The Dom Nuno Álvares Pereira National Crusade and the origins of the New State (1918-1938)

Abstract

The aim of this text is to provide a historiographic reading of the symbolic, ideological and political origins of the New State. The author proceeds from an analysis of the importance of the role of the Dom Nuno Álvares Pereira National Crusade in the construction of the «syncretic matrix» of Portuguese nationalism, which was the nursery for the type of conservative, authoritarian and corporate nationalism that gradually configured juridically and institutionally after the revolution of 28th May, 1926. The author begins by clarifying the historiographic study field. He then goes to identify three moments of civic convergence for nationalist elites (the National Congress of 1910, the Patriotic Union of 1913 and the National League of 1915-18). The third section presents some of the features of the dynamics of, and the functions performed by, the Crusade. In the fourth section the author examines the structure and the age, socio-professional and political fabric of the Crusades' leading elite, as well as its most prominent protagonists. In the fifth section the author goes on to explain the gallery of the Crusade's unifying symbols and the essential themes of its discourse. Finally, the author concludes that, although there was a singular specificity within the contemporary European civic movements that was of significant importance for the creation of a syncretic elite in the New State, the Crusade suffered from the dominant projection of the myth of the state, which progressively took over its role of the moral fortification of civil society (family, work, religion, social solidarity, tolerance, patriotism), i.e. was more nation than state.