Amazing and rare bronze medal with high reliefs Salazar Statue Decapitation 1975.
António de Oliveira Salazar (28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a nationalist dictator Portuguese. In addition to heading several ministries, he was president of the Council of Ministers of the dictatorial government of the New State and full professor of Political Economy, Science of Finance and Social Economy at the University of Coimbra. In 1940, he was conferred an honorary degree by the University of Oxford.
In February 1975, in the midst of the revolutionary process, the head of the statue of Salazar in Santa Comba Dão was cut off. It was a radical and violent gesture of cutting and condemning the past that mirrored what was still the broad consensus regarding the condemnation of the dictatorship between 1974 and 1976.
The statue would remain decapitated until February 1978 when, already within the so-called "democratic normalization", a group of citizens organized the replacement of the dictator's head, in a succession of events that culminated in the destruction of the statue by bomb, which was then definitively removed. Two days after the explosion, one of the most important tributes to the victims of the dictatorship took place in Lisbon, with the transfer of the remains of those who were killed in the Tarrafal Concentration Camp in Cape Verde.
In the aftermath of the statue's explosion, there is talk of the possibility of creating a museum dedicated to Salazar, in his former home in Vimieiro, for which a fundraiser is organized, and where, eventually, a new statue of the dictator would be placed1. The subject will lose strength in the following years, but will resurface in the 90s and will have developments in the 21st century.
This medal is excellently crafted, a true work of art, very detailed. Was made in 1975 by the sculptor David Oliveira.
Has 9 cm diameter, and 5 to 7 mm thickness. Weighs: 320 grams.
Good condition!
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