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President of the Portuguese History Academy,
Vice-President,
Academicians,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

By decree enacted on 8 December 1720, King John V founded the Royal Portuguese History Academy, establishing that it would be.

“... an Academy where the Ecclesiastical History of these Kingdoms would be written and thereafter all that pertained to their History and their Conquests”.

Here, in the learned Portuguese History Academy, refurbished in 1936, following the royal decree and legal provisions, history is written.

Portuguese history is written in order to reconstitute the truth for the eternal memory of the nature of things, as expressed in the Latin maxim. For this reason history is written, because the written word – preserving, as stated in the original charter, “the actions deserving of being memorized” – prevents the oblivion which time would condemn them to.

An ambitious programme, just as it should be and is anyway expected from the habitat of such eminent members, dedicated by vocation and statutory duty to the documented and critical reconstitution of the past.

An academy is a society of ideas. An association totally dedicated to one sole objective: the knowledge of the nature of things and of men. A sublime academic servitude which, to be authentic, must be performed through three conditions of freedom: the freedom to recruit academicians; the freedom to establish the institution’s operating rules; and the freedom to choose the themes for research.

Amongst the three, I will stress the freedom to recruit members as the prime condition of legitimacy of academic knowledge.

An academician is not just anyone. Only the one who will submit to the highest of the principles of academic selectivity: that of recognition by his peers.

In the times we are living, the Academy is not the sole authoritative source of historic knowledge. It would be even less acceptable should it be the institutional extension of an official historiography. On the contrary, the Portuguese History Academy only has to gain from being a habitat of freedom for the researcher, a habitat where the authority is the prize due for knowledge and work.

History, in the immortal words of Cicero, is “witness of time, light of truth, life of memory, master of life, messenger of the past”.

However, historical fact, such as we are able to know it scientifically, is more fragile than promised by the great Roman orator.

History, as a scientific subject, is a permanent encounter between the deeds of men of the past and the present of those who question it today. In this field, a new explanation may be compelled because it better sustains the view of its time. In other words, it may be compelling because it provides a better answer to the query that each historian, in each epoch, believes it should request from its past.

Servant of a scientific subject that he wishes should be the witness of time, the duty of each historian, and, for a majority of reasons, especially that of the academician, is to assert his judgement of the past.

History, of course, is more than just a report of what took place, more than a memory of the past. History – the history lived by men, not its scientific subject – is free, and not written by the historian. It is happening outside these walls. But the interpretation that you, the historians, give to it is indispensable so that the judgement of the citizen – who is himself a historical fact – may be fair.

The judgement of the historian thus contributes, and more decisively so the greater the authority of who issues it, towards the conscious training of each one’s convictions. This, in a democratic society, is the great responsibility of the historian.

A great responsibility, in effect. Because the people’s judgement of the past may of course be precarious, and surely reversible, but it is this judgement that counts.

The Portuguese citizen assesses. Assesses, always. He has the supreme right to assess. He assesses what was done. He assesses what should have been done. Politicians know it: in democracy, the people are naturally the final judges of the truth.

As Portuguese, we have changed and we will change again. But, taking in the changes, we continue. We continue something which was commenced by D. Afonso Henriques, a bond that the Portuguese of all times embraced and which led to what we are today. A bond that distinguishes us from other peoples and from other nations. An almost millenary common existence, destined to continue.

To continue, however, we must always be capable to judge what happened before. The provision to query the past and find in it new answers is exactly the first condition to build a common future, as we can easily conclude from the learned speech on the identity which links us, that Prof. Doctor Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho has just delivered.

The Portuguese History Academy is, itself, destined to continue. Honouring the academicians of all times, I am certain that you, today’s academicians, will be the witnesses of the age and messengers of the past, embracing the bond which, with the same authenticity, will lead you to the future academicians and to the judgement that will be pronounced on our times.

I received, in this Solemn Ceremony, the academic insignia attributed inherently to the President of the Republic. I am well aware that, in the terms of this Academy’s Charter, the Honorary President is likened, “in respect of rights and duties, to the academicians themselves”. This is a supreme honour. And equally a great responsibility.

Invested in this office due to my mandate as Supreme Magistrate of the Nation, I want to let you know that I do not in any way whatsoever feel this coincidence as artificial. Maybe because I have always felt bound by the duty of authenticity which also binds the historian, and have tried at all moments and above everything else to comply with it.

As Honorary President I assure you, Madam President of the Portuguese History Academy and illustrious academicians, that I will do all in my power for this Academy to continue its eminent mission as a witness of the age and messenger of the past.