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Álvaro Cunhal | |
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Minister without portfolio | |
In office 16 May 1974 – 8 August 1975 |
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President | António de Spínola Francisco da Costa Gomes |
Prime Minister | Adelino da Palma Carlos Vasco Gonçalves |
General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party | |
In office 1961–1992 |
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Preceded by | Bento Gonçalves |
Succeeded by | Carlos Carvalhas |
Personal details | |
Born | Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal (1913-11-10)November 10, 1913 Coimbra, Portugal |
Died | June 13, 2005(2005-06-13) (aged 91) Lisbon, Portugal |
Political party | Communist Party |
Domestic partner | Isaura Moreira (1960-1965) |
Children | One daughter |
Alma mater | University of Lisbon |
Religion | Atheism |
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈaɫvɐɾu kuˈɲaɫ]; Sé Nova, Coimbra, 10 November 1913 — Lisbon, 13 June 2005), was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) from 1961 to 1992. He was one of the most pro-Soviet of all western Europe communist leaders, often supporting USSR world policies, including the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
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Cunhal was born in Coimbra, the third child of Avelino Henriques da Costa Cunhal (Seia, Seia, October 28, 1887 – Coimbra, Sé Nova, December 19, 1966) and wife (m. Coimbra, Sé Nova, August 22, 1908) Mercedes Simões Ferreira Barreirinhas (Coimbra, Sé Nova, May 5, 1888 – Lisbon, September 12, 1971). His father was a lawyer in Coimbra and Seia, and later on in Lisbon, and came from a family of rural bourgeoisie, related to a rich and more aristocratic family, the Cunhal Patrício. His mother was a devout Catholic who wished her son had also become one. He also studied Law at the University of Lisbon, where he joined the PCP, then an illegal organization, in 1931. The deaths of his younger sister Maria Mansueta Barrerinhas Cunhal (Coimbra – Seia, January 13, 1921) and of his older brother António José Barreirinhas Cunhal (Coimbra, 1910 – Lisbon, 1932) struck the grief of both his parents and brothers, but specially of his mother and Álvaro, of whom they had always been close. He visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1935 to attend the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. He joined the Central Committee of the PCP in 1936 at the age of 24. His first arrest occurred in 1937.
While in jail, Cunhal submitted his final thesis on the topic of abortion and obtained his law degree (the jury included the future prime minister Marcello Caetano). In the thesis, he also supported the illegality of abortion in USSR, claiming it wasn't practised anymore there. He then taught for some months at the Colégio Moderno, in Lisbon. Among his pupils was the future President of Portugal, Mário Soares, who would be one of his great political rivals after the revolution of 1974.
From 1941 to 1949 Cunhal was underground and became the de facto leader of the PCP. Arrested in 1949, he remained in jail until he made a spectacular escape from the Peniche prison in 1960. This escape had a wide impact. The government of António Salazar claimed that a Soviet submarine was near the Peniche coast waiting for Cunhal. In 1961, he was elected secretary-general of the PCP, following the death of Bento Gonçalves in the political prisoners colony of Tarrafal in Cape Verde. Cunhal lived in exile in Moscow, where his daughter by Isaura Maria Moreira named Ana Cunhal was born on December 25, 1960, now married with three sons, and Paris until the Carnation Revolution of April 1974.
Back in Portugal, Cunhal took charge of the newly legalised PCP and led the party through the political upheavals which followed the revolution. He was minister without portfolio in several of the provisional governments which followed the revolution. A faction of army officers seen as aligned with the PCP dominated the post-revolutionary provisional governments, with pro-communist prime-minister Vasco Gonçalves, leading four provisional governments, leading to accusations that the PCP was attempting to take power via the military. Cunhal, was largely responsible for the PCP's hardline attitude, particularly its hostility towards the Portuguese Socialist Party led by Soares, which prevented the formation of a united left.
