Dos interesses do império português à uma subversão ao colonialismo: a Casa dos Estudantes do Império, a poesia de combate e a relação com o(s) nacionalismo(s) (1944-1965)

Abstract

In view of the cooling of the debates around the struggles for the independence of countless ex-colonies in the African continent, especially the Portuguese ones, as well as the close relationship between History and Literature, the present work sought to weave a network of connections between the affirmation of the Portuguese interests in their colonies with the process of subverting these ideals through the Casa dos Students do Império (1944-1965) and their literary production. In this sense, the main objectives of this dissertation were focused on: conducting a study about the interests that organized the Portuguese imperial logic around Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde; understand the construction of the categories of “indigenous” and “assimilated, as well as the operationalization of these places in the colonial system; and, finally, to analyze the Casa dos Students do Império as a space for socializing nationalist and libertarian ideals based on literary production concentrated in the collection “Autores Ultramarinos”. The construction of this writing relied on the use of dissertations, theses, works, articles and the full range of documentation from the collections of the Mário Soares Foundation, the Official Gazette of Portugal, the Union of Portuguese-speaking Capital Cities (UCCLA) and the collection literary book “Autores Ultramarinos” (reissued and published by UCCLA in 2015). Therefore, the studies carried out not only aimed at offering an expansion of knowledge regarding imperialism and Portuguese imperial policy towards its colonies during the twentieth century, but, above all, to offer a mosaic of information in relation to the gestation of the ideals of liberation and its leaders from the main core of intellectual effervescence, the CIS; seeking, in this sense, to affirm a narrative contrasting to those of the European colonial imaginary.