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Therefore, although the 20s experienced a large political fragmentation of the republican field – characterised by the formation of several parties –, the strengthened of the anarchism, and the rise of new formations and groups – communist, fascist –, the Portuguese Empire remained almost unanimously as a national priority, being able of bringing together different tendencies.

Oswald Spengler’s reception in Portugal

According to the political and cultural environment briefly described, Oswald Spengler’s writing Decadence of the West represented some evident discomfort to Portuguese intellectual elite, after the Great War, and its nationalist or resurrecting aspirations during the following decades. In this sense, the lack of interest expressed on the absence of a Portuguese edition should be emphasised. Spengler’s work deserved no Portuguese translation which would invite a larger number of Portuguese readers. On the opposite, along with German’s editions, the Author’s ideas were known in Portugal through Spanish1 and French2 versions.

Although 1923 Spanish version grew in popularity, as its presence in Portuguese libraries can demonstrate, the volume corresponded to the first part: Forma Y Realidad [Form and Actuality]3. Spengler’s complete writing was only available two years after, in Portugal, which allows us to understand why the first critics to Author’s full perspectives were published in late 1925.

Since the 20s, no efforts were developed to overcome this absence even if other books of Spengler knew Portuguese translations. At last, Portuguese readers came to benefit from the Portuguese Brazilian versions which arrived at Portuguese libraries in the 70s and the 80s.

Spengler’s View of Western Decadence and Portuguese Intellectuals

In order to answer effectively the two key questions underlying the current exercise - How Portuguese intellectuals appreciated Spengler’s work regarding the Decadence of the West? What kind of reception did they reserve to Spengler's ideas? - , a selection was made according to the necessity of presenting a comprehensive image regarding the Portuguese intellectual elite. Achieving these aims inspire us to give emphasis to Hernâni Cidade and António Augusto Correia Mendes.

1La Decadencia de Occidente: bosquejo de una morfologia de la historia universal, Madrid, Espasa, 1923, I volume Forma Y Realidad; La Decadencia de Occidente: bosquejo de una morfologia de la historia universal, 2ª ed., 2 vols, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1925; La Decadencia de Occidente: bosquejo de una morfologia de la historia universal,, 3ª ed., 5 vols,

Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1927-1943 [Translation: Manuel G. Morente].

2L’ Déclin de l’Occident: Esquisse d’une morphologie de l’histoire universelle, traduit de l’ Allemmand par M. Tazerout, Paris, Gallimard. I vol: Forme et Réalité, [1931]; II vol.: Perspectives d’ Histoire Universelle [1933].

3It was adopted the English translation selected by Charles Francis Atkinson. Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.

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Hernâni Cidade (1887-1975) was professor, historian, specialized in Portuguese Literature and History. After his degree at Curso Superior de Letras, Hernani Cidade participated in the Great War. Professor at Faculty of Letters, University of Porto, between 1919 and 1930, was forced to leave for political reasons. Nevertheless, the Author stood by his ideological beliefs, as he joined several movements to contest Estado Novo1.

António Augusto Mendes Correia (1888-1960) was Portuguese anthropologist, a professor at Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, and member of several Portuguese scientific societies: Portuguese Society of Anthropology, Institute for Overseas Studies, Portuguese Academy of History and Lisbon Academy of Sciences. Mendes Correia had also a political career as he was appointed as Mayor of Porto, and took seat in National Assembly and Corporative Chamber, since 1945 until 19572.

Being regular collaborator of Seara Nova, a journal of literature, philosophy and politics, since 1921, Hernâni Cidade dedicated an article to Oswald Spengler’s work in October, 31st 1925. Significantly named “A Letter to Africa, to a Friend”3, this substantive analysis gave Cidade’s approach to Spengler’s writing which would define as a “complex system conceived of multiples sciences”. More than an immediate exercise of heavy erudition, the Critic recognized on Spengler’s thought a new historical perception, not entirely focused in

European evolution, but looking for establishing a different pattern – the morphology of Universal History – characterized by key analytic premises which allow the historian to study fully multiple human evolutions in different cultural phases.

