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| Set of stamps |
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| Issue brochure |
The “Year of Portugal in Brazil and of Brazil in
Portugal” will be held between September 7, 2012 – Independence Day in Brazil –
and June 10, 2013 – Day of Portugal, of Camões and of the Portuguese
Communities. This is an initiative of an official character, created to convey
to both peoples the true image of the two countries, promoting culture,
fostering closer trade relations, and strengthening the links between the civil
societies.
In 2012, the 21st Lubrapex – the oldest
bilateral Philatelic Exhibition in the world – will also take place, in São
Paulo.
Thus, the designated Postal Operators of Portugal (CTT) and of Brazil
(ECT) have seized this opportunity to develop a joint stamp issue based on the
Portuguese language, thereby celebrating the two giants of their literature
respectively – the poets Fernando Pessoa and Cruz e Sousa.
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa was born on June 13, 1888, in
Lisbon. He lost his father to tuberculosis at the age of 5 and, due to the
second marriage of his mother, he moved to South Africa, where he lived between
1895 and 1905. He attended Durban High School and the University of Cape Town
where he obtained the Queen Victoria Memorial Prize for best essay in the
English style.
On his return to Portugal in 1905, Pessoa
briefly attended the Advanced Course in Arts (1906-1907). In 1908, he devoted
himself to the translation of foreign correspondence in commercial places. In
the same period, he also studied Greek and German philosophy, modern literature
and humanities, adding a wide range of knowledge to his Anglo-Saxon education.
Fernando Pessoa led a simple life, within a restricted circle of friends who
attended the intellectual gatherings at the Lisbon cafés, discussing literary
and political issues of the times.
Whoever saw him as such, in Chiado, sitting at
the table at A Brasileira, or during his work as a clerk, which he kept almost
to the day he died, would have never suspected to be in the presence of one of
the poetry giants of all times and nations, the author of an outstanding
literary work, including poetry by the heteronyms and by the ortonym Pessoa,
but also of the Livro do Desassossego (Book of Disquiet) and the prose on
Literary Theory and Criticism, Philosophy, Political Sociology, the Esoteric,
Astrology and always on Portugal. His writing remained largely unpublished
during his lifetime.
He published Mensage (Message) in 1934 and some
poems and texts in various magazines, having collaborated in the founding of
Orpheu, fundamental publication of modernism in Portugal.
He left us at age 47, on November 30, 1935.
Decades later his work began to be disclosed, which is still today not fully
known, to the disquiet of Pessoa researchers.
His remains rest in the Cloister of the
Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon, the city that was his home.
João da Cruz e Sousa
João da Cruz e Sousa was born on November 24, 1861, in
Desterro, now Florianópolis, state of Santa Catarina. The son of freed slaves, he was raised and educated by
Marshal William Xavier de Sousa and Clarinda de Sousa, and already at the age
of eight he wrote his first verses. Eager for recognition, he left for the city
of Rio de Janeiro in 1888.
After eight months, and with financial
difficulties, he returned to Santa Catarina.
In 1890, the poet accepted Virgílio Várzea’s
invitation to return to the then capital of the country, where he worked in
local newspapers.
At that time, he had his first contact with the
work of Frenchman Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, his great inspiration to the
Symbolist poems that would later on surface.
As a literary school, Symbolism in Brazil began
with the works Broquéis (Bucklers) and Missal (Missal), by Cruz e Sousa,
released in 1893, months apart from each other. About a year later, he married
Gavita Rosa Gonçalves and had a first child. However, even with two innovative
works published, the poet was again destitute and had to quit his job in the
newspapers to be an archivist at the Central Railroad of Brazil.
The personal life of Cruz e Sousa was not at a
good point.
After the birth of the second child in 1895, his
wife started having constant seizures of dementia. Tuberculosis was another
stone in the path of this man from Santa Catarina, who fell ill at the time
when his third child with Gavita was born, in 1897.
The illness, besides making him increasingly
weak, caused the death of two of his three small children.
Taken by friends to recover in Sítio, a
municipality in inner Minas Gerais, he died three days after arriving.
It was March 19, 1898 and the poet was only 36
years old.
In the same year, his friend Nestor Victor,
responsible for the collection of the artist, published the book of poems
Faróis (Lighthouses) and one of prose Evocações (Evocations).
In 1905, the posthumous work Últimos Sonetos
(Last Sonnets) surfaced.
In November 2007, the remains of the symbolist
poet were transferred from the St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Rio de Janeiro to
Florianópolis.
In his honour, a memorial was erected close to
the Cruz e Souza Palace in the centre of the capital of Santa Catarina.
Technical Details
Date of Issue: 7 September 2012
Values: two stamps of 0,80€
Designer: Folk Design
Printer: INCM
Process: Offset
Size: 61,2 x 40,0 mm
Perforation: Cross of Christ 13 x 13
Paper: FSC 110 g/m2
Watermark:
Sheet: with 50 stamps
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