Joaquim Romero Magalhães, 76 years old, died this morning at his home in Coimbra, confirmed the Sul Informação from a source connected to the family.
The Algarve historian and researcher, retired full professor at the University of Coimbra, where he dedicated himself mainly to researching Economic History, especially in his native Algarve, was born in Loulé, where he was born in 1942.
Recognizing his career and exemplary life, the University of Algarve had awarded him, a few days ago, on 12 December, the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, in an emotional ceremony that the Sul Informação followed.
Details of his funeral ceremonies are still unknown. The Algarve historian had been sick in the summer, having even been hospitalized, but he had been improving in recent months. At the honorary doctorate ceremony, although weakened, he showed all his intellectual vitality.
Here's a brief biography by Joaquim Romero Magalhães, based on the speech by Maria Leonor Costa, professor at the Higher Institute of Economics and Management (ISEG), who was her godmother in the Honoris Causa Doctorate to the Algarvian academic:
Born in 1942 in Loulé. attended high school in Faro and went to Coimbra in 1959, passing the Law in favor of History the following year.
As a student, he participated in academic associations, then one of the most expressive forms of civic and political intervention for a young student in a country under dictatorship. The regime, by repressing the “so-called academic crisis” of 1962 with police forces, would arouse interest in political activity in this generation, making it the protagonist of resistance to the Estado Novo.
Member of the Republic of Prakistan, Joaquim Romero Magalhães was president of the Teatro dos Estudantes of the University of Coimbra and president of the Academic Association of Coimbra in the critical years of 1962 and 1963.
He defended his degree thesis in 1967 and a little later, after a very brief period as a secondary school teacher, in 1973 began his teaching career at the Faculty of Economics of that university. There, he took his Doctorate exams in 1984 and of aggregation exams in 1993. He held the position of full professor in 1994, having been retired professor since 2012.
As soon as he prepared the final exams for his degree, he found good reasons to look at the region where he was born. He wrote an innovative portrait of the Algarve that interested the prestigious publisher “Cosmos editions”, which in those late 1960s distinguished itself in the Portuguese publishing panorama for delivering collections to directors aware that scientific and cultural dissemination is a means of civic intervention.
His first work printed in 1970 with the title “For the study of the economic Algarve during the XNUMXth century” came out in the Marcha da Humanidade collection, directed by his master Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, another notable figure in Portuguese culture, who revolutionized historiography and who he saw in Joaquim Romero Magalhães his natural intellectual heir.
The revolution of April 25, 1974 changed the march of Portugal, calling Dr. Joaquim Romero Magalhães to the center of decisions that would profoundly transform Portuguese society. In 1976, the country met a new political constitution. Joaquim Romero Magalhães in his youth, then aged 34, made a decisive contribution to this phase of national life, as an elected deputy to the Constituent Assembly.
He is today, as such, Honorary Deputy to the Assembly of the Republic, a distinction that the Portuguese parliament unanimously decided to award in March 2016 to the deputies of the Constituent Assembly, considering it a worthy way to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the approval of the 1976 Constitution of the Portuguese Republic , to which the plurality of political views represented by the different deputies to the Constituent Assembly contributed greatly.
In addition to being a deputy, Joaquim Romero Magalhães gave more service to the cause and public affairs, being Secretary of State for Pedagogical Guidance between 1976-1978.
His personal qualities and the trust he deserved from the living national forces in various electoral cycles justify his continued intervention in the life of the municipality of Coimbra, as president of the Municipal Assembly between 1986 and 1998.
For several academic years between 1985 and 1999 he held management positions at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, either as chairman of the Board of Directors or as chairman of the Scientific Council (1989-1991, 1996-1999), certainly because for such functions he is equally important the consideration and trust of peers.
It is also for his pragmatic qualities, but also for his sensitivity adjusted to the exercise of diplomacy, that he was entrusted with the presidency of the National Commission for the Commemorations of the Portuguese Discoveries, with the position of General Commissioner between 1999-2002. Actions and virtues duly noted with six decorations, five of which were awarded by the Brazilian state and one by the Portuguese state.
Other biographical data (source – University of Coimbra):
Degree in History from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra (1967); graduated with the State Examination of High School Teacher (1971); Doctor (1984), Aggregate (1993) and Professor Emeritus (2012) at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra.
Guest professor at Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris (1989 and 1999); the University of São Paulo (1991 and 1997); and from Yale University (2003); Foreign correspondent partner of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute (2001).
coordinated at the dawn of modernity, vol. III of the History of Portugal directed by José Mattoso (1993). Recently published Here comes the Republic! 1906-1910 (2009). In the University Press he is bringing together a scattered work with the generic title of munitions, three volumes (2011-2012).
President of the Theater of Students of the University of Coimbra (1963), President of the Academic Association of Coimbra (1964); Member of the Constituent Assembly of the Portuguese Republic (1975-1976); Secretary of State for Pedagogical Guidance for the governments presided over by Mário Soares (1976-1978); President of the Board of Directors of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (1985-1989 and 1991-1993); General Commissioner of the National Commission for the Commemorations of the Portuguese Discoveries (1999-2002), and director of Oceanos magazine (1999-2001). Member of the Consultative Committee for the Commemorations of the Centenary of the Republic (2009-2011).
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