Soeiro Pereira Gomes

Joaquim Soeiro Pereira Gomes (born April 14, 1909 in Gestaçô , Baião municipality , Porto district , Portugal ; † December 3, 1949 in Lisbon , Portugal) was a Portuguese communist , writer and politician . As a writer he was one of the founders of Portuguese neorealism , as a politician one of the most important communists alongside Álvaro Cunhal in Portugal in the 20th century.

Life

Soeiro Pereira Gomes was born on a farm as the son of Alexandre Gomes and Celestina Soeiro Pereira Gomes. He had six other siblings. From the age of 6 to the age of 10 he lived with his godmother in Espinho , then from the age of 11 he attended an agricultural boarding school, the Escola Agrícola de Coimbra , which he graduated with a diploma at the age of 19. Led by a youthful thirst for adventure, he hired a company that was looking for workers for Angola and in 1930 moved to what was then the Portuguese colony . However, he returned just a year later, as the working conditions had shaken him and he couldn't stand the climate. This experience ensured that he got involved in the then already banned Communist Party of Portugal (PCP). In 1931 he married Manuela Cancio Reis, with whom he moved to Alhandra that same year . There he succeeded, although no one officially knew of his membership in the Communist Party, to get various things through at the local level. Together with other colleagues, he succeeded in building a swimming pool , a school for illiterate people and a public library in the city . As a functionary of the local swimming association, he was able to hide his political actions behind club work. From then on, he had been working in the office of the cement company Cemento Tejo in Alhandra since 1934 .

As an author, he first appeared with the publication of stories in various left-wing magazines from 1939, which were officially published but were not allowed to criticize the state. His story O Capataz was banned by the censors, other stories first appeared in magazines such as O Diabo or Sol Nascentes . Through his publications he gained a certain prominence within the working-class literature scene and was able to welcome such well-known authors as Alexandre Cabral , Sidónio Muralha or even Alves Redol at home .

He became known nationwide as the leader of a workers' strike that paralyzed the Baixo Alentejo region for two whole days. Thus he came into contact for the first time with the fascist authorities, especially the PIDE secret service . From then on he was initially monitored and observed in order to later check how to “physically approach” him - i.e. H. kill him - could. He went underground, had to live with aliases for the rest of his life, avoiding various regions of the country (especially in northern Portugal) and was on the run until his death. How he lived during this time and what from has not yet been conclusively researched.

Between 1940 and 1942 he played a major role in the reorganization of the PCP underground. His first book, Esteiros (1941), a novel that could be published by a left-wing publisher that officially did not even exist, was also published underground . (The book could of course not be bought in the bookstore, but was sent secretly to various interested parties). The content of the book was child labor , which at that time was still quite large in Portugal. For Esteiros his friend Alvaro Cunhal who could flee abroad, which was Gomes never succeeded illustrations contributed. In 1954 the book was translated into German , but was published in the GDR by Aufbau-Verlag . His second book Engrenagem (1944) could only appear underground.

During the IV Congress of the PCP , which took place underground in Lousã in 1946, he was first a delegate and later officially elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Portugal, making him one of the party's most important functionaries in Portugal. He came more and more into the focus of the central government in Lisbon. The now militant communist was also a member of other anti-fascist groups; the best known was the MUD - Movimento do Unidade Democratia . He was also on the campaign team for the support of Norton de Matos as a presidential candidate (who was alibi-moderately admitted to the elections). In 1949 he died in Lisbon in the house of his sister, the well-known writer and teacher Alice Gomes , of complications from tuberculosis . The doctors summoned from the National Lung Institute did not know who it was, since even in death he was still given an alias. He was buried in Espinho .

His complete works, including the censored stories, were allowed to appear in Portugal for the first time after the Carnation Revolution and were published in full in 1979. There is a street in Lisbon named after the author and politician.

plant

• Esteiros , Roman, 1941, Sirius-Verlag, Lisbon (German, 1954, Aufbau-Verlag, GDR)
• Engrenagem , Roman, 1944, Sirius Publishing House, Lisbon.
• Obra Completa de Soeiro Pereira Gomes , 1979, Lisbon.
• various stories scattered in newspapers and magazines.

swell

• www.pcp.pt/avante/1359/5903h1.html
• www.vidaslusofonas.pt/soeiro .htm
• www.notapositiva.com/pt/trbestbs/portugues/08-soeiro-pereiroa-gomes.htm