“The centenary itself of Mário Soares will start on December 7, 2024, because it will be 100 years since he was born, and will last until the end of 2025, on the occasion of the centenary of Maria Barroso on May 2,” revealed to DN the coordinator of the committee that will be responsible for this evocation, José Manuel dos Santos.
Mário Soares was born on December 7, 1924 and died on January 7, 2017. Between these two dates there is contestation, resistance, exile, different forms of struggle, reaction, family, friends, governance, a party and a country. To commemorate the life of the founder of the PS, the committee is preparing a year of exhibitions, ceremonies, memories, and is counting on friends, inside and outside the party, to commemorate this life linked to the struggle for the end of the party. dictatorship and for everything that freedom and democracy would ultimately represent, such as the self-determination of the colonies, for independent countries. Later this year, in early December, the book Portugal Amordaçado was re-released, now with the Imprensa Nacional seal. It is “even the most important book that is the memory of the history of the struggle against the dictatorship, led by a fighter,” João Soares, the author’s son, told DN at the time.
“But this was not yet the beginning of the centenary,” confirmed José Manuel dos Santos. We are still a year away from the anniversary, but “that does not prevent things from being published in advance, namely the book, which would also be published if there were no centenary. There are a lot of people who want to do things now. Therefore, “on April 25 we will also have something to report from Mário Soares at the age of 50,” he reveals, but sparingly. “Although we can do things together with the 50th anniversary committee [do 25 de Abril]”, he confirms, “there was no point in overlapping the centenary with the fiftieth anniversary of April 25 with many planned activities”, especially since it is a different committee, with its own activities and different objectives, which intersect. but This is Well, the centenary will start, say, in December 2024, the official year, and will continue until 2025. Then there will be the highlights, namely the celebration of sovereign bodies, exhibitions and publications. evocation, on family level and within the framework of democracy, the centenary of Maria Barroso, wife of Mário Soares, will be celebrated in May, leaving an indelible mark on the struggle for freedom and the creation of the PS.
For the time being, without a defined schedule, the life of the first Prime Minister of a constitutional government in Portugal is commemorated outside the boundaries of the Mário Soares and Maria Barroso Foundation. On February 22, 2024, the film Soares é Fixe by director Sérgio Graciano, who had already evoked Salgueiro Maia in another film, will be released in cinemas. This film adaptation of the second round of the 1986 presidential race, fought between Soares and Diogo Freitas do Amaral, recalls the slogan of the campaign that led the former President of the Republic to a new victory in democracy.
With all the options to commemorate Mário Soares on the table, José Manuel dos Santos emphasizes that the committee is “already thinking about exhibitions”, although they have not yet agreed on the institutions and the places where they will take place. “That’s why we can’t move the dates forward,” continues the event curator. “We have already made the rounds to all the sovereign bodies, courts, universities, international and national, where Mário Soares is an honorary doctor, academies to which he belonged, clubs, the Portuguese Association of Authors, student associations, parties of the Socialist International,” he concludes , about this round date that crosses the 160 years of Diário de Notícias.
Source: DN
