Sebastianism
As sebastianism one is mythical and messianic direction of the Portuguese culture called that until the 20th Century stock was of 16. Similar to the German myth of the emperor Barbarossa sleeping in Kyffhäuser, Sebastianism was also based on the idealized transfiguration of a "sleeping" ruler. So the young to Sebastian of Portugal in 1578 not in the Battle of Alcácer Quibir have fallen, but on the legendary island Incoberta " caught up " have been where he was a "hidden king" ( rei encuberto) waiting for his return in the company of two lions. According to another tradition, he retired to a monastery until his return as ruler and prayed there for his people.
Some traditions originally only romanticized the tragic " heroic death " of the knightly king. Since his body could not be found on the battlefield, however, many Portuguese also believed that he had not died and would return in time to redeem his country from the increasing decline under Spanish rule (1580-1640). The aspirants to the throne and impostors used this belief for anti-Spanish uprisings and presented themselves as the returning national hero. But Sebastianism also had an impact outside the Iberian Peninsula; In 1598, for example, a man appeared in Venice who claimed to be the missing Portuguese king. When Portugal regained its independence in 1640, the new King John IV had to swear to abdicate if Sebastian reappeared and wanted to take the throne. At this point in time, he would have been 86 years old.
Sebastianism was of political importance in Portugal until around 1830, and it was still alive in remote areas of the former Portuguese colony of Brazil in the mid-19th century . Even the Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon only stated in the article Alcazar-Quivir about the battle of 1578 in 1851 : "Sebastian [...] has since disappeared".
Later a religiously exaggerated direction of Sebastianism developed again in Brazil, which dreamed of a restoration of the monarchy overthrown by the republicans in 1889. The expectation of Sebastian's return, who would remove the “godless” innovation of the republic and restore the empire of Brazil , was an element of the sermons of Antônio Conselheiro and of the faith of his messianic community in Canudos from 1893 to 1897.
In Portugal in the 20th century the tradition of Sebastianism was cultivated again, especially under António de Oliveira Salazar , and functionalized for ideological goals against democracy and liberalism.
literature
- Ruth Tobias: The Sebastianismo in the Portuguese literature of the 20th century. On the literary construction and deconstruction of national identity using the example of a redeemer myth. TFM, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-925203-88-5 (dissertation, University of Gießen, 2001).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Richard Andree: Robinsonader frȧn alla verldsdelar. Stockholm 1871, p. 30 ff.
- ↑ a b c Philipp Wolff-Windegg: The Crowned. Meaning and symbols of royalty. Ernst Klett, Stuttgart 1958, here p. 275.
- ↑ Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon , Volume 1, Leipzig 1851, p. 267.
- ^ Lúcia Gaspar: Sebastianismo no Nordeste Brasileiro . Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, August 31, 2009, accessed on July 27, 2020.