Eh Real!

Eh Real!’s subtitle was Weekly Pamphlet of Criticism and Political Indoctrination, and its director was João Camoesas. Dated 13 May 1915, only one issue was ever published.

In the presentation text, the promoters present themselves as ‘a dozen lawful Portuguese men’, defenders of a better Portugal and the security of the Republic, but that do not seek inspiration for their nationalism in the work of Mr. Charles Maurras. This is a clear allusion to Lusitanian Integralism, which sought to reinstate the monarchy and followed the Maurrasian principles of the Action Française. Here we find the unambiguous political orientation of the pamphlet. In addition, the director was a two-times Minister of Education (1923 and 1925), left wing politician who proposed ambitious and innovative programmes, and was also the author of O Trabalho Humano, where, for the first time in Portugal, Taylorism is discussed as a theory of the physiology of effort. He eventually died in exile, in the United States, in 1951. Camoesas points to General Pimenta de Castro, then head of the dictatorship government, and Paiva Couceiro, the military chief of the monarchist forces, as his main enemies. The latter is targeted in his article, 'Nun'Álvares', where, invoking the figure of the Constable, ‘a personification of honesty ', the outraged author criticizes the ‘affront’ of having his name used to ‘adorn’ a traitor. The traitor Paiva Couceiro is also targeted in another article, ‘A Arrogância espectaculosa de Paiva Couceiro define bem a traição miserável do governo’, by Sérgio Sílvio, here nicknamed a criminal and associated with Pimenta de Castro. The general, for his part, is ridiculed in the section 'Cartas Irónicas’, by A. Bustorff, with a suggestive article, addressed to the 'Most Ignorant General': 'Pimenta de Castro through Grammar' or 'The Grammar of Pimenta de Castro'. On the next page, in a satirical tone, we learn that a subscription has been opened for raising a monument to the hero of 'presidential supremacy'...

In fact, Pimenta de Castro showed indifference to all parties during his rule (from January to May 1915), a lack of concern that encouraged the antidemocratic partisans in their fight against Afonso Costa, but also led to the union of various parties’ members against a common enemy. On 14 May, exactly one day after the pamphlet's publication, the navy uprising, or ‘golpe de espadas’, commanded by Leote de Rego, would put an end to the ephemeral dictatorship.

Eh Real! also includes Fernando Pessoa's article, ‘O Preconceito da Ordem'. But his collaboration in this anti-Pimenta periodical reveals, at first glance, something unusual, since, in another text, he criticizes the 14 May revolt, calling it 'a stomachal revolution', in a text that emphasizes his sympathy for Pimenta de Castro, who he describes as 'the purest representative of the middle classes who came to power in Portugal' and as someone who 'perfectly reflected their eagerness for peace, tolerance and freedom' (Pessoa Inédito, Teresa Rita Lopes, Lisbon, Horizonte, 1993, p. 346). On the other hand, his attack on the prejudice of order, which at other times he strongly defends, introduces an ambiguous note and warns us against a linear interpretation of this political text. Thus, for example, in a text with a similar title, 'O Preconceito Revolucionário’, the writer considers that a revolutionary movement 'can save' when a nation reaches the maximum state of lethargy and disorganization, where destructive and anarchy-producing revolutions ‘underline the need for order' (Fernando Pessoa, Obra Poética e em Prosa, volume III, ed. António Quadros and Dalila Pereira da Costa, Porto, Lello & Irmão, 1986, p. 1025).

The truth is that, for Pessoa, there are various forms of order; the one to which his article refers to is 'not a thing: it is a state. It results from the proper functioning of the organism, but it is not that particular process of good functioning'. And, as he says, the sole concern of order is 'social morphinism'. Villaverde Cabral, in the introduction to the facsimile edition of Eh Real! (Contexto, 1983) admits that the meaning of the text does not lie in its letter, but in its form, for it would not be only the Integralists that Pessoa ‘was making fun of, but also his colleagues in Eh Real!’, putting to use, for all intents and purposes, his capacity as creator of fictions.

Manuela Parreira da Silva