‘Passato e presente. I giovani e la marcia su Roma’ (Past and present. The youth and the march on Rome) – 1st video
28 April 2022
(ID Teca: X000096648) In these two excerpts from the episode of "Passato e Presente" broadcast on 28th of April 2022 on Rai Tre and Rai Storia, the footages illustrate the relationship between young people and fascism in the context of its "power takeover": a theme later analysed in the studio by the historian Marco Mondini with presenter Paolo Mieli and the participation of the young historian Alessandro Ambrosino, focusing on the existential reasons behind the involvement of young people in fascism. This is a theme that somehow echoes Montanelli's above-mentioned testimony in his insistence on the pre-political nature of youth involvement too.
‘Passato e presente. I giovani e la marcia su Roma’ (Past and present. The youth and the march on Rome) – 2nd video
28 April 2022
(ID Teca: X000096648) The fascist squadrism
Emilio Gentile, the March on Rome and dealing with the past
Nell’anniversario dei 100 anni dalla Marcia su Roma, Emilio Gentile, il più autorevole storico del fascismo in Italia, spiega le ragioni che portarono Benito Mussolini al potere in questa intervista di Claudio Bustaffa. In Italia, cento anni fa il Fascismo sale al potere, è la cosiddetta Marcia su Roma che porta Benito Mussolini a capo del governo. Ma cosa accadde in quei giorni? E quanto l’Italia ha fatto i conti con quel passato? Il 28 ottobre è la data simbolica della presa di potere dei fascisti. Un movimento nato nel 1919 a Milano e che 3 anni dopo lancia e vince la sfida al governo di Roma. Ma quel giorno, il 28 ottobre, nessun fascista marciò davvero nelle strade di Roma. La sfilata nella capitale ci fu il 31 ottobre, a cose fatte, con Mussolini già capo del Governo. Una pagina chiusa. Ma ancora attuale.
Historiography
Nel cantiere della memoria. Fascismo, Resistenza, Shoah, Foibe (In the yard of memory. Fascism, Resistance, Shoah, Foibe)
Filippo Focardi, Viella. Volume of synthesis and arrangement of a research path now twenty years on the construction of collective memory and stereotypes that have fueled the identity in Italy post 1945, This monograph deals with the most problematic issues of the relations between national history and fascism. The antinomy between "bad Germans" and good Italians (to which Focardi had already dedicated a volume), the removal of Italian faults in the occupation and in the use of violence against civilians, the wound of military internees, the memory of the Shoah (another removal site), the construction of the resistive mythology of Kefalonia and the accounts with fascism / eternal anti-fascism as keys to political mobilization.
Le guerre di Mussolini (The wars of Mussolini)
John Gooch, Newton Compton. A specialist in Italian history, John Gooch had already distinguished himself in the field of the history of the Twentieth Century with a volume dedicated to the relations between the regime and the military by profession (Mussolini and his Generals, Cambridge 2007), still today the most complete and balanced research monograph on the existing topic. His latest volume, unfortunately badly translated by a non-specialist publisher, is the best analysis available on the relationship between regime and war: a critical evaluation, solid and unassailable on the inadequacy of the dictatorship in facing modernity and on the inevitable failure of the guerrilla propaganda of fascism.
Le destre europee. Conservatori e radicali tra le due guerre (The European Right. Conservatives and radicals between the two wars)
Marco Bresciani (curated by), Carocci. Although of very varied quality, the essays contained in this substantial collection on the genesis and political affirmation of the extreme right movements in Europe between 1918 and 1939 are, on the whole, innovative and brilliant. The main merit of this collection is undoubtedly the fact that it has strongly posed the question of the transnational origins of fascism that subtracts the Italian story (Bresciani makes this very clear in his introduction) the exceptional vision so often cultivated by historians of fascism. The collapse of the liberal regime thus ceases to be the product of a kind of eternal national conspiracy against the path of democracy and becomes a consequence of the inability of many European countries (including Italy) to emerge from the upheavals caused by the cultural and social mobilization for the total war of 1914-1918.
Roma 1922. Il fascismo e la guerra mai finita (Rome 1922. Fascism and the never-ending war)
Marco Mondini, Il Mulino. For over twenty years, historians of World War I have been questioning the failure of the processes of transition from war to peace in post-1918 Europe, especially in defeated countries (such as Weimar Germany) and among the successors of destroyed empires. In the wake of this tradition, this volume rereads the rise to power of fascism and its culminating act, the march on Rome, as the most macroscopic result of the lacerations never overcome that characterized the Italian participation in the Great War. Experienced by many first of all as an opportunity to regenerate the nation by wiping out internal enemies and traitors, the war did not end with 1918, but it turned very quickly into a bloody civil war. An excellent context for the development and popularity of a political movement with uncertain connotations and ambiguous program, such as fascism, which promised to defend the sacredness of intervention and victory.
I luoghi del fascismo (The places of fascism)
Giulia Albanese – Lucia Ceci (curated by), Viella. The result of a collective project on the places of memory of the twenty years after 1945, integrated with some comparative contributions on the German and Iberian cases, the volume presents itself as a journey through the difficult accounts with the iconographic, symbolic survivals (and often ideological) regime after 1945. The cases of study of the urban odonomastic often never purified by the dedications desired by the dictatorship, the mausoleums and the shrines dedicated to figures of the regime, solicit a reading far from linear of the legacies and fractures between fascist and republican Italy.
Storia del fascismo (History of fascism)
Emilio Gentile, Laterza. In this work of over 1300 pages, Gentile has poured results and materials of over forty years of research on every aspect of the movement and then of the fascist regime. In many respects, it is the most complete work existing on the genesis and development of the dictatorship, on the construction of the totalitarian apparatus, on the metamorphosis of the militia party and on its complex relations with the dictator, and finally on the demise of the regime with the choice of a war already lost in departure and with the final parable of the puppet state of the RSI.
Culture and politics
The people’s house
The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella meets in Trieste the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor. The two visit the foiba of Basovizza and the strain that commemorates the death of 4 Slovenians shot by the Fascist Court. During the visit, President Mattarella returned the Narodni Dom, the people’s house burned by the fascists in 1920, by order of the federal Francesco Giunta, to the Slovenian community. For the occasion, Mattarella speaks of "reconciled European memory".
National day of memory and sacrifice of the Alpine
The Italian Parliament approves the law for the “National Day of Remembrance and Sacrifice of the Alpini” in memory of the “heroism demonstrated in the battle of Nikolajewka (26th January 1943) during the Second World War". The chosen date arouses several controversies by historians who recall the crimes committed by the Italians on the Russian-Ukrainian border, alongside the troops of the Wehrmacht and the Einsatzgruppen, the special operations units of the SD, the intelligence service of the SS.
President Giorgia Meloni
In the centenary of the March on Rome, Giorgia Meloni, leader of Fratelli d'Italia (a declaredly sovereign party, very close to Orban's far right, which explicitly refers to the MSI tradition of Giorgio Almirante) wins the elections and takes the position of President of the Council of Ministers. The first act of the President is to visit the chapel of the Unknown Soldier, on 2nd November for the anniversary of the armed forces, as Mussolini had done on 4th November 1922.