Early Twentieth-Century Portuguese Feminist Writers as Transnational Cultural Mediators: Virgínia de Castro e Almeida and Ana de Castro Osório

Abstract

This article considers the role of Portuguese feminist writers and intellectuals of the early twentieth century as important transnational cultural mediators, who functioned both as promoters of Portuguese culture and literature across national borders and as importers of ideas that were in circulation at that time. The article traces how the correspondence between the prominent intellectual Ana de Castro Osório (1872–1935) and the translator Göran Björkman (1860–1923), together with Virgínia de Castro e Almeida's (1874–1946) reception and dissemination of the feminist thinker Ellen Key (1849–1926), illustrate the cross-cultural exchange between Portugal and Sweden, thus highlighting how these Portuguese intellectuals functioned as transnational beacons for the circulation of ideas. The article's overarching aim is to highlight the role played by these Portuguese women writers as mediators in the transnational processes of cultural exchange, which underpinned and shaped the modernization of Portuguese early twentieth-century culture.