A view of Portugal by Catalan Gaziel
The Catalan writer Gaziel, pseudonym of Agustí Calvet (1887-1964), published Portugal enforces, in 1953. Gaziel had already visited Portugal many times, he knew its history very well, its lands from north to south, and from east to west. Gaziel was, along with Josep Pla, one of the great Catalan prose writers of the last century.
The main thesis of his book is the historical tension between the center and the periphery of the peninsula, the domination of a poor Castile over the richer periphery, which was a necessity for survival since the periphery of the Peninsula is the most dynamic, the richest . “Without the periphery, Castile would be lost, condemned to poverty and isolation,” she writes.
“How was it possible, however, – it is asked – that the peninsular belt, the richest, greenest and most populated part, needed to be shaped and united by the poorest and saddest part, which is the rough land of the interior?, “The main enterprises of the peoples of the periphery in relation to the Peninsula, were always centrifugal, because the realities and the mirages that the immense seas put in front of them were (or seemed) incomparably superior to all the lands that they had behind”.
He speaks of the Luso-Catalan ephemeris and its bittersweet taste, “the agony of Catalonia and the Renaissance of Portugal were simultaneous and synchronic”. But make no mistake, the reader, Gaziel was a great Catalanist but not a separatist. Today he did not recognize himself in ERC or Junts politicians, as Gaziel had another cultural level, much higher, and great historical wisdom. It cannot be recovered and, in fact, it is not, by the current independence supporters.
His book is, more than a reportage, a cultural and historical reflection that at the time was, naturally, not well received in official circles in Madrid. By the way, there is no translation available in Castilian. Gaziel was conservative and was not bothered too much by the Francoist regime even if the price was to remain virtually unknown outside his homeland and limited his publications to the narrow circle of the Catalan intelligentsia.
In addition to this book about Portugal, he also wrote another in his Iberian Trilogyabout Castile, castle endins (Across Castile) and some very interesting memories, Tots els camins duen a Roma (All roads lead to Rome). He was a correspondent in World War I. He defined himself as rationalist, liberal, tolerant. He fled the republican zone during the civil war, fearing for his life, without however approaching the Francoists. He belonged to that third Spain, which was horrified by the excesses of the rearguards on both sides, dedicated to reprisal and not fighting at the fronts.
Gaziel admired many things about Portugal, the city of Lisbon, “a natural capital”, he says, contrary to Madrid – which he considers an artificial capital, the work of Felipe II -, the crossing of the Tagus by ferryboat before there was a bridge, the beautiful roads – even today the old roads, with cypress trees and trees, are much more beautiful than the motorways, such as the road that connects Montemor-o-Novo to Elvas, the N 4, or the one from Beja to Serpa -, its gas pumps, immense pine forests, magnificent cinemas in Lisbon (Eden, São Jorge, Monumental), they liked the cosmopolitanism of the bourgeois classes in Portugal, who speak other languages, who have French and English culture. I can still see this when I talk to my Portuguese friends and when I see the large number of books in French and English that I can find in bookshops, witnesses of a cultured and European bourgeois elite.
Gaziel liked to travel by train and it is curious that it is the railways between Spain and Portugal that receive the most criticism, even ironic, dedicated to the already ancient and bad Lisbon-Madrid line. As it was a surprise two years ago, with the pretext of covid and we no longer even have a train, nor will we have one in the near future, I imagine that Renfe and CP administrators will laugh with indifference at these criticisms by Gaziel.
He loved the spell of Coimbra, the glory of Chiado (but not the monument by Camões, which he found ugly, like the one by Eça on Rua do Alecrim, he liked the tranquility of Setúbal -“a city with a totally Levantine aspect, a Mediterranean village, with light golden” -; on his travels I met many Portuguese friends to talk about culture and history. In a way, in his description of an enlightened traveler – not a tourist – Gaziel brings us a Portugal and above all a Lisbon that almost never there is more, with today’s mass tourism and Baixa converted into a theme park where it is already difficult to find Lisboners.
About the “spell” of Coimbra, I want to add that Gaziel summed it up in this word, hechizo 🇧🇷 encis in Catalan – something many of us who love Portugal feel. It is a country with spells, a country with a sometimes mysterious history (the school of Sagres, the discoverers and navigators, Sebastianism, Crypto-Judaism), different, with a simple art (the Manueline, the São Vicente panels, the secret gardens , Pessoa and his work with so many meanings, mythical places like Cabo da Roca and Cabo Espichel, etc).
Gaziel did not have his “back treated” – which to me is more myth than reality, more political than real. The two countries never faced completely apart, and the Spaniards always liked the Portuguese and this country, even with the obedience of their history, which we didn’t study at school, just as we didn’t study that of France or England. A few days ago I was talking to a Portuguese friend at the classic restaurant Colina, about the obedience of the Spaniards to the history of Portugal and their difficulty (or unwillingness) to speak Portuguese, which is asymmetrical because the Portuguese know Spain very well, and almost all Portuguese speak more or less Spanish. As an excuse, I told him, even in Madrid we don’t know foreign writers, so few know Gaziel and the great international classics like Narcís Oller or the esteemed poet Miquel Martí i Pol, among many others, for example.
It would be welcome, however, if some Portuguese publisher took the initiative to publish this pleasant, documented and magnificently written book by Gaziel because it is an example of how to travel, understand and describe a country beyond superficiality and those presented, a Portugal that much has already changed, but where he found, and underlined, imperishable traits.
Spanish writer residing in Portugal