Rui Chianca

A playwright and poet, he left his name linked to a frustrated and ephemeral attempt to revive historical theater in verse, carried out in the early years of the republican regime and in opposition to it, to which he contributed three academically crafted plays: Aljubarrota (1913), inspired by a narrative by Herculano, D. Francisco Manuel (1914), and Nun'Álvares (1918). His participation in the aborted monarchist insurrection of 1918 forced him to emigrate to Brazil, where he wrote other plays of identical inspiration (O Magriço, 1925, and Portugal Restaurado, the latter in prose). The best of his historical works, Rainha Santa, was posthumously staged in 1933, at the Teatro de S. Carlos. He was the uncle of filmmaker, playwright, and chronicler Chianca de Garcia.