The Portuguese exiles in Paris From Revolution to Vintismo. Political economy, linguistics, and the modernization of Portuguese politics

The paper studies the community of Portuguese intellectuals who emigrated to Paris in the first half of the 19th century mostly for political reasons. The intense journalistic and editorial activity of this group, in addition to being a primary source of livelihood for many, was inspired by a precise – and somewhat multifaceted – objective: to act as a mediator between European scientific and political culture and Portuguese culture in order to channel national politics and public opinion in a liberal and constitutional direction and to foster Portugal’s economic and social modernization through free trade and technical and scientific progress. The Portuguese language was also to be modernized, setting aside the old ideology of its primacy among the Romance languages and instead accepting contact and hybridization with the languages of the more advanced European countries, from which the main innovations and new ideas in the political and economic spheres emanated. Conversely, the Portuguese exiles aimed to make the French and European public discover the Portuguese language and great cultural and literary tradition from the age of the great discoveries to the Enlightenment, bringing them back to the heart of European culture. Focusing on this complex pattern helps explain why the two fields in which the group’s intellectual production was concentrated were politics and political economy, on the one hand, and grammarography, lexicography and literary popularization, on the other. The paper devotes ample space to reconstructing the publishing ventures of Portuguese intellectuals who animated the cultural life of the French capital.