Os Estados Unidos da Europa - Ecos do ideal europeu de Victor Hugo em Portugal
This work has the preface of Professor Doctor João César das Neves (professor at UCP and chronicler of diário de Notícias) and aims to be an innovative cultural project of Reading (free) To the Sound of Music. The text is authored by Isabel Baltazar, who in a Doctoral investigation realized the intensity of the echoes of Victor Hugo's European ideal in Portugal, proven by the exchange of letters between the French writer and portuguese intellectuals, very particularly with the founder of diário de Notícias, Eduardo Coelho, whose originals were found in the estate of Contemporary Portuguese Culture of the National Library. These documents would lead the author to Paris, to investigate this author's manuscripts in the National Library and victor hugo's own home. The results would prove surprising at two levels: on the one hand, the pioneering of the political man victor hugo was, in a facet that is more unknown to the common public, which associates him mainly with literature; on the other hand, the finding of the influence of the European ideal in Portugal, at this time considered a country also at the head of Europe, both by the abolition of the death penalty and by the great "Europeanism" of its intellectuals who showed adherence to the cause of a Europe United, conveyed through his writings, particularly published in the newspapers.
It is very interesting to realize that the United States of Europe has not been announced at once; this ideal was gradually proclaimed, in a kind of "European crusade", in the belief that it was a achievable utopia, that is, a project for the future. That was the meaning of his symbolic gesture when planting in his Hauteville House de Guernesey, an Oak tree he called the United States of Europe, a seed that would bear fruit and become great after a hundred years past. Therefore, it is the greatest present return to Victor Hugo, since his European project is inspiring for a Europe in crisis, and that here you can find hope and inspiration for your own future. (Bilingual book (Portuguese and French) and 2 Audio CD's)