From the Maritime Empire to the Reconquered Earth. Essay on the “Portuguese world”
The essay comments on the evolution of the Portuguese concept of identity between its medieval and early-modern origins and the decline of the colonial empire. The concept of the “Portuguese world”, exemplified in the exposition organized in 1940, is treated as a simulacrum masking the deficiencies of the colonial project. At the same time, the vindication of the “earth” as opposed to the maritime space of the supposed “paracletic” destiny of the nation, is brought back to the Salazarian epoch. Portugal is imagined as a garden, in which, against the reality of the colonial abuse, also the Other is symbolically included. On the other hand, the decolonization and the return of the settlers is presented in this essay as a crucial point in which the vision of the “Portuguese world” suffers a profound reshaping, paradoxically re-emerging, at the beginning of the 21st century, as a universal community of the poor.
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