Pela Patria

Pela Patria ("For the Fatherland", a phrase from the Portuguese National Anthem) was a monthly Magazine published in 1940-41 by the Portuguese community in Shanghai. About half of the articles are in Portuguese and half in English. It captured an invaluable record of the life and people in that city, four years after occupation by the Japanese in 1937, and contains many photos of Macanese (unfortunately, of poor quality). The community there, feeling under threat and obviously economically stressed and insecure, tried hard to maintain their Portuguese identity and cohesion with articles on Portuguese history and culture, through social events, and by promoting lessons on the Portuguese language. But it could not last: with the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific in December 1941 the whole community dispersed, never to reassemble.

We are fortunate that a bound copy of the entire series survives in the JM Braga Collection in the National Library of Australia. Its hundreds of pages were laboriously photographed by Dr Stuart Braga and reproduced here.

Click to see its contents, which provide links to individual pages of the magazine and, for the Public website, hundreds of links to peoples' Personal Pages. Descendants of Macanese from Shanghai will enjoy browsing through the magazine and may even find mention of their relatives.