Maria Margarida do Carmo Mendes Tengarrinha Campos Costa
A visual artist expelled from the School of Fine Arts in 1952, she lived underground with José Dias Coelho, in a house where the PCP forged documents. She only learnt that the PIDE had killed him on the day of his burial, which she could not attend.
Repressionvisual artistunderground full-time PCP workerdocument forgerwriter for “Avante!”deputy (1979–1983)
She was born in Portimão on 7 May 1928. At 20 she joined the MUD Juvenil (Youth Movement of Democratic Unity) and became involved in the student struggles at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts and in the General Exhibitions of Visual Arts.1 At the school, she coordinated the students’ involvement in the movement.5 After the protests against the NATO meeting in Lisbon, in 1952, she was expelled and banned from attending any faculty in the country and from teaching; that year she joined the PCP.1 Another 81 students were expelled with her.5
At the end of 1954 she went underground with her partner, the painter José Dias Coelho.1 Their clandestine house was home to the party’s document-forging office — identity cards, driving licences, passports — and, from 1960, the two of them drew illustrations and mastheads for A Voz das Camaradas (The Voice of the Women Comrades) and Avante! (Forward!).2
On 19 December 1961 the PIDE shot Dias Coelho dead in a street in Alcântara that now bears his name.2 Margarida, who was still living underground, only learnt of it early in the evening of 26 December, at a meeting in the street. When she asked to see him, the comrade answered: “You can’t, the burial was today, at the Benfica cemetery.” From that moment on, she wrote, she resolved “not to let his memory die”.3
In 1962 she went abroad: she worked with Álvaro Cunhal in Moscow, and then at Rádio Portugal Livre, in Bucharest.15 She returned in 1968 and resumed underground work, in Lisbon and then in Porto.5 In 1974 she joined the PCP Central Committee and later published several books, among them Memórias de Uma Falsificadora – A Luta na Clandestinidade em Portugal (Memoirs of a Forger: The Underground Struggle in Portugal).1 She was a deputy for the Algarve from 1979 to 1983 and, in 2014, received the first Maria Veleda Prize. She died in Portimão on 26 October 2023.5
Margarida Tengarrinha’s testimony, recorded by the Aljube Museum on 8 March 2017 and published in 2021. Going by the museum’s keywords, it covers the Youth Movement of Democratic Unity (MUD Juvenil), underground life in the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), the document-forgery apparatus, the clandestine press and José Dias Coelho.
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
A documentary edited by Sofia Gomes for the exhibition “Women and Resistance – New Portuguese Letters and other struggles” (“Mulheres e Resistência – Novas Cartas Portuguesas e outras lutas”), with excerpts from the testimonies the Aljube Museum has been recording since 2015: sixteen women talk about resistance to the dictatorship and the struggle for women’s rights. This version has Portuguese Sign Language (LGP) interpretation; the version without LGP is on the same channel (XmUbNbnHgKg, 2022).
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
In other archives
These can only be viewed on each archive’s own website.
6Fuga de Peniche. Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade (EGEAC) — consulted on 2 October 2026
7Morreu Margarida Tengarrinha. Sul Informação, 2023 — consulted on 4 October 2026Morreu a 26 de outubro de 2023 no Hospital de Faro, aos 95 anos; «em finais de 1954» passou à clandestinidade com José Dias Coelho, e em 1955 criaram a «oficina» de documentos.
8Maria Margarida do Carmo Mendes Tengarrinha Campos Costa. Memorial aos Presos e Perseguidos Políticos (Memória Comum) — consulted on 4 October 2026Nascida em Portimão a 7 de maio de 1928, morreu em Faro a 26 de outubro de 2023; dá 1955 para a passagem à clandestinidade.