Cunhal left his office in 1992, being succeeded by Carlos Carvalhas. Nevertheless, his voice remained important in the following years, and he consistently sided with the most orthodox wing of the PCP. He also revealed that under the pseudonym Manuel Tiago he had been the author of several neo-realistic novels. His drawings, made while in prison, were published, revealing his sensibility for the arts, as was also shown by his translation of King Lear by Shakespeare (edited in his last years, and originally written under the female pseudonym Maria Manuela Serpa).
Álvaro Cunhal died in Lisbon in 2005, after several years away from public eye. His funeral, on June 15, took place in Lisbon and was attended by about 250,000 people.[citation needed]
His only remaining sister Maria Eugénia Barreirinhas Cunhal (b. Lisbon, January 17, 1927) has also been for her entire life a militant of the PCP. She married in Lisbon on May 21, 1949 medical doctor Fernando Manuel da Rocha de Medina (Lisbon, March 15, 1924 – Lisbon, September 9, 1965), half-cousin of Ambassador Rui Eduardo Barbosa de Medina, and has four children.
Cunhal was also a fiction writer, with several novels under the pseudonym Manuel Tiago, which he recognized as his own only in 1995. He also made the drawings for the original edition of Soeiro Pereira Gomes' book Esteiros. He published the following books under the pseudonym of Manuel Tiago:
Persondata | |
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Name | Cunhal, Alvaro |
Alternative names | |
Short description | |
Date of birth | November 10, 1913 |
Place of birth | Coimbra, Portugal |
Date of death | June 13, 2005 |
Place of death | Lisbon, Portugal |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (January 2012) |
His Excellency Mário Soares GColTE, GCC, GColL, KE |
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President of Portugal | |
In office 9 March 1986 – 9 March 1996 (&1000000000000001000000010 years, &100000000000000000000000 days) |
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Prime Minister | Aníbal Cavaco Silva António Guterres |
Preceded by | António Ramalho Eanes |
Succeeded by | Jorge Sampaio |
Prime Minister of Portugal | |
In office 23 July 1976 – 28 August 1978 (&100000000000000020000002 years, &1000000000000003600000036 days) |
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President | António Ramalho Eanes |
Preceded by | Vasco de Almeida e Costa |
Succeeded by | Alfredo Nobre da Costa |
In office 9 June 1983 – 6 November 1985 (&100000000000000020000002 years, &10000000000000150000000150 days) |
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President | António Ramalho Eanes |
Preceded by | Francisco Pinto Balsemão |
Succeeded by | Aníbal Cavaco Silva |
Personal details | |
Born | (1924-12-07) 7 December 1924 (age 87) Lisbon, Portugal |
Political party | Socialist Party |
Spouse(s) | Maria Barroso |
Profession | Lawyer, historian, professor |
Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL, KE (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmaɾiu suˈaɾɨʃ]; born 7 December 1924), Portuguese politician, served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.
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Soares is the son of João Lopes Soares (Leiria, Arrabal, 17 November 1878 - Lisbon, Campo Grande, 31 July 1970), Founder of the Colégio Moderno in Lisbon, Minister and then anti-fascist republican activist who had been a Priest for some time before marrying Elisa Nobre Baptista (Santarém, Pernes, 8 September 1887 - Lisbon, Campo Grande, 28 February 1955), Mário Soares's mother, at the 7th Conservatory of the Civil Register of Lisbon on 5 September 1934. His father also had another son by an unknown mother named Tertuliano Lopes Soares. His mother had previously been married and had two children, J. Nobre Baptista and Cândido Nobre Baptista. Mário Soares was raised as a Roman Catholic, but came to identify himself as a laic, agnostic and atheist.
Soares was born in Lisbon, Coração de Jesus, and graduated in History and Philosophy from the University of Lisbon. He became a university lecturer in 1957, but his activities in opposition to the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar led to repeated arrests. He was active in resistance groups such as the Movement for Anti-Fascist National Unity and the Movement for Democratic Unity.
Soares began his studies at Colégio Moderno, owned by his father. There, for a short period he was taught Geography by Álvaro Cunhal, who would later became the towering figure of Portuguese Communism and one of Soares' greatest political rivals.
