COVER N. 253 - PORTUGAL  

Postmark: (FDC Postmark) CTT LISBOA Vultos da História e da Cultura 20.04.2023

Posted on the 20h April; Received on the 11th May 2023
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All through one's lifetime we get to know all sorts of people. Many, the large majority, will not cause any lasting impression once the confluence of being, of occupying a common space for a given time, for any given reason, ceases to exist. 

A few, however, will accompany you forever, and this often without the need for anything more substantial than the simple memory of their presence,  the quality of their transit through one's life, the sequels of their impact on your cosmovision and your relation with the world about you.

Teachers are always good candidates to this superior status. In fact, given the nature of the relation we establish with them, if not for anything for the simple fact that for a period in one's  life you will be intellectually  nurtured by their generous transmission of knowledge, it is easy to understand that some will definitively be tattooed in that place of one's brain where we keep our personal and intangible treasures.

Urbano Tavares Rodrigues was my  French Literature teacher for a couple of years at Lisbon Classic University.

More than 40 years ago he introduced me to Zola, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Choderlos de Laclos, Stendhal to name a few..., 

But more, much more than the immense knowledge Urbano had of French Literature second only to his love for disseminating it amongst us, his students, it is the gentleness of his figure, the lightness of his presence, his gentlemanish way of crossing one's path that has endured and which I will always remember.

His life was one of  hardship, as someone who had his teaching and journalistic career interrupted in his own country due to the brutal prosecution of the political police, during the dictatorship years. He was beaten, imprisoned, and eventually had to go to exile in France, where he teached Portuguese Literature at the Universities  of Montpelier, Aix-en-Provence and Paris (Sorbone).

Upon returning to Portugal he would only be allowed to teach again after the overthrow of the Dictatorship in 1974.

I am sure the circumstances of life, all the prosecution and hardship he endured have probably had an impact on him, still the Urbano I remember was as captivating a man as the fox in the famous Saint-Exupéry's book that I am sure he must have mentioned in his always interesting classes...

Acknowledging the value of his contribution to Portuguese culture in general and literature in particular as a writer, teacher, journalist, theatre and literary critic, CTT, the Portuguese postal service included Urbano Tavares Rodrigues (1923-2013) in the latest of its stamp sets dedicated to Relevant  Personalities in  Portuguese History and Culture, issued on 20APR2023.

And I could not let go the opportunity for this humble but sincere homage: "It was a pleasure seeing you again, Professor!"