According to Cidade’s understanding, Spengler’s options expressed a pure influence of Taine’s naturalism as historical traditional Ages – Ancient, Medieval and Modern Ages – were refuted and replaced by a linear conception, described as formed by four specific stages, reproducing the four seasons – spring, summer, fall and winter. Revealing considered interest in previous two aspects, Cidade demonstrated even more attention to Spengler’s distinction between history and nature – explaining the first as the essential dynamism and the deep collective existence – collective destiny – in which each culture fulfils its possibili-

1About Hernani Cidade, História de Portugal, IV vol [Do Tempo de D.João VI aos nossos dias], Porto, Lello e Irmão, 1936; A Literatura Portuguesa e a Expansão Ultramarina, 1943; Portugal Histórico-Cultural através de alguns dos seus maiores escritores: Fernão Lopes, Camões e Mendes Pinto, Padre António Vieira, Antero de Questal, Teixeira de Pascoais,

Fernando Pessoa, 1957.

2António Augusto Mendes Correia, Raça e Nacionalidade, Porto, Renascença Portuguesa,

1919, Idem, Etnografia Ibérica: Considerações sobre a Origem do Povo Português, Coimbra, Imp. Da Universidade, 1921; Idem, Raízes de Portugal: Portugal “ex-nihilo”! Terra e independência, a raça, Ocidente, 1938; Idem, Raças do Império, Porto, Portucalense Editora, 1943.

3Hernâni Cidade, “A Carta para África, a um Amigo”, Seara Nova, nº 58, 31 de Outubro de

1925.

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ties. Nature, on the other hand, presented laws, formulas, and links used by superior cultures to materialize its evolution1.

This methodological perspective on historiography seemed quite suggestive to Cidade which exposed his willingness towards an analytic framework able to emphasise history’s autonomy. The same appreciation was clearly stated by Cidade regarding Spengler's perception about the large range of historical sources available to the historian in order to hold a fair reconstitution of the past2. In the following years and works, Cidade would make a contribution to innovate Portuguese historiography by using national literature as a form to em-

brace the knowledge of Portuguese past, namely the evolution occurred since the 16th century3.

In spite of the virtuous effects found and shared out of Spengler’s ideas, Cidade complemented his analysis by criticizing harshly the Author of The Decadence of the West for what he considered to be an unjustified pessimism. According to Cidade, and not taking into account the precise moment when Spengler decided to write this work or the conditions that inspired its elaboration, the causes of western decadence should primarily be searched within geopolitical options made by German Empire in the years before the Great War. As so, and unconsciously appealing to his experience as a veteran in the conflict, Cidade argued this book to be a new demonstration of the old assumptions which came to generate the European belligerence.

Even if Cidade choose not to privilege the concept of race, the definition of people and the correlation of this notion with territory, natural conditions and landscape, linguistic form and its expression, were object of the Critic’s analysis and justified as a late legacy, further adjusted, of Chamberlain’s perception on German’s racial identity which legitimized an aggressive foreign policy before 1914 and the German’s aspirations to expansion.

Furthermore, to Cidade, any historical exercise, even a new morphology of universal history as ambitioned by Spengler, couldn’t allow any consolidated view about the future – even the most informed historian wouldn’t be able to predict the outcome of any dynamic in a short or long terms as, taking

Spengler’s key perspectives over cultural multiplicity, the knowledge of the diversified pasts wouldn't generate a unified vision about times to come. On the other hand, as Cidade stated, considering the future according to the knowledge of the past, on a more or less precise manner, would necessarily imply a new epistemological purpose and methods such as the need of a different ethic pat-

1Idem, p. 185.

2Idem, 186.

3Hernâni Cidade, Portugal Histórico-Cultural através de alguns dos seus maiores escritores: Fernão Lopes, Camões e Mendes Pinto, Padre António Vieira, Antero de Quental, Teixeira de Pascoais, Fernando Pessoa, 1957.