While a student at University, Soares joined the Portuguese Communist Party, being responsible for the youth section. In this capacity, he organised demonstrations in Lisbon to celebrate the end of WWII. He was first arrested by PIDE, the Portuguese political police, in 1946, when he was a member of the Central Committee of the Movement of Democratic Unity (Portuguese: Movimento de Unidade Democrática), at the time chaired by Mário Azevedo Gomes. Soares was arrested twice in 1949. On those latter occasions, he was the secretary of General Norton de Matos, a candidate for the Presidency. However, he became estranged from Norton de Matos, when the latter discovered Soares's Communist sympathies.
Soares married Maria de Jesus Barroso Soares, an actress, in 22 February 1949, while in the Aljube prison, at the 3rd Conservatory of the Civil Register of Lisbon. They have a son, the former Lisbon Mayor João Soares, and a daughter, Isabel Barroso Soares, b. 1951, who manages the Colégio Moderno.
Soares's multiple arrests for political activism made it impossible for him to continue with his career as a lecturer of history and philosophy. Therefore, he decided to study law and become an attorney.
In 1958, Soares was very active in the presidential election supporting General Humberto Delgado. Later, he would become Delgado's family lawyer, when Humberto Delgado was murdered in 1965, in Spain, by agents of the dictatorship's secret police (PIDE).
In April 1964, in Geneva, Switzerland, Soares together with Francisco Ramos da Costa and Manuel Tito de Morais created the Acção Socialista Portuguesa (Portuguese Socialist Action). At this point he was already quite distant from his former Communist friends (having quit the Communist Party in 1951); his views were now clearly inclined to economic liberalism.
In March 1968, Soares was arrested again by PIDE, and a military tribunal sentenced him to banishment in the colony of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea. His wife and two children, Isabel and João, accompanied him. However, they returned to Lisbon eight months later for in the meantime dictator Salazar had been replaced by Marcello Caetano. The new dictator wanted to present a more democratic face to the world, so many political prisoners, Soares among them, were released.
In the 1969 general election, which was rigged, the democratic opposition (whose political rights were severely restricted) entered with two different lists. Mário Soares participates actively in the campaign supporting the Coligação Eleitoral de Unidade Democrática or CEUD (Electoral Coalition for Democratic Unity). CEUD is clearly anti-fascist, but they also reaffirmed their opposition to Communism.
In 1970, Soares was exiled to Rome, Italy, but eventually settled in France where he taught at the Universities of Vincennes, Paris and Rennes. In 1973, the Portuguese Socialist Action became the Socialist Party, and Soares was elected Secretary-General. The Socialist party was created under the umbrella of Willy Brandt's SPD in Bad Münstereifel, Germany, on 19 April 1973.
On 25 April 1974, elements of the Portuguese Army seized power in Lisbon, overthrowing Salazar's successor, Marcelo Caetano. Soares and other political exiles returned home to celebrate what was called the "Carnation Revolution."
In the provisional government which was formed after the revolution, led by the Movement of the Armed Forces (MFA), Soares became minister for overseas negotiations, charged with organising the independence of Portugal's overseas colonies. Among other encounters, he met with Samora Machel, the leader of Frelimo, to negotiate the independence of Mozambique.
Within months of the revolution however, it became apparent that the Portuguese Communist Party, allied with a radical group of officers in the MFA, was attempting to extend its control over the government. The Prime Minister, Vasco dos Santos Gonçalves, was accused of being an agent of the Communists and a bitter confrontation developed between the Socialists and Communists over control of the newspaper República.
Democratic government was finally established when national elections were held in April 1976. The Socialists won a plurality of seats and Soares became Prime Minister. But the deep hostility between the Socialists and the Communists made a left-wing majority government impossible, and Soares formed a weak minority government. Vast fiscal and current account deficits generated by previous governments forced Soares to adopt a strict austerity policy, which made him deeply unpopular. Soares had to resign from office after only two years, in 1978.
