Restelo Redux

Abstract

The principal issue that António Lobo Antunes’s characters grapple with in the 1988 novel As Naus (The Return of the Caravels) is convincing themselves that “Portugal não é um país pequeno” (Portugal is not a small country). The phrase refers to Salazar’s Estado Novo propaganda and the cartographical sleight of hand that produced the superimposition of the Portuguese colonial empire on a map of Europe. As noted by Manuela Ribeiro Sanches (2006) in her introduction to a collection of essays named after the map that calls for a reexamination of Portuguese identity in light of the insertion of the country into the European Union,

A negativa que a frase propagandística inseria como legenda da imagem … revelava o modo como a pequenez da nação carecia de um império para se libertar da sua periferia, afirmando-se assim como potência a nível nacional e internacional, ao mesmo tempo que legitimava o seu empreendimento colonial. (7)

The negation inserted by the language of the propaganda into the image caption … revealed the small nation’s need for an empire as a means of liberation from its peripheral standing, declaring its status as a national and international power at the same time as it legitimated its colonial enterprise.