Culture & Society of Portugal

Culture
Portugal is an ancient nation and through more than 1000 years it has developed a specific culture while being influenced by the various civilizations that crossed the Mediterranean world. Thus, it has absorbed traditions from early civilizations and from regions discovered throughout the world during the 500 year long Portuguese empire.

An explicit instance of this absorption and adaptation of previous culture is seen in the countless festivals to pagan local and Roman deities which were transformed into festivals to Christian saints; only some pagan festivals have changed little over 2,000 years, due the religious passion of the Middle Ages and the inquisition.

Portuguese music has a wide variety of genres. The most renowned Portuguese music is Fado, a melancholic urban music. Fado is usually associated to the Portuguese guitar and to saudade, a feeling that occurs when one is in love with someone or something yet apart from him, her, or it. The style conveys a distinct mixture of sadness, pain, nostalgia, happiness and love. Though dilettanti claim that Fado origins are a mixture of African slave rhythms, traditional music of Portuguese sailors and Arabic influence, the early written records about fado connect it to Brazilian modinha in the 19th century. Some of its most internationally notable performers are Amália Rodrigues, Mariza, Ana Moura, Mísia, Dulce Pontes, Madredeus, and Cristina Branco.

Currently, mainstream music in Portugal is in a rural and urban duality where the Portuguese pop-rock and Portuguese hip hop are popular with the younger and urban population, while pimba (a simple and cheery variety of pop music) and folklore are more popular in the rural areas.

Portuguese literature is one of the earliest Western literatures, and it developed as the 13th century arrived, through texts and songs. Until 1350, the Portuguese-Galician troubadours spread their literary influence to most of the Iberian Peninsula . King Dinis favoured Occitan-inspired cantigas. Gil Vicente was the author to some transition theatrical pieces known as autos and is considered as one of the main founders of both Portuguese and Spanish dramatical traditions. Bernardim Ribeiro and Sá de Miranda rank among the most eminent Renaissance writers. Adventurer and poet Luís de Camões (c.1524 - 1580) wrote the epic poem The Lusiads, a work that he developed during his journeys in Africa and Asia and that has Virgil's Aeneid as main model. According to his own account, he was shipwrecked in Cambodia, and saved himself and his work by floating on a board. Modern Portuguese poetry, since the 19th century, is essentially rooted in a handful of relevant poets, ranging from neo-classicism to contemporary styles. One such famous poet is Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935), who wrote poetry in the voice, style and manner of many fictional poets under a large number of heteronyms. Modern literature also became internationally known, mostly through the works of Almeida Garrett, Alexandre Herculano, Camilo Castelo Branco, Eça de Queirós, Fernando Pessoa, Ferreira de Castro, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Herberto Helder, António Lobo Antunes and the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature winner, José Saramago.

Portuguese traditional architecture is distinct precisely due to the variety of influences it features, with several examples throughout the world, some of which are classified as world heritage sites. Modern Portugal has one of the best architecture schools in the world, known as "Escola do Porto" or School of Porto, renowned by the names of Souto Moura and Alvaro Siza. Proeminent figures in visual arts, known internationally are the painters Vieira da Silva and Paula Rego.

Since the 90´s Portugal increased the number of cultural facitilies where art and culture can be apreciatted by a wider public. These include the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) in Lisbon, Fundação Serralves (Serralves Foundation) and Casa da Música (House of Music) both in Porto. Recently the announcement that portuguese state will take care and exhibit permanently one of the greatest modern and contemporary art collections in Europe owned by Joe Berardo,a tycoon natural from Madeira, was received with enthusiasm by artists and cultural agents.

Education
Portugal's education system is divided into Pré-Escolar (children less than 6 years old), Ensino Básico (three phases in a total of 9 years), Ensino Secundário (three years, several areas) and Ensino Superior (Universities and Colleges grouped into Polytechnic Institutes). Education is free and compulsory for 9 years of study. A newly undertaken scheme will make education compulsory until the student becomes an adult (18 years old). The country still has a 6.7% illiteracy rate, almost exclusively among the elderly.

