Author:
Frederico Benvinda, MA
PhD Student in Contemporary History
at the Lisbon School of Arts and Humanities (FLUL)
Researcher at the Centre for History
of the University of Lisbon
Fig. 4 – Postcard depicting Teófilo Braga (1843-1924), “published on the occasion of the national tribute dedicated to him on March 22, 1912. Contains a reproduction of his signature”. (“Teófilo Braga”, CasaComum.org, 1912. [Available Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/11002/fms_dc_149665] website visited on 27/09/2019).
Contrary to Carrilho Videira’s (1845-1905) and Consiglieri Pedroso’s (1851-1910) positions, Teófilo Braga (1843-1924) was adamantly opposed to Russia’s involvement in the Great Eastern Crisis (1875-1878), which, after the Russo-Turkish war (1877-1878), resulted in the Congress of Berlin (1878). The Congress, among other decisions, granted Serbia its de facto independence.
"To Teófilo Braga, these revolutions and revolutionary disturbances originated in a collective desire for freedom and hence, promoted the progress of civilization.However, the same was not true for any other use of violence by states during the Belle Époque."
In his work Historia Universal (1878), Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga, Portuguese republican author, sociologist and president during the first year of the Portuguese I Republic (1910-1911), argued that the pursuit of war only resulted in progress if it was taken up against uncivilized races or tyrannical governments. Hence, he argued, war had served civilization during Classical Antiquity, when cities needed to be defended against what the author saw as less civilized invaders. The same was true, he argued in 1877 in Carrilho Videira’s Almanach Republicano para 1878, when it came to the English, American and French revolutions and the Paris Commune. To Teófilo Braga, these revolutions and revolutionary disturbances originated in a collective desire for freedom and hence, promoted the progress of civilization.
However, the same was not true for any other use of violence by states during the Belle Époque. According to the Author, in his book Historia Universal, “militarism” was “monstrous” because all European nations were at the same “material level” and any attempt to disturb peace must have originated in monarchs’ imperial desires. Hence why Teófilo Braga doesn’t mention the Bulgarian April Uprising (1876) or the Serbian Wars for Independence (1876-1878): he considered them to be rooted in the Russian Empire’s desire for expansion in the Balkans at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.
To guarantee peace in Europe, Teófilo Braga proposed the formation of a confederation of European countries, that would, he argued, naturally come to life if education and the scientific truths brought about by Positivism were made accessible to all. His ultimate goal was the “unification of the human race in a superior type.”
Sources and Bibliography:
BRAGA, Teófilo, Historia Universal – Esboço de Sociologia Descriptiva, Vol. 1, Lisboa, Empreza Litteraria Fluminense, 1878.
BELL, Walter F., “Russo-Ottoman War, 1877-1878” in HALL, Richard (ed.), War in the Balkans – An Encyclopedic History from the Fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Breakup of Yugoslavia, Santa Barbara, ABC-Clio, pp.252-254.
CRAMPTON, R. J., A Concise History of Bulgaria, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
GLENNY, Misha, The Balkans – Nationalism, War and the Great Powers (1804-2012), Toronto, House of Anansi Press, 2012.
HOWARD, Douglas A., A History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
LIEVEN, Dominic (ed.), The Cambridge History of Russia – Volume II Imperial Russia 1689-1917, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
VIDEIRA, Carrilho (dir.), Almanach Republicano para 1878, Ano III, Lisboa, Nova Livraria Internacional, 1877, pp.81-86.