Depois de La Lys: as "Memórias da Grande Guerra", de Jaime Cortesão

Abstract

After La Lys: "Memórias da Grande Guerra" [Memoirs of the Great War] by Jaime Cortesão

As the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that brought the First World War, a conflict in which the young Portuguese republic participated with the heroic and naïve enthusiasm characteristic of those years, to an end, the present article proposes a reading and commentary of some passages of the book Memórias da Grande Guerra [Memoirs of the Great War], by Jaime Cortesão, especially the way the author assesses Portugal’s theoretically victorious involvement in the conflict. In his work, the Portuguese politician, writer and war-time officer Cortesão, besides recalling the most important moments of his misadventures in Flanders, always celebrating in grandiloquent prose the heroism of Portuguese soldiers, also carries out a critical reflection on the way political elites treat their most dedicated citizens and how official memory not always does justice to all sacrifices made on the battlefield.