The wave of left-wing sentiment which followed the 1974 revolution had now dissipated, and a succession of conservative governments held office until 1983, when Soares again became Prime Minister, holding office until late 1985. His main achievement in office was negotiating Portugal's entry into the European Economic Community. Soares almost single-handedly turned public opinion around, for Portugal at the time was very wary of integration into the EEC.
In the Portuguese presidential election, 1986, held in March, Soares was elected President of Portugal, beating Diogo Freitas do Amaral by little more than 2%. He was reelected in 1991, this time with almost 70% of the vote. For most of Soares' two terms of office, Portugal was governed by the centre-right Social Democratic Party, led by Aníbal Cavaco Silva.
He devised the so-called Presidência Aberta (Open Presidency), a series of tours around the country, each addressing a particular issue, such as the Environment or a particular region of Portugal. Although generally well received by the public, some claimed that he was criticizing the government and exceeding his constitutional role. Others stated that the tours were in the style of medieval courts. Yet the name stuck for today's presidential initiatives of the same type.
After the general elections of Finland, 17 April 2011, Mário Soares, presented an opinion according of which Finland has changed into a extremely conservative country, where solidarity is unknown. Soares reminded the memory of Kalevi Sorsa comparing his generosity and those dwarfs, who now want to rule Finland, their ethical values and hostility against Portugal with great difference. Accordin to Soares the Finns live in illusion believing that speculative markets and credit criminals can destroy nations with nine hundred years independent history.[2]
In 1998, Soares won the International Simón Bolívar Prize of UNESCO.
In 2000, Soares received the North-South Prize of the Council of Europe.
He is an honorary member of the Club of Rome and a member of High Council of Francophonie.
He is Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne, Free University of Brussels and University of Bordeaux III2.
Candidates | Supporting parties | First round | Second round | |||
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Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
Mário Soares | Socialist Party | 1,443,683 | 25.43 | 3,010,756 | 51.18 | |
Diogo Freitas do Amaral | Democratic and Social Centre, Social Democratic Party | 2,629,597 | 46.31 | 2,872,064 | 48.82 | |
Francisco Salgado Zenha | Portuguese Communist Party, Democratic Renovator Party | 1,185,867 | 20.88 | |||
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo | Independent | 418,961 | 7.38 | |||
Ângelo Veloso | Portuguese Communist Party | left the race | ||||
Total valid | 5,677,525 | 100.00 | 5,882,820 | 100.00 | ||
Blank ballots | 46,334 | 0.81 | 33,844 | 0.57 | ||
Invalid ballots | 18,292 | 0.32 | 20,436 | 0.34 | ||
Total (turnout 75.38% and 77.99%) | 5,742,151 | 5,937,100 | ||||
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |
Candidates | Supporting parties | First round | ||
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Votes | % | |||
Mário Soares | Socialist Party, Social Democratic Party | 3,459,521 | 70.35 | |
Basílio Horta | Democratic and Social Center | 696,379 | 14.16 | |
Carlos Carvalhas | Portuguese Communist Party, Ecologist Party "The Greens" | 635,373 | 12.92 | |
Carlos Marques | People's Democratic Union | 126,581 | 2.57 | |
Total valid | 4,917,854 | 100.00 | ||
Blank ballots | 112,877 | 2.21 | ||
Invalid ballots | 68,037 | 1.33 | ||
Total (turnout 62.16%) | 5,098,768 | |||
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |
Candidates | Supporting parties | First round | ||
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Votes | % | |||
Aníbal Cavaco Silva | Social Democratic Party, People's Party | 2,773,431 | 50.54 | |
Manuel Alegre | Independent | 1,138,297 | 20.74 | |
Mário Soares | Socialist Party | 785,355 | 14.31 | |
Jerónimo de Sousa | Portuguese Communist Party, Ecologist Party "The Greens" | 474,083 | 8.64 | |
Francisco Louçã | Left Bloc | 292,198 | 5.32 | |
António Garcia Pereira | PCTP/MRPP | 23,983 | 0.44 | |
Total valid | 5,487,347 | 100.00 | ||
Blank ballots | 59,636 | 1.07 | ||
Invalid ballots | 43,149 | 0.77 | ||
Total (turnout 61.53%) | 5,590,132 | |||
Source: Comissão Nacional de Eleições |
Assembly seats | ||
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Preceded by None, Parliament re-established |
Member of Parliament for Lisbon 1975–1985 |
Succeeded by Title jointly held |
Party political offices | ||
Preceded by None, party created |
General Secretary of the Socialist Party 1973–1986 |
Succeeded by Almeida Santos (interim) |
Political offices | ||
Preceded by Vasco de Almeida e Costa (interim) |
Prime Minister of Portugal 1976–1978 |
Succeeded by Alfredo Nobre da Costa |
Preceded by Francisco Pinto Balsemão |
Prime Minister of Portugal 1983–1985 |
Succeeded by Aníbal Cavaco Silva |