The first Portuguese university – The Estudo Geral (General studies, Today's University of Coimbra) - was created on March 1st, 1290 in Lisbon with the document Scientiae thesaurus mirabilis by King Denis. The university was transferred to Coimbra in 1308, though the university moved several times between the two cities until 1537. In 1559, the University of Évora was founded in Portugal by Cardinal Henry, future king of Portugal and Pope Paul IV and it was delivered to the Society of Jesus. In the 18th century, Sebastião de Melo, Marquis of Pombal closed the University of Évora, because he wanted to exterminate the Jesuit power in Portugal and in its empire. He also reformed the University of Coimbra, as it was divorced from the true exact sciences. The 19th century - the industrialization era - created the need for new education institutions in the country, the "industrial studies". In 1837, the Escola Politécnica (Polytechnic School) in Lisbon and the Academia Politécnica opens. The rhetorical behaviour of these new institutions led the Prime-Minister of the Kingdom Fontes Pereira de Melo in 1852 to create the Instituto Industrial de Lisboa (Institute of Industry, today's IST and ISEL) in Lisbon and the Escola Industral (School of Industry, today's ISEP) in Porto. In 1825, the Lisbon Royal School of Surgery and Porto Royal School of Surgery had also opened.

With the advent of the republic, the polytechnic and surgery schools were incorporated as faculties into the newly created University of Lisbon and the University of Porto. The Lisbon Institute of Industry led to the creation of IST (the Institute of Technology) which was grouped with other colleges in the Technical University of Lisbon in the 1930s. In the 1960s the first non-governmental institution opened, the Portuguese Catholic University.

The 1970s marked a new era in Portugal's higher education with many universities and polytechnics opening in many cities, such as the University of Aveiro and the University of Minho in the universitary subsector, and the Lisbon Polytechnic and Porto Polytechnic in the polytechnic subsector. Subsequently, several private universities opened.

The Bologna process is in debate to be adopted in near future.

Demographics
Portugal is a fairly homogeneous country linguistically and religiously. Ethnically, the Portuguese people are a combination of several ethnicities: pre-Roman Iberian and Celtic tribes with Romans and Germanic tribes. Moors became a reduced influence, as essentially they were expelled during the Reconquista. Jews comprised 10% of the population in the 16th Century until they were forced to move abroad or convert to Catholicism.

Between 1960 and 1970, more than one million Portuguese emigrated, mostly to other European countries, resulting in a negative population growth. Previously, Brazil had been the destination of many, especially since the 18th century. Since mid 1970s major changes started to influence the country's demographics, the life expectancy went up, the infant mortality rate and the fertility rate broadly declined and, with the decolonisation, many Portuguese returned from Africa.

In the 2001 Census, Portugal had 10,356,117 inhabitants (51.7% female). Currently, there are almost 10.6 million inhabitants. By the end of 2003, legal immigrants represented 4.2% of the population, and the largest communities were: Ukrainians (15%), Brazilians (14.8%), Cape Verdeans (14.4%), and Angolans (7.9%). There are also a significant number of illegal immigrants, the treatment of those being now becoming increasingly problematic. Portugal still has 5 million emigrants abroad.

The great majority of the Portuguese population adheres to the Roman Catholic Church. Religious minorities include a little over 300,000 Protestants. There are also about 50,000 Muslims and 10,000 Hindus (most of whom came from Goa, a former Portuguese colony). There are also about 1,000 Jews. Atheists and agnostics are increasing in number.

Portugal's biggest metropolitan cities are Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra and Aveiro. The country is characterized by municipal cultural differentiation and there is little to no regional differentiation, unlike what happens in other European countries, resulting from the Roman municipalism, but mainly from the concelho de vizinhos created possibly during the Moorish rule as the lands were freed from the Visigothic nobles, leading the people of a land to organize itself in concelhos. Portuguese is spoken throughout the country, some of Terra de Miranda's Mirandese speaking villages being the only linguistic minority.