Decadence and Regeneration in the Portuguese Republican Imagination at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Fernando Catroga revisits what "decadence" and "regeneration," two key terms, meant for the 1870 generation, which was unanimous in declaring that Portuguese society was decadent, though sought different forms of interpretation and initiatives against the political, cultural, and social order. Set against the backdrop of fin-de-siècle Portugal, this study analyzes how the political ideology of Republican militants and anti-clericals, that from the intellectual sphere trickled down to the lower classes, influenced the interpretation of natural disasters and the choice of children's names as culled from the records of civil registers in Lisbon from 1879 to 1910. These examples serve to illustrate the politically motivated de-christianization that accompanied the idea of the Republic as a means to regenerate the country

Art · Art history · Biology · Decadence · Literature · Portuguese · Regeneration (biology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Decadence, Literature, and Society · History of Medicine and Tropical Health · Philosophy