Costa was the leader of the
Portuguese Republican Party
and he was one of the major figures of the
Portuguese First Republic
. He was a republican deputy in the Chamber of Deputies during the last years of the monarchy. After the proclamation of the republic, he was Minister for Justice during
Teofilo Braga
's short-lived provisional government, which lasted from 5 October 1910 to 3 September 1911.
During this period, Costa signed the controversial laws which expelled the Jesuits from Portugal, abolished all the religious orders and established the separation of church and state. These things made him a symbol of the
anticlericalism
of the First Republic. Also, he was instrumental in the passage of many progressive laws, such as those concerning divorce, family relations, civil registry of marriage, leases of property, judicial reorganization, industrial accidents and censorship of the press.
Afonso Costa with
President
Bernardino Machado
in
1917
He served as
Prime Minister
of
Portugal
three times. The first time, he was called by President
Manuel de Arriaga
to form a government, as the leader of the
Republican Democratic Party
. This term of office (which he combined with the role of Finance Minister) lasted from 9 January 1913 to 9 February 1914.
[2]
He returned to power, as Prime Minister and Finance Minister, from 29 November 1915 to 16 March 1916.
Following more political instability Costa was yet again Prime Minister, from 25 April 1917 to 8 December 1917, in a national-unity government nicknamed the
Sacred Union
, to support Portugal's entrance into
World War I
. After
Sidonio Pais
's military
coup d'etat
in December 1917, Costa went into exile in Paris and though he did sometimes return briefly to Portugal, he never again lived there, even after Pais's assassination in 1918.
After the end of the war, Costa led the Portuguese delegation to the
Paris Peace Conference
from 12 March 1919 and he signed the
Treaty of Versailles
of 28 June 1919 on behalf of Portugal. He was the Portuguese representative at the first assembly of the
League of Nations
.
On 10 July 1919 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the
Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit
.
On a number of other occasions during the First Republic, Costa received invitations to head the government again but he always refused. After the
28 May coup d'etat
, he strongly opposed the
military dictatorship
; he equally opposed the right-wing civilian Catholic
Estado Novo
(New State)
administration led from 1932 by Dr.
Salazar
. He died in Paris on 11 May 1937.
Family circumstances
edit
Costa was given up at birth as a
foundling
at the
baby hatch
of the
Santa Casa da Misericordia
(Holy House of Mercy) of the town of
Seia
in north-central
Portugal
[
citation needed
]
. By way of explanation:
"The Santa Casa da Misericordia was founded [in Lisbon] in 1582, by Jose de Anchieta, a Jesuit. It is opened to the poor of every nation and religion, and affords a refuge to foundlings and orphans. The foundlings are deposited in a revolving wheel, which is placed perpendicularly in the wall. The wheel is divided into four apartments, one of which opens without. The heartless mother who wishes to part with her infant child, has only to deposit it in the box, and a revolution of the wheel passes it within the walls, never more to be reclaimed."
[3]
Together with his older brother and sister, he was registered as a son of unknown parents with the name Afonso Maria de Ligorio. Ten years later, his parents,
Sebastiao Fernandes da Costa
and Ana Augusta Pereira, recognized him and his brother and sister. They married and readopted the children. Costa re-assumed his birth name in order to conceal the circumstances of his birth.
He was married in
Coimbra
on 15 September 1892 to
Alzira Coelho de Campos de Barros de Abreu
(born at
Oliveira do Hospital
, 20 April 1876; died at
Lisbon
, 1970), the daughter of Albano Mendes de Abreu, a
medical doctor
, and his wife, Emilia de Barros Coelho de Campos. She was the sister of the writer, Jose de Barros Mendes de Abreu, who was born at
Oleiros
, Vilar Barroco, 20 July 1878.
Costa's wife is an ancestor of the modern-day actresses,
Sofia Sa da Bandeira
and
Catarina Wallenstein
.
- ^
Baptised
at
Seia
, Santa Marinha, on 7 March 1871.
- ^
"."
The Portuguese Parliamentary Republic, 1910?1926
, by Stanley G. Payne, Chapter 23 of A History of Spain and Portugal, Volume 2
- ^
The National Magazine, by
Abel Stevens
and James Floy, Carlton & Phillips, 1854, v. 4, p. 292. (Original from Harvard University, digitized March 1, 2007.
- Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses:
Costa, Afonso
, in:
1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
.
- Leal, Ernesto Castro. "Parties and political identity: the construction of the party system of the Portuguese Republic (1910-1926)."
E-journal of Portuguese History
7#1 (2009): 37-44.
Online
[
permanent dead link
]
- Meneses, Filipe Ribeiro De.
Afonso Costa
(London: Haus Publishing, 2010); 227 pp.
excerpt
- Wheeler, Douglas L. "The Portuguese revolution of 1910."
Journal of Modern History
(1972): 172-194.
in JSTOR
- Wheeler, Douglas L.
Republican Portugal: a political history, 1910-1926
(U of Wisconsin Press, 1999)
- Fotobiografias do Seculo XX
, Photobiography of Afonso Costa, Circulo de Leitores.