Afonso Da Costa
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Costa, Afonso Da
Born Mar. 6, 1871, in Seia, in the province of Beira Alta; died May 11, 1937, in Paris. Portuguese statesman.
In 1896, da Costa became a professor of criminal law at the University of Coimbra. As a leader of the bourgeois republicans, he took an active part in the Portuguese Revolution of 1910. He served as minister of justice in the provisional government of the republic (1910–11) and implemented a decree on the separation of church and state. He was prime minister in 1913–14 ,1915–16, and 1917. In 1919, da Costa represented Portugal at the Paris Peace Conference. After the establishment of a military dictatorship in Portugal in 1926, he emigrated to France.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.