Portugal and Europe - The European and Federalist Discourse from the Monarchy to the Republic

Abstract

The 19th century in Portugal was as Europeist as one could get in the European context, where the concept of unity was but a utopia of writers, philosophers and propagandists. Several Portuguese authors cogitated on the situation and destiny of Europe, its role in the world, the relation and the weight of Portugal and of the Iberian Peninsula in the European scale; they echoed the appeals to unity which were being heard abroad and projected solutions for the new balance and the insertion of the peoples of the peninsula in a new European, geostrategic framework. However, the idea which marked the 19th century was that of an Iberian union endorsed on federalism, as a preliminary step or as an example of association to be imitated by other nations and historical, cultural and geopolitical groups. However, this Iberian, Latin, Mediterranean, Western, European, Universal idea - conceived and conveyed in contexts of decadence and revolutionary crisis - becomes uninteresting and obsolete in the early 20th century, which culminated in the apocalyptic chaos of the years 1914 to 1918. The cosmopolitan, mystical and cultural nationalism of Fernando Pessoa is quite the expression of those decadent times on the way to the abyss, to the failure of doctrines, to the disbelief in the utopia, to the dialectic crossroad between the antagonism of an age which is ending and another which is emerging. In the post first war period, the idea is restored, invigorated and reformulated, with new heralds and protagonists. However, it is still not strong nor persuasive enough to deter all who do not silence the hatred of the past nor overcome the greed of the present.