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tern – or, concluding, those exercises, in spite of their pertinence, wouldn't be history1.

To António Augusto Mendes Correia, Spengler’s writing constituted the ultimate challenger. Embodying the nationalist values that came to be institutionalized after 1926 military coup, Correia achieved a high pre-eminence in Portuguese intellectual and academic fields by his works on anthropology.

To this Author, as described in 1919, no doubt should prevail over national genetic homogeneity. Portuguese people represented, indeed, a group apart from others in Europe and even in Iberia. In Raça e Nacionalidade (Race and Nationality) Correia revealed quite similarity to Spengler’s assumptions regarding racial definition: geographical position, soils constitution, geological nature, proximity of the ocean, hydrographical realities, temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wings, solar exposition landscapes turned possible to generate a human group which cultural expression as language would be the product of a shared understanding over a common reality2. Nevertheless, the Author included the historical factor as a defining and differentiator item concerning racial identities. Opposing to Spengler’s premise – races don’t emigrate – Correia, attending to Le Bon’ ideas on race and nation3, considered a dynamic notion of collective existence, nourished constantly by his members and their individual paths.

By quoting Leite Vasconcelos, to whom the present was harmonic to the past, Correia defined Portuguese race as also the result of historical conditions: 15th century’s expansion and the contact with other peoples, cultures, during the

16th century came to be structural premise as to what Mendes ultimately considered Portuguese race. In this sense, no harm would come out a possible alliance with Spain, most feared in Portugal, since there wasn’t any possibility of merging between the two peoples so specific in ethnic terms.

In 1940, Correia’s thought on racial identities, especially the Portuguese, observed a sensitive evolution. During the 30s Estado Novo’s image of national greatness forced a renewal and comprehensive geopolitical frame of Portugal, according to the Colonial Act (1930) and the Constitution (1933), the Author clarified his views in two key ideas: the first, the non existence of a Portuguese race while the second, the recognition of a community tied by physiological, geographical, historical, linguistic, cultural and political background, to be found strictly in Portuguese European territories – providing the other “Portuguese” inhabitants of Portuguese Empire with a different status4. Ethnic perspectives would, indeed, be accompanied by institutional measures as those constant in Indigenous Status.

1Cidade, Op. Cit., p. 188.

2António Mendes Correia, Raça e Nacionalidade, Porto, Renascença, 1919, p. 13.

3Correia, Op. Cit., p. 27.

4Correia, Da Raça e do Espírito, Porto, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto,

1940, p. 164.

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Twenty years later, still Spengler’s ideas were recognised in Correia’s thought as the author described his perception over the intellectual and cultural misunderstanding regarding modern societies and its necessities. Supported on the intrinsic connexion between social expectations, realities and all artistic forms, as a traditional and efficient formula of communication, the Author formulated his deep exasperation by the disruptive trend, occurring since 19th century, more exactly since the impressionist movement, which allows any immediate prediction about the certain western decadence1.

In this context, the rise of symbolism in Europe, explained by the Author as the result of Japanese influence in France and, by extent, in other parts of western world, revealed the incapacity of European societies to hold to each values and the replacement for another cultural system which induced the erosion of national identities. To Correia, an undisputable cosmopolitism grew in the Old Continent, tarring social and political structures apart2, a vision that could well reflect the national crossroads on the diplomatic sphere and the international pressures regarding the decolonization process of the Portuguese Empire. Strangely or not, the notion of decadence formulated by Spengler came to be used by Correia as Portugal’s greatness was suffering a huge impact since

1955.

Finally, as a member of the Portuguese National Assembly, between 1948 and 1950, Correia called on Spengler’s writing to justify his perspectives over two interesting subjects: housing and the reform of Arts’ Faculty. One should emphasise the evident caution underlying this option, as the Author would state, "not all Spengler's ideas were adjusted to Portuguese reality". Even so, Mendes considered important to look for Spengler's definition of the house, primarily to observe race and race's soul, and by doing this, Mendes was inserted in António Ferro’s nationalist views towards the national character3.

