Resistances and oppositions in the radical right to António Sardinhas hispanism

Abstract

The capital importance of "hispanism" in the thought of António Sardinha (1887-1925) is today well evaluated by Portuguese historiography. Like many other topics in the work of António Sardinha, his "hispanism" has not failed to arouse controversy, resistance, violent opposition, but also long-standing loyalty. The present article therefore studies the critical reception of "Hispanism", focusing on those who were most likely to fuel the discussion of Hispanism: the circles of the Portuguese radical right in the twentieth century. Starting from Sardinha's last remarks in 1924 to the critics of his Hispanic work, the article focuses on the resistance that arose within Lusitanian Integralism itself, on the violent opposition of Alfredo Pimenta and above all Franco Nogueira, as well as on the arguments of the loyal defenders of Hispanism. All this over a time span that eventually extended from the 1920s to the early 1970s. In this way, the present article shows how the critical reception of "hispanism" ended up feeding important disputes and questions of the radical right: what is the status of Sardinha in the Portuguese political thought of the first half of the twentieth century? Is he a “genius precursor” or a “fleeting myth”? And, more importantly, what was the influence of Sardinha's intellectual legacy on the Estado Novo and particularly on Luso-Spanish politics in the 1930s-1940s?