Organisation: Institute of Contemporary History of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Venue: NOVA FCSH, Lisbon
Dates: 16 and 17 April 2018
Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2017

Throughout the 20th century thousands of military and paramilitary Portuguese were made prisoners in the course of combat operations. Some experienced long months of captivity and had to endure all sorts of hardships: a poor diet, diseases, abuses, forced labour, isolation and abandonment. Many of them perished in prisoner’s camps due to illness, injuries that did not heal, suicide attempts or assassination by their warders. Some never returned to their homelands, either voluntarily of for having been prevented from doing so. Of others yet, we are still ignorant of their whereabouts.

The experience of these military and paramilitary as POW is still insufficiently studied and constitutes a lacuna in Portuguese historiography. Stimulated by the centenary of the Great War (1914-1918), and with the goal of encouraging new probes into this topic, this international conference hopes to be a space of interdisciplinary discussion in which the issues associated to the detention of military and paramilitary Portuguese in the context of armed conflict will be analysed. It is expected that papers will deal not only with conflicts in which the Portuguese armed forces were directly involved, such as the Great War and the wars of empire and decolonization (or even the particular case of Timor between 1941-45), but also those in which Portuguese nationals were engaged in military or paramilitary units of foreign armies (such as the case of he Spanish Civil War of 1936-39).

The organising committee invites researchers to submit their paper proposals considering the following thematic lines (non-exclusive):

- - The context of detention;
- The conditions of captivity (discipline, diet, medical assistance, forced labour, episodes of violence and death, relation with captor forces and POWs of other nationalities, etc.);
- Political and diplomatic contacts related with POWs;
- Support efforts from civil society organisations and international bodies;
- Liberation and return to the homeland;
- Memories of captivity (diaries, art objects, songs, drawings, photographs, etc.).



The Languages of the conference will be Portuguese and English. There will be no simultaneous translation and video-conference/Skype presentations are not permitted.

The paper’s proposal must include: the full name of the author and his/her institutional affiliation; the title of the proposal; the abstract of the proposal (up to 500 words); and a brief curricular note (up to 150 words).

The papers must be original and present new findings. The reserved time for each intervention is 20 minutes.

Shortly after the conference, the organising committee will carry out a selection of a number of papers to include them in a publication. The deadline for the submission of these papers/book chapters (up to 8000 words) will be 1 June 2018. The editing references (notes and bibliography) will be given to authors as soon as they are notified on their contribution to the book.

The paper’s proposals should be submitted to the email portugueseprisoners@gmail.com until 30 September 2017.

The notice of acceptance will be made until 15 October 2017.

The keynote speakers and the scientific commission will be announced soon.



Conference Fees:

€ 30 – Speakers (includes two light lunches, coffee breaks and a certificate of participation)
€ 10 – Students and general public (includes coffee breaks and certificate of attendance)



Organising Committee:

Ana Paula Pires (IHC – NOVA FCSH and Stanford University)
António Paulo Duarte (IHC – NOVA FCSH and Instituto de Defesa Nacional)
Fátima Mariano (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Maria José Oliveira (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Pedro Aires Oliveira (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Rui Aballe Vieira (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Teresa Nunes (IHC – NOVA FCSH and FLUL)



Sponsor institution:

Portuguese Commission for the Evocation of the Centenary of the First World War