Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-05-22DOI: 10.1017/mit.2025.18
Karen Bertorelli
{"title":"Pilgrimages of martyrdom: the National Day of Italian Labour Sacrifices in the World","authors":"Karen Bertorelli","doi":"10.1017/mit.2025.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2025.18","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Through the analysis of a series of different documents preserved in the Fondo Tremaglia, I reconstruct the genesis and development of the National Day of Italian Labour Sacrifices in the World (<span>Giornata nazionale del sacrificio del lavoro italiano nel mondo</span>). The holiday was conceived by Minister for Italians in the World Mirko Tremaglia and designated by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the end of 2001. The analysis focuses on the recovery and exaltation of the memory of the Italian miners who died in the Marcinelle mining disaster in 1956, on the political and cultural dynamics of Italy at the time, and on Tremaglia’s <span>saloino</span> (he voluntarily joined the Italian Social Republic and was enlisted in the National Republican Guard) and <span>missino</span> (term used to refer to the members of the Movimento Sociale Italiano) past. The result is a multifaceted scenario for a commemoration that still exists today, but is largely unknown in the country where it was created.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144113644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-05-22DOI: 10.1017/mit.2025.17
Chiara Zampieri
{"title":"Public debt in the First Republic: a review of studies and new research perspectives","authors":"Chiara Zampieri","doi":"10.1017/mit.2025.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2025.17","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article provides an overview of the main interpretations in contemporary historiography of the role of Italian political actors in the management of public debt during the First Republic, also in the context of European integration. In order to fill the gaps in historical research on this crucial issue, the conclusion proposes some questions and insights for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144113339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-05-19DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.79
Mirco Carrattieri
{"title":"‘Lightness is not superficiality, but gliding over things from above, without boulders on your heart’: unconventional locations and informal approaches to the history of the Resistance","authors":"Mirco Carrattieri","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.79","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.79","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the new millennium, amidst a crisis of antifascism as a source of political legitimacy, there has been a revival of antifascism in a more accessible and popular form, integrated into collective imagination and everyday practices. Events and themes of the Resistance have been revisited in venues and contexts beyond the traditional, utilising new approaches and languages outside conventional frameworks. This brief overview highlights the activities of five distinct organisations, spread across the country and all established between 1999 and 2009. Despite their differing methods and objectives, they have all played a significant role in promoting the Resistance through the lens of public history. Their work involves the collection and preservation of sources, the publication of studies and research, dissemination and educational activities. These organisations engage with local memories while addressing major international issues, and they promote original and innovative projects, either digital or conducted in open-air settings. This Contexts and Debates article aims to serve as a tool for those approaching the study of the Italian Resistance, helping them discover new research opportunities, particularly in the form of archival content, as well as alternative outlets to promote their findings.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144088255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-05-08DOI: 10.1017/mit.2025.1
Gianluca Fantoni, Rosario Forlenza
{"title":"The Italian Resistance: historical junctures and new perspectives","authors":"Gianluca Fantoni, Rosario Forlenza","doi":"10.1017/mit.2025.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2025.1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This introduction to this special issue of <span>Modern Italy</span> explores how the emphasis on fascism in recent scholarship and public discourse risks its mythification and cultural rehabilitation, and urges a rebalancing of historiography to highlight the pivotal role of the Italian Resistance in shaping Italy’s democratic identity. Marking the eightieth anniversary of Italy’s liberation and the thirtieth anniversary of <span>Modern Italy</span>, the issue examines lesser-known aspects of the Resistance, such as marginal groups, gendered experiences and transnational perspectives. Contributions include studies on Roma Resistance fighters, the Catholic underground press, American soldiers of Italian descent, and women in the Liberal Party. The articles emphasise the liminality and creative potential of the Resistance as a transformative period that redefined political and cultural identities.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143920301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-05-08DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.74
Alessandro Santagata
{"title":"Italy’s Catholic partisan: history and narrative","authors":"Alessandro Santagata","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.74","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.74","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article reviews the evolution of the representation of Italy’s ‘Catholic partisan’. In essence, this involved adaptation of the model of the Catholic soldier, who was able to kill out of love and ‘without hatred’, to the context of a civil war. With particular reference to the case of the central Veneto, this examination looks back to earlier Italian experiences during wartime to help explain how Catholic activists and the partisan groups linked to the Catholic world addressed the key issues of the legitimation of Resistance violence and the control of its use. It emphasises the disparity between the rhetoric directed at containing the violence and the realities of guerrilla warfare. The article goes on to analyse the different models of the ‘Catholic partisan’ put forward in the immediate postwar period (1945–1950): the ‘Catholic soldier’, with his military bearing; the ‘pure martyr’, who never initiated violence; and the ‘devout partisan’, who managed to restrict his use of violence, assessing its costs and benefits, and was characterised by his inclination to forgive and, especially, to kill as little as possible. The conclusions consider how a particular rhetoric helped to shape the narrative of the active involvement of Catholics in the Italian Resistance.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"104 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143920461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-04-22DOI: 10.1017/mit.2025.12
Mariella Terzoli
{"title":"From migrants to legionnaires: diplomatic and political tensions surrounding Italians in the French Foreign Legion, 1945–54","authors":"Mariella Terzoli","doi":"10.1017/mit.2025.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2025.12","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since its inception in 1831, the French Foreign Legion, a specialised unit within the ranks of the French military, has played a prominent role in the wars of both colonisation and decolonisation. This article seeks to trace the origins, development and eventual decline of an Italian and international ‘Legionary issue’ regarding the recruitment and employment of Italian volunteers in a foreign military force deployed in the French decolonisation war in Indochina. Through the examination of archival sources as well as autobiographical narratives by Italian legionnaires, this study offers a novel perspective on the interplay between Italy’s political, economic and sociocultural trends, the enlistment of Italian volunteers into the French Foreign Legion, and the evolution of Italo-French relations in the postwar period.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143857759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-04-11DOI: 10.1017/mit.2025.9
Eden K. McLean
{"title":"Bishop Geisler and the 1934 ‘Torello-Ricci Affair’: fighting for moral authority in a Fascist borderland","authors":"Eden K. McLean","doi":"10.1017/mit.2025.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2025.9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the autumn of 1934, Bishop Johannes Geisler of Brixen/Bressanone denied two Italian-speaking priests, Carlo Torello and Giuseppe Ricci, permission to teach within his predominantly German-speaking diocese. In response, Benito Mussolini threatened to expel all Church representatives from the state education system and, by extension, to unravel the recently signed Lateran Accords. Untangling the motivations behind Geisler’s decision, the escalating tensions it precipitated, and, ultimately, the discussions that led to its quiet resolution reveal much about Fascist and Church ambitions in the newly annexed territory of Trentino-South Tyrol. This ‘Torello-Ricci Affair’ provides a micro-historical lens with which to better understand the political and cultural infrastructures of power in interwar South Tyrol and their relationship to institutions in Rome. In particular, it illustrates the ongoing battle between civil and religious officials to assert moral authority within the region, most importantly as it regarded the education of its children.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"60 2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143819215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-03-24DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.70
David Bernardini
{"title":"The Nuova Destra in Italy: an investigation between history and historiography","authors":"David Bernardini","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.70","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.70","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this article is to analyse the Italian Nuova Destra. The first part examines the birth of the Nuova Destra within the current of