Portuguese-Czechoslovak relations

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Portuguese-Czechoslovak relations
Location of Portugal and Czechoslovakia
PortugalPortugal CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia
Portugal Czechoslovakia

The Portuguese-Czechoslovakian relations encompass the intergovernmental relationship between Portugal and Czechoslovakia . Both countries established their diplomatic relations in 1921.

history

Occupation of the Czechoslovak border areas after the Munich Agreement by German troops in October 1938

After the establishment of the independent Czechoslovakia (ČSR) in 1918, the young nation was initially occupied with domestic political problems and the settlement of border disputes with its neighbors until around 1922. In 1921 Portugal and Czechoslovakia established diplomatic relations. The Portuguese-Czech relations going back to the 15th century were thus continued.

Several bilateral legal agreements followed in 1927, particularly in criminal and commercial law.

From the mid-1930s, the ČSR began to come under increasing domestic and foreign political pressure, which came to a head in early 1938 with the Sudeten crisis . The semi-fascist Estado Novo regime under Portugal's dictator Salazar, established in 1932, initially behaved neutrally in view of the increasing threat to the ČSR from Hitler's Germany . After the Czechoslovak government blocked an arms delivery to the Portuguese armed forces in 1937 , the Salazar regime broke off diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia on August 17, 1937.

In October 1938 the German Reich finally occupied the entire ČSR, which ceased to exist. The then briefly formed and greatly reduced Czecho-Slovak Republic was finally annexed in 1939 with the occupation by Nazi Germany and sank in the Second World War .

Ludvík Svoboda , President of the CSSR from 1968 to 1975

After the war ended in 1945, Czechoslovakia was restored to its former borders. According to the Yalta Agreement in 1945, the renewed ČSR now belonged to the Eastern Bloc , in 1960 it was renamed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR). The strictly anti-communist Salazar regime in Portugal, co-founder of NATO in 1949 , had no contact with Eastern Bloc countries, and thus also not with Czechoslovakia. Non-state contacts existed only very rarely and on a private level, mostly in cultural or sporting contexts. The Prague Spring 1968, which in the meantime gave hope for an opening, did nothing to change the situation.

After the Portuguese Carnation Revolution in 1974 and the end of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, the relationship then fundamentally changed and the two states resumed diplomatic relations. On November 6, 1974, the Portuguese Embassy in Prague started its work, the first Portuguese Ambassador was Charge d'Affaires Francisco Pessanha Quevedo Crespo .

After an aviation agreement in January 1976, a cultural agreement followed in June 1976, which then spurred cultural exchange, especially in literature and music.

There was no further rapprochement between Portugal and the ČSSR and the Eastern Bloc after the bourgeois forces had prevailed in the Portuguese revolution at the end of 1975. But the friendly diplomatic contacts continued. Through the activity of the Communist Party of Portugal (PCP) there were also further personal connections, and at its annual festival Festa do Avante! , which has been the largest cultural event in Portugal since 1976, technical and cultural achievements of Eastern Bloc countries such as the Czechoslovakia were often demonstrated in exhibitions. Czechoslovak authors and artists were also frequent guests in the Festa's cultural program in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Eastern Bloc, led by the Soviet Union, did not have any significant influence on the revolution in Portugal in order not to endanger the geopolitical balance. The Yalta agreements were kept, according to which Portugal belonged to the western sphere. In his memoirs, Anatoly Tschernjajew , then a member of the international department of the Central Committee of the CPSU , wrote that the USSR had simply accepted a western orientation in Portugal just as the West had accepted Czechoslovakia to remain in the Warsaw Pact despite the Prague Spring in 1968: “Czechoslovakia belongs us, Portugal you. "[the North Americans]

After an agreement on the movement of people and goods in 1978, the last Portuguese-Czechoslovakian treaty was concluded with the bilateral agreement on the recognition of various designations of origin of 1986.

