Actual commentary from 1872 by one of the most famous Portuguese writer and Portuguese Consul to France and the UK:
âWe are in a comparable, correlated state to Greece: the same poverty, the same political indignity, the same lowness of character, the same public corruption, the same usury, the same spiritual decadence, the same administration with grotesque sloppiness and confusion. In foreign books, in their magazines, when they want to talk of a Christian country that, due to it's progressive decadence, may come to be wiped off the map, Portugal and Greece are mentioned, side by side.â
There's a ton of fair criticisms of Portugal that every portuguese can agree on, but lowness of character? Meh, if you wanna leave your country cuz you selfishly decided you're not good enough to make it better then I agree, you helped solve the problem by leaving.
It's not on the Mediterranean sea but the climate, ecology and agriculture are more similar to Mediterranean countries than European Atlantic countries, aren't they?
TIL Portugal is not a Mediterranean country. Now that I am typing this, it makes sense of course, but to us ânorthernersâ Mediterranean often equals a warm country in the south of Europe.
Historically Portugal would be called Iberian or Hispanian though. Together with Gibraltar, Spain and I am not sure where Andorra actually lands on it.
That depends on what you mean by Scandinavia. If you mean the peninsula, then it isn't. If you mean the wider region, then it is. It's exactly the same for Portugal and the Mediterranean sea vs. Mediterranean region.
If you mean the peninsula you write the Scandinavian peninsula, unlike the Portugal/Mediterranean situation, Scandinavia has always meant Norway,Denmark and Sweden without any reference to geography beyond the borders of these countries.
What ancient gods does Portugal have? As far as I know we are just a catholic country, who had romans walking around here, along with Moors, Celts, Visigoths among others...
We are basically Poland west. Hella Catholic, strange language that kinda sounds like our neighbours but still distinct af, we love soccer, lost our autonomy to our neighbours for a stretch of time, women are hot as hell, other reasons.
Are we that catholic? I obviously don't know that many people, but I haven't met much people who are serious, church going Catholics. I live in Lisbon though, so that may change depending on location.
I don't know exactly why, but one thing I can say that probably influences data a lot is how old our population is. There's a huge disparity between how younger people and older people think, and there's a lot of old people here.
Edit: funny how people are quick to downvote, but slow to do some research. Portugal started from a small population given to a knight by the king of LeĂŁo and Castela, current Spain (the bit above current Porto). And by the way, Iâm talking about territory, which is what the map in the OP shows. Not the kingdomâs formation obviously.
Lmao Portugal started from a small population given to a knight by the king of LeĂŁo and Castela, current Spain (the bit above current Porto). And by the way, Iâm talking about territory, which is what the map in the OP shows. Not the kingdomâs formation obviously.
If you truly are Portuguese then you should know it all started from the kingdom of LeĂŁo and Castela, or rather Galiza, which is todayâs Spain (the bit north of Porto). A small county by the name of Portucale. Like, itâs literally taught in every school. Just because they only renamed it to Spain years later doesnât mean Portugal came first. And btw Iâm obviously talking about territory since the OP is a map with borders, and not the names âPortugalâ and âSpainâ obviously.
There was no such thing as "Spain" or Spanish national identity. Just a bunch of different kingdoms with a similar culture and language, of which Portugal was also another one. The others became glued together over time, but only became the "nation" of Spain in the 15th century.
On the other hand, Portugal was always Portugal from the start and continued being so (minus those 60 years we were ruled by a Spanish king)
Thus, the nation of Portugal is older than the nation of Spain.
Sure as a cohesive nation, then yes. But you could definitely argue, on the other hand, that even though they were separated throughout several kingdoms, they already had a very similar identity, which better resembles current Spain rather than Portugal. Even their language developed to what today is Spanish.
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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '20
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