tomás
Prime Minister	Marcelo Caetano
Minister of Education
In office 1968–1970
President	Américo Tomás
Prime Minister	Marcelo Caetano
Preceded by	Inocêncio Galvão Teles
Succeeded by	José Veiga Simão
Personal details
Born	José Hermano Saraiva (1919-10-28) October 28, 1919 Leiria, Portugal
Died	July 20, 2012(2012-07-20) (aged 92) Setúbal, Portugal
Spouse(s)	Maria de Lourdes de Bettencourt de Sá Nogueira
Alma mater	University of Lisbon
Profession	Historian Jurist

José Hermano Baptista Saraiva (3 October 1919 – 20 July 2012) was a Portuguese historian and jurist. He was most known as a television personality in Portugal, having been the author and presenter of several documentary series of historical divulgation in the last decades.^[1][2]

Biography

Hermano Saraiva was a professor of law and business management.^[3] He was Minister of Education of Portugal between 1968 and 1970 and ambassador to Brazil between 1972 and 1974. He lectured in the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Política Ultramarina at the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, and in private teaching institutes.

Saraiva is most famous in Portugal, but also among Portuguese communities around the world, on account of his television programs on the History of Portugal, broadcast by RTP. He was a member of the Sciences Academy of Lisbon, Portuguese Academy of History and São Paulo Historical Institute in Brazil.

Hermano Saraiva was distinguished with the Grã-Cruz da Ordem da Instrução Pública, the Grã-Cruz da Ordem do Barão do Rio Branco of Brazil, the Grã-Cruz da Ordem do Mérito do Trabalho and the Comendador da Real Ordem de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Vila Viçosa.

His supporters point out his qualities as a television communicator and of spreader of the History of Portugal to the least instructed people in the country and to the Portuguese communities outside Portugal.

In 2012 Saraiva gave a controversial interview to the Portuguese newspaper Sol raising a lot of suspicion on the Aristides Sousa Mendes myth. The Professor says that Sousa Mendes was also motivated by profit and that Sousa Mendes was making money on issuing the visas. He also says that Sousa Mendes had always lived in a dire financial situation and needed money. As evidence he cites the complaint sent by the British embassy in Lisbon to Portugal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accusing the consul in Bordeaux of requiring extra taxes from British citizens requesting visas. In his memoirs and in an interview to the Sol (newspaper) he makes the assertion that professor Leite Pinto, former Portuguese minister of education, was secretly appointed by Salazar to organize the trains that would bring to Portugal all those refugees with visas issued by Sousa Mendes as well as many others. The Professor remarks that all those thousands of refugees would never have made it to their final destinations without a complex logistic organized by Salazar's government. A stamp on a passport that was already being disputed by the Spanish authorities would have never been enough to save all those lives. Trains had to be organized to transport all those people across Spanish territory into Portugal, and in addition all those thousands of refugees had to be housed and fed. That complex, politically sensitive, logistics according to the famous history professor was put in place by Leite Pinto, at Salazar’s request.

Personal life

Hermano Saraiva was born in Leiria, the third of the six sons of José Leonardo Venâncio Saraiva (born 1 April 1881, erudite and well known professor, Mayor of Leiria and Head Master of Liceu Passos Manuel in Lisbon) and wife Maria da Ressurreição Baptista Saraiva. Amongst his siblings is António José Saraiva, a known investigator in the area of literature, and his nephew José António Saraiva worked as a journalist and architect. One of his maternal uncles was the last living Portuguese veteran of the First World War.

Saraiva married Maria de Lourdes de Bettencourt de Sá Nogueira (born 16 May 1918), daughter of Rodrigo de Sá Nogueira (born 3 December 1892, a college professor and great-nephew of Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, 1st Marquess of Sá da Bandeira) and wife Maria Luísa Rodrigues de Bettencourt (married 20 November 1915), fathering five children.

Saraiva died, aged 92, in Setúbal.

Bibliography

Academic lectures published by the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa:

• Testemunho Social e Condenação de Gil Vicente (1976)
• A Revolução de Fernão Lopes (1977)
• Elementos para uma nova biografia de Camões (1978)
• Proposta de uma Cronologia para a lírica de Camões (1981–82)
• Evocação de António Cândido (1988)
• No Centenário de Simão Bolívar (1984)
• A crise geral e a Aljubarrota de Froyssart (1988)

Works on teaching:

• Notas para uma didáctica assistencial (1964)
• Aos Estudantes (1969)
• A Pedagogia do Livro (1972)
• O Futuro da Pedagogia (1974)
• Aspirações e contradições da Pedagogia contemporânea (1970)

Legal works:

• O problema do Contrato (1949)
• A revisão constitucional e a eleição do Chefe do Estado (1959)
• Non-self-governing territories and The United Nation Charter (1960)
• Lições de Introdução ao Direito (1962–63)
• A Crise do Direito (1964)
• Apostilha Crítica ao Projecto do Código Civil (1966)
• A Lei e o Direito (1967)

History works:

• Uma carta do Infante D. Henrique (1948)
• As razões de um Centenário (1954)
• História Concisa de Portugal (1976, translated in Spanish, Italian, German, Bulgarian and Chinese)
• História de Portugal, 3 Vols – Director and co-author (1981)
• O Tempo e a Alma, 2 Vols (1986)
• Breve História de Portugal (1996)
• Portugal – Os Últimos 100 anos (1996)
• Portugal – a Companion History (1997)

Contributions for the History of the Portuguese People:

• Outras maneiras de ver (1979)
• Vida Ignorada de Camões (1980)
• Raiz madrugada (1981)
• Ditos Portugueses dignos de memória (1994)
• A memória das Cidades (1999)
• [...]

Television shows

• O Tempo e a Alma (RTP)
• A Alma e a Gente (RTP)
• Horizontes da Memória (RTP)
• A Bruma da Memória (RTP)

References

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