Historian António Borges Coelho died this Friday, October 17th. He was 97 years old, on the 7th.
The news was confirmed by the Greater Lisbon Teachers’ Union (SPGL) on its website. In the publication, SPGL highlights the historian’s life, which was “a permanent struggle for freedom, paid for with years in fascism prisons, in the dictatorship’s ban on teaching in public schools.”
According to the newspaper PublicAntónio Borges Coelho was a victim of pneumonia, after contracting Covid-19.
In the note published on its website, the SPGL highlights the “vision of History” left by the professor, who highlighted “the role and place of the anonymous people in the construction of the country”.
With the fall of the Estado Novo, Borges Coelho would become a professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon (FLUL).
“Borges Coelho will continue as an example, a master who indicates the paths to follow, in a permanent struggle, for a society of justice and true humanism”highlights SPGL.
António Borges Coelho’s life was marked by the fight against the Estado Novohaving been a leader of the PCP in hiding, which earned him arrest by the PIDE. He served two years and nine months in prison.
According to the Aljube Museum (whose advisory board he was a member of until 2020), Borges Coelho chose not to participate in the escape from Peniche, in 1960, because he refused “new clandestinity” and wanted to have “a career as a historian after liberation”.
In 1967, he graduated in Historical-Philosophical Sciences and, the following year, he became a journalist, working for some titles such as A Capital or the Lisbon Diary.
As a historian, he published several works, such as The Inquisition in Évora or The Roots of Portuguese Expansion.
During his lifetime, Borges Coelho also received several decorations, such as the Grand Cross of the Order of Freedom, from the Presidency of the Republic, or the Medal of Cultural Merit awarded by the Government.
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