In 1989 the Velvet Revolution heralded the end of socialist Czechoslovakia, which ceased to exist for good in 1990 and was replaced by the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (ČSFR).

Relations between the two countries intensified afterwards, in particular through the efforts of Václav Havel and Mário Soares , who was also honored by the University of Prague.

The Portuguese Embassy in Prague

diplomacy

In 1974, Portugal established its embassy at Na Zátorce 10 in the Bubeneč district of Prague 6 .

The Czech embassy in Lisbon is located at 14 Rua Pêro de Alenquer in the São Francisco Xavier community in the Belém district of Lisbon .

Culture

Bohumil Hrabal (1985), one of the most frequently translated authors from the Czech Republic in Portugal

In 1976 Czechoslovakia and Portugal signed a cultural agreement. As a result, Portuguese musicians toured the country. For example, the Portuguese pianist Sequeira Costa performed there before 1989, and the Portuguese group Trovante was a guest there at a festival of political song. In addition to literature and music, Portuguese artists from other fields also came there. An exhibition by Paula Regos and two exhibitions by Portuguese photographers took place in the ČSSR after 1976.

Since the 19th century, however, it has been literature that has been most widely circulated in Portugal and Czechoslovakia. The Czech authors with the most translations into Portuguese are Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera , who are also generally considered to be the best-known authors from today's Czech Republic in Portugal, together with Rainer Maria Rilke . The first reliable translation of Czech literature into Portuguese is Jan Neruda's story The Vampire ( O Vampiro ), translated in 1926 . The first book to be translated from Czech into Portuguese is Karel Josef Beneš ´ A Vida Doutra (German title: The robbed life ), which was published in Portugal in 1943. Other authors, who have been translated several times, include Bohumil Hrabal , Václav Havel and Karel Čapek .

economy

After initial trade contacts in 1922, a long-term Portuguese-Czechoslovak trade agreement was not started until 1975. The bilateral trade volume, however, remained manageable at all times and was exhausted even in the most productive moments in the comparatively low Czechoslovakian imports of cork , wine, canned fish and dried fruit.

The national team of the ČSSR 1966. In the previous year they were defeated by Portugal's selection in the 1966 World Cup qualification in Bratislava with 0: 1

Sports

The Portuguese national soccer team and the Czechoslovak national team met nine times, for the first time on January 24, 1926. In the unofficial friendly match in front of 12,000 spectators at Campo do Ameal in Porto , they separated 1: 1. The first official match then took place on January 12, 1930 in Lisbon, Portugal won 1-0. In total, they achieved three wins and three defeats against each other, three times they were drawn.

The Portuguese and Czechoslovak women's national football teams did not play against each other.

See also

Web links

Commons : Portuguese-Czechoslovak Relations  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Acordos Bilaterais , list of bilateral Portuguese-Czech agreements on the website of the Czech embassy in Portugal, accessed on December 21, 2017
  2. ↑ Overview of diplomatic relations with the Czech Republic on the website of the Diplomatic Institute of the Portuguese Foreign Ministry , accessed on October 7, 2019
  3. ↑ a b Overview of diplomatic relations with the Czech Republic on the website of the Diplomatic Institute of the Portuguese Foreign Ministry, accessed on May 4, 2019
  4. ↑ quoted from: Willi Baer, ​​Karl-Heinz Dellwo (Ed.): April 25, 1974 The Carnation Revolution. Library of Resistance, vol. 15th 1st edition, Laika-Verlag , Hamburg 2012, p. 160
  5. ↑ a b c Fernando Cristóvão (Ed.): Dicionário Temático da Lusofonia. Texto Editores, Lisbon / Luanda / Praia / Maputo 2006, p. 846 ( ISBN 972-47-2935-4 )
  6. ↑ Literatura checa traduzida para português - “Portuguese translations of Czech literature” , essay by Jaroslav Špirk on the website of Charles University in Prague, accessed on February 4, 2017