The same could be identified as to Mendes’s considerations on Faculty of Arts reform, since by highlighting national folklore, according to Spengler’s definition of popular art, the author pressured the field of observation, putting side by side, European, African and Asian cultural traces, all gathered under the same umbrella: Portuguese race, Portuguese nationality4.

Conclusion

By the end of the Great War, the reception of Oswald Spengler’s Decadence of the West constituted a challenger to Portuguese intellectual elite to

1António Mendes Correia, Na Encruzilhada do Pensamento Literário e Artítico. Conferência no Salão Nobre dos Paços do Concelhos da Beira, Abril 1960, p. 9.

2Correia, Op. Cit.p. 23.

3Assembleia Nacional, nº 144, 14 de Abril de 1948, p. 456.

4Assembleia Nacional, nº 45, 18 de Abril de 1950, pp. 798-799.

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whom, as demonstrated, the Author represented a modern epistemological path to historiography. Celebrated in this context, the reception to Spengler’s writing was also influenced by structural debates regarding Portuguese political and economic evolution since the 19th century and, not least important, by the national assumption – liberal, until 1910, republican since then up to 1926, and

Estado Novos’s, between 1933 and 1974 – regarding the importance of Empire to hold Portuguese sovereignty in Europe and overseas.

These factors granted Spengler’s ideas an evident discomfort from Portuguese intellectuals and especially to the veterans, as Hernâni Cidade. Questioning the ability of the West seemed premise inadmissible to those who considered that Portuguese collective destiny was still to be achieved by the effective development of the Empire – mirror to Portuguese greatness. For republican intellectuals like Cidade, Spengler’s predictions over western civilization and its fall were considered a formula to diminish German's responsibilities on the world war. Partially accepted, The Decadence of the West rested also like the German's ultimate imperialist demonstration.

In spite of this reluctance, founded mainly in political issues, Spengler's concepts found an echo in Portugal as Correia illustrates. Regardless the relevance played by the Portuguese Empire, Mendes Correia was well succeeding in articulating some key aspects of Spengler's work with national geopolitical specificities and in conceived a personal view, gradually adjusted, built upon, among others, Spengler's influence.

Bibliography

Assembleia Nacional, nº 144, 14 de Abril de 1948, p. 456. Assembleia Nacional, nº 45, 18 de Abril de 1950, pp. 798-799.

Braga, Teófilo, Epopeias da Raça Moçarabe, Porto, Imprensa Portuguesa,

1871;

Braga, Teófilo, A Pátria Portuguesa: o território e a raça, Porto, Chardron, 1894.

Cidade, Hernani, “O Livro de Oswald Spengler. Carta para África a um Amigo”, Seara Nova, nº 58, 31 de Outubro de 1925, pp. 185-190.

Cidade, Hernani, História de Portugal, IV vol [Do Tempo de D.João VI aos nossos dias], Porto, Lello e Irmão, 1936;

Cidade, Hernani, A Literatura Portuguesa e a Expansão Ultramarina,

1943;

Cidade, Hernani, Portugal Histórico-Cultural através de alguns dos seus maiores escritores: Fernão Lopes, Camões e Mendes Pinto, Padre António

Vieira, Antero de Questal, Teixeira de Pascoais, Fernando Pessoa, 1957.

Correia, António Augusto Mendes, Raça e Nacionalidade, Porto, Renascença Portuguesa, 1919.

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Correia, António Augusto Mendes, Etnografia Ibérica: Considerações sobre a Origem do Povo Português, Coimbra, Imp. Da Universidade, 1921;

Correia, António Augusto Mendes, Raízes de Portugal: Portugal “exnihilo”! Terra e independência, a raça, Ocidente, 1938;

Correia, António Augusto Mendes, Raças do Império, Porto, Portucalense Editora, 1943.

