Joaquim Téofilo Fernandes Braga (1843–1924), writer and statesman, was born in Ponta Delgada (Azores), and studied law at the University of Coimbra, graduating in 1868. Here he took active part in the Coimbra Controversy (Questão Coimbrã, 1865-66), criticizing ultra-Romantic writers (specifically Feliciano Castilho), translated Chateaubriand (Atalá, Renato, Aventuras do Derradeiro Abencerrage) and wrote for several journals and magazines.

His first publications were verse collections: Folhas Verdes (1859) and Visão dos Tempos (1864), an epic poem of humanity influenced by Victor Hugo (Légende des siècles, 1859) and Michelet. He also published Tempestades Sonoras (1864), Torrentes (1869) and an interesting (but unfinished) nationalistic project, the literary collection Alma Portuguesa (“Portuguese Soul”). This was meant to energize the Portuguese spirit and bolster national pride by recounting historical myths and memorable figures such as Viriato (1904), Inês de Castro (unpublished), Magriço and the Twelve of England (1902) and Gomes Freire (1907). In these works, Braga drew on myths that had been recovered by Romantic writers like Almeida Garrett for his national-colonial agenda and to counteract a sense of decadence and national apathy. A similar attempt to stimulate national pride through historical characters is noticeable in his A Pátria Portuguesa (“The Portuguese fatherland”, 1894). Braga’s national historicism highlighted the glorious age of the seafaring, colonial discoveries of the early-modern period, when, as he argued, Portugal undertook a universal mission, formed its national character and flourished in its arts and culture.

However, like Alexandre Herculano, he also praised the Middle Ages as a period of popular (and municipal) freedom vis-à-vis Crown and Church, and described the Renaissance as the period when elitist erudition began to overshadow popular authenticity as expressed in the folk epic cantares de gesta (heroic lays). This historical vision betrays the influence of the German and French Romantics as well as Almeida Garrett. Braga theorized about and studied the history of Portuguese literature, initially through its medieval traditions and their Jewish and Muslim influences and origins (As Teorias Literárias: Relance sobre o Estado Actual da Literatura Portuguesa, 1865; História da Poesia Moderna em Portugal, 1869; História da Literatura Portuguese, 1870-1918; História do Teatro Português, 1870-71). He turned to later periods in his História do Romantismo em Portugal (1880) and Camões e o Sentimento Nacional (1891).

In addition to literary history-writing, Braga collected Portuguese folklore, publishing popular oral tales and poems, and several ethnographic studies on national customs and traditions (História da Poesia Popular Portuguesa, Cancioneiro Popular and the Romanceiro Geral, 1867). Cantos Populares do Arquipélago Açoreano (“Popular songs of the Azores”) appeared in 1869, followed by Contos Tradicionais do Povo Português (“Traditional tales of the Portuguese people”, 1883) and O Povo Português nos Seus Costumes (“The Portuguese people through its customs”, 1885).

Influenced by the anticlerical, positivist ideology of Auguste Comte, Braga (co-)founded magazines such as Positivismo (1878-82), A Era Nova (1880-87) and Revista de Estudos Livres (1883-87), and himself published Traços Gerais de Filosofia Positiva (“General outline of philosophical positivism”, 1877) and Sistema de sociologia (1884). Elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences, he was also one of the founders of the Portuguese Academy of Sciences in 1907.

Braga embarked on his formal political career in 1878, and held several posts in the Portuguese Republican Party. His political ideas were set forth in Soluções Positivas da Política Portuguesa (“Positivist solutions for Portuguese politics”, 1879), História das Ideias Republicanas em Portugal (“A history of republican ideas in Portugal”, 1880) and Dissolução do Sistema Monárquico-Representativo (“Dissolution of the monarchical-representative system”, 1881). He publicly criticized the British ultimatum (1890) to Portugal, which was seen as a national humiliation, and was strategically used by the Republicans against the monarchy. In January 1910, he became an effective member of the Political Directorate of the Republican Party, and was later elected deputy for Lisbon. When later that year the Republican revolution ended monarchical rule in Portugal, Braga was proclaimed president of the Provisional Government of the Portuguese Republic; his Republican Party foundered in the factionalism of the following years and failed to survive the creation of the Republic. In 1915, Braga was appointed interim president following the resignation of Manuel de Arriaga.

Braga developed his nationalistic project through his 360 literary and academic works on national, cultural and sociopolitical themes, always at pains, like several Romantic writers before him, to give his literary work civic and political relevance. Braga frequently mixed literature, history and politics, for instance during the celebrations of national centenaries. With Ramalho Ortigão, he coordinated the celebration of the third centenary of the death of the Portuguese national poet Camões (June 1880). Following his death in 1924, he himself was buried in the then state pantheon, the Jerónimos Monastery. In 1966 his remains were moved to the new state pantheon of Santa Engràcia.