Preceded by António Ramalho Eanes |
President of Portugal 1986–1996 |
Succeeded by Jorge Sampaio |
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Persondata | |
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Name | Soares, Mário |
Alternative names | Nobre Lopes Soares, Mário Alberto (full name) |
Short description | President of Portugal |
Date of birth | 07 December 1924 |
Place of birth | Lisbon, Portugal |
Date of death | |
Place of death |
Bram Stoker | |
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Photograph of Stoker ca. 1906 |
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Born | Abraham Stoker (1847-11-08)8 November 1847 Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland |
Died | 20 April 1912(1912-04-20) (aged 64) London, England |
Occupation | Novelist |
Nationality | Irish |
Citizenship | British |
Period | Victorian era, Edwardian Era |
Genres | Gothic, Romantic Fiction |
Literary movement | Victorian |
Notable work(s) | Dracula |
Spouse(s) | Florence Balcombe |
Children | Irving Noel Thornley Stoker |
Relative(s) | father: Abraham Stoker mother: Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley |
Influences
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Influenced
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Signature | |
www.bramstoker.org |
Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.
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Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin, Ireland.[1][2] His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who came from Ballyshannon, County Donegal. Stoker was the third of seven children.[3] Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.
Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years." He was educated in a private school run by the Rev. William Woods.[4]
After his recovery, he grew up without further major health issues, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin, which he attended from 1864 to 1870. He graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society".
Stoker became interested in the theatre while a student through a friend, Dr. Maunsell. He became the theatre critic for the Dublin Evening Mail, co-owned by the author of Gothic tales Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Theatre critics were held in low esteem but he attracted notice by the quality of his reviews. In December 1876 he gave a favourable review of Henry Irving's Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. Irving invited Stoker for dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, where he was staying. They became friends. Stoker also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock. In 1876, while a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879), which remained a standard work .[4] Furthermore, he possessed an interest in art, and was a founder of the Dublin Sketching Club in 1874.[5]
In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent. She was a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde.[6] Stoker had known Wilde from his student days, having proposed him for membership of the university’s Philosophical Society while he was president. Wilde was upset at Florence's decision, but Stoker later resumed the acquaintanceship, and after Wilde's fall visited him on the Continent.[7]
The Stokers moved to London, where Stoker became acting manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London, a post he held for 27 years. On 31 December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son whom they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. The collaboration with Irving was important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (to whom he was distantly related). Working for Irving, the most famous actor of his time, and managing one of the most successful theatres in London made Stoker a notable if busy man. He was dedicated to Irving and his memoirs show he idolised him. In London Stoker also met Hall Caine who became one of his closest friends - he dedicated Dracula to him.
In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker travelled the world, although he never visited Eastern Europe, a setting for his most famous novel. Stoker enjoyed the United States, where Irving was popular. With Irving he was invited twice to the White House, and knew William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Stoker set two of his novels there, using Americans as characters, the most notable being Quincey Morris. He also met one of his literary idols, Walt Whitman.
While manager for Irving, and secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. During this period, Stoker was part of the literary staff of the London Daily Telegraph and wrote other fiction, including the horror novels The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).[8] In 1906, after Irving's death, he published his life of Irving, which proved successful,[4] and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to his story, a skill he developed as a newspaper writer.