Medina, João, Conferências do Casino e o Socialismo em Portugal, Lisboa, Dom Quixote, 1984;

Medina, João, A Geração de 70: uma geração revolucionária e europeísta, Cascais, Câmara Municipal, 1999.

Nunes, Teresa, “História da Colonização Portuguesa do Brasil”,

Dicionário de História da I República e do Republicanismo, vol. II, Lisboa,

Assembleia da República, 2014, pp. 276-278.

Pires, António Machado, A Ideia de Decadência na Geração de 70,

Lisboa, Veja, 1992.

Spengler, Oswald, La Decadencia de Occidente: bosquejo de una morfologia de la historia universal, Madrid, Espasa, 1923, I volume Forma Y Realidad;

Spengler, Oswald, La Decadencia de Occidente: bosquejo de una morfologia de la historia universal, 2ª ed., 2 vols, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1925;

Spengler, Oswald, La Decadencia de Occidente: bosquejo de una morfologia de la historia universal, 3ª ed., 5 vols, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 19271943 [Translation: Manuel G. Morente].

Spengler, Oswald, L’ Déclin de l’Occident: Esquisse d’une morphologie de l’histoire universelle, traduit de l’ Allemmand par M. Tazerout, Paris, Gallimard. I vol: Forme et Réalité, [1931]; II vol.: Perspectives d’ Histoire

Universelle [1933]. Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.

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УДК 1(091) ББК 87.3

F. Benvinda

Center for History School of Arts and Humanities University of Lisbon Lisbon, Portugal

ARRIVING IN ARCADIA AND MEETING MOTHER RUSSIA:

ZÓFIMO CONSIGLIERI PEDROSO’S VIEW OF RUSSIAN URBANITY

AND RURALITY AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Abstract. Zófimo Consiglieri Pedroso (1850-1910), Portuguese republican writer, historian, and ethnologist, visited Russia in 1896. Enamored by literal descriptions of the country's rural areas, he endeavored to travel to two Russian villages in order to immerse himself in their culture. Yet, his motives for undergoing such a voyage went beyond unconventional tourism. Indeed, Pedroso was interested in using the positivist theories he held dear in order to provide an interpretation of Russian urbanity and rurality, with the ultimate objective of producing a personal view on values, attitudes and cultural practices he considered quintessentially Russian. Hence, the historian will utilize the concepts of Race, Progress, and Civilization in order not only to compare Russia to other European powers but to try and reach what he considered to be the Slavic ethos through the study of peasant life, food habits and song. Therefore, in his quest to understand “Mother Russia” through experiencing first-hand what the Arcadia she held offered, the Portuguese author will come to construct an image of the sprawling nation and empire as an unstoppable cultural force, destined to unite all Slavic peoples through empire-building policies based upon the cultural similarities between them. Food, song and peasant life thereupon become racial characters rooted in traditions originated in the immemorial past, to be used in the present to fulfill a political idea: the formation of a united Slavic federal bloc under the control of a democratic Russian Empire.

Keywords: Urbanity, Rurality, Empire-building, Russia, Race, Civilization.

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Ф. Бенвинда

Центр изучения истории Школа искусств и гуманитарных наук Университет Лиссабона Лиссабон, Португалия

ПРИБЫТИЕ В «АРКАДИЮ» И ВСТРЕЧА С МАТЕРЬЮ-РОССИЕЙ: ЗОФИМУ КОНСИЛЬЕРИ ПЕДРОЗУ И ЕГО ВИДЕНИЕ РУССКОЙ ГОРОДСКОЙ И СЕЛЬСКОЙ СРЕДЫ В КОНЦЕ ДЕВЯТНАДЦАТОГО ВЕКА

