A Balkan diversion. The Portuguese Israelites of Salonika

Abstract

This article documents the spirit and the letter of the measures taken by the government of Afonso Costa to grant provisional nationality rights to the Portuguese Israelite community of Salonika, and seeks at the same time to locate Portuguese diplomatic activity in the context of the Eastern policies of the European empires, the nationalist confìicts in the Balkans and the end of European Turkey. The brutal nature of the correspondence between Lisbon and Constantinople, which is the principal material for this article, shows the more unwary reader how interests of state were pursued under the Republic's picturesque façade of philo-semitism. And it points to how problems were stored up for the future, not only for the Portuguese state, but also for those who were the object of its insipid protection.