At the time of its publication, Dracula was considered a "straightforward horror novel" based on imaginary creations of supernatural life.[8] "It gave form to a universal fantasy . . . and became a part of popular culture."[8]
According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Stoker's stories are today included within the categories of "horror fiction," "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama."[8] They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein[9]:394 which, according to historian Jules Zanger, also used the "myth-making" and story-telling method of having "multiple narrators" telling the same tale from different perspectives. "'They can't all be lying,' thinks the reader."[10]
The original 541-page manuscript of Dracula, believed to have been lost, was found in a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania during the early 1980s.[11] It included the typed manuscript with many corrections, and handwritten on the title page was "THE UN-DEAD." The author's name was shown at the bottom as Bram Stoker. Author Robert Latham notes, "the most famous horror novel ever published, its title changed at the last minute."[9]. It now is owned by a private art collector, Paul Allen.
Stoker's inspirations for the story, in addition to Whitby, may have included a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, a visit to the crypts of St. Michan's Church in Dublin and the novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.[12]
Stoker's original research notes for the novel are kept by the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, PA. A facsimile edition of the notes was created by Elizabeth Miller and Robert Eighteen-Bisang in 1998.
After suffering a number of strokes, Stoker died at No. 26 St George's Square on 20 April 1912.[13] Some biographers attribute the cause of death to tertiary syphilis.[14] He was cremated, and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were added to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's death her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest. To visit his remains at Golders Green, visitors must be escorted to the room the urn is housed in, for fear of vandalism.
Stoker was brought up as a Protestant, in the Church of Ireland. He was a strong supporter of the Liberal party. He took a keen interest in Irish affairs[4] and was what he called a "philosophical home ruler", believing in Home Rule for Ireland brought about by peaceful means - but as an ardent monarchist he believed that Ireland should remain within the British Empire which he believed was a force for good. He was a great admirer of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone whom he knew personally, and admired his plans for Ireland.[15]
Stoker had a strong interest in science and medicine and a belief in progress. Some of his novels like The Lady of the Shroud (1909) can be seen as early science fiction.
Stoker had an interest in the occult especially mesmerism, but was also wary of occult fraud and believed strongly that superstition should be replaced by more scientific ideas. In the mid 1890s, Stoker is rumoured to have become a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, though there is no concrete evidence to support this claim.[16][17][18] One of Stoker's closest friends was J.W. Brodie-Innis, a major figure in the Order, and Stoker himself hired Pamela Coleman Smith, as an artist at the Lyceum Theater.
The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was released in 1922 and was named Nosferatu. It was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the film. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the film survived, however and the film has become well known. The first authorised film version of Dracula did not come about until almost a decade later when Universal Studios released Tod Browning's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.
Because of the Stokers' frustrating history with Dracula's copyright, a great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, Canadian writer Dacre Stoker, with encouragement from screenwriter Ian Holt, decided to write "a sequel that bore the Stoker name" to "reestablish creative control over" the original novel. In 2009, Dracula: The Un-Dead was released, written by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Both writers "based [their work] on Bram Stoker's own handwritten notes for characters and plot threads excised from the original edition" along with their own research for the sequel. This also marked Dacre Stoker's writing debut.[19][20]
In Spring 2012, Dacre Stoker in collaboration with Prof. Elizabeth Miller presented the "lost" Dublin Journal written by Bram Stoker, which had been kept by his great-grandson Noel Dobbs. Stoker's diary entries shed a light on the issues that concerned him before his London years. A remark about a boy who caught flies in a bottle might be a clue for the later development of the Renfield character in Dracula.[21].
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bram Stoker |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bram Stoker |
Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
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Persondata | |
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Name | Stoker, Bram |
Alternative names | Stoker, Abraham |
Short description | Irish novelist |
Date of birth | (1847-11-08)8 November 1847 |
Place of birth | Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland |
Date of death | 20 April 1912(1912-04-20) |
Place of death | London, England |