Аннотация. Португальский республиканский писатель, историк и этнолог Зофиму Консильери Педрозу (1850–1910) посетил Россию в 1896 году. Очарованный литературными описаниями сельских районов страны, он решил посетить две русские деревни, чтобы погрузиться в их культуру. Тем не менее, его мотивы для такого путешествия не ограничивались нетрадиционным туризмом. В действительности намерением Педрозу было использовать важные для него позитивистские теории, чтобы дать толкование российской городской и сельской жизни, с конечной целью выработать личный взгляд на ценности, взгляды и обычаи, которые он считал типично русскими. Следовательно, историк намерен был использовать концепции расы, прогресса и цивилизации не только для того чтобы сравнить Россию с другими европейскими державами, но и чтобы попытаться постичь то, что он считал славянским этосом, посредством изучения крестьянской жизни, пищевых привычек и песен. Поэтому в своем стремлении понять «Мать-Россию» через непосредственное знакомство с тем, что предлагала сохраненная в ней Аркадия, португальский автор придет к созданию образа растущей нации и империи как непреодолимой культурной силы, предназначенной для объединения всех славянских народов через политику построения империи, основанную на культурных сходствах между этими народами. Вследствие этого пища, песни и крестьянская жизнь становятся расовыми характеристиками, укоренившимися в традициях, возникших в незапамятном прошлом, и их надлежит использовать в настоящем для реализации политической идеи - формирования единого славянского союзного блока под контролем демократической Российской империи.

Ключевые слова: городская среда, сельская местность, имперское строительство, Россия, раса, цивилизация.

1. Summary of Consiglieri Pedroso’s life and work

Zófimo Consiglieri Pedroso was born in Lisbon, on March 10th, 1851. He studied in Lisbon’s Curso Superior de Letras, later becoming a professor in 1879. As a Republican, he was selected to be a member of the Portuguese chamber of representatives from 1884 to 1889, co-founding, in 1888, the Republican newspaper Os Debates. Pedroso also focused on scientific writing, taking

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interest in the study of languages and ethnography1. A respected member of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, he rose to the presidency of the association in 1909.

Pedroso’s interests also led him to publish various political pamphlets from the 1870s to the 1890s and to undertake the writing of various history manuals. Yet, despite having had several interests and publications related to such, Consiglieri Pedroso died in Sintra, on September 3rd, 19102.

2. Concepts of Race, Civilization, and Progress

The concepts we refer to are key to understanding Pedroso’s ethnological, economic and cultural view of Russia. According to the author’s concept of race3, the ethnic background of any given person could be glanced by identifying several anatomical characters4, leading the historian to theorize the existence of three major races: white, black, and yellow. Among the three, according to Pedroso, the only societies worth studying were the ones in some way connected to the white race.5

When it comes to his concept of civilization, it can carry two different meanings. The first refers to “the number of characteristics that represent the collective life of a group or an epoch”6 comprising “cultural aspects (…) and economic activities”7. We see it in use when, for example, Pedroso describes the

“civilization of the Middle Ages”, detailing the artistic, scientific and economic developments that took place in Europe during that time8. Nevertheless, the historian also uses the concept to refer to the level of development of these characteristics when compared to a base model, the society considered to be the most civilized of all: Nineteenth-century Western Europe.

1Ventura, António, “Zófimo Consiglieri Pedroso” in MEDINA, João (dir.), História de

Portugal, Vol. 9, Amadora, Ediclube, 2004, pp.373-374.

2Idem, Ibidem, pp.374-375.

3Pedroso, Zófimo Consiglieri, Compêndio de História Universal, Porto, Livraria Universal de Magalhães e Moniz, 1885, pp.11-14.

4Idem, Ibidem, p.13.

5Idem, Ibidem, p.14.

6Braudel, Fernand, Costa, Telma (trad.), A Gramática das civilizações, Lisbon, Editorial Teorema, 1989, p.20.

7Matos, Sérgio Campos, “A história na instrução pública oitocentista: permanências e inovações” in Estrela, Albano (org.), Contributos da investigação científica para a qualidade do ensino, Actas do III Congresso da Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências da Educação, Vol. I, Lisbon, Portuguese Society for the Science of Education, 1997, pp.182.

8Pedroso, Zófimo Consiglieri, Manual de Historia Universal, Paris, Guillard, Aillaud e cia., 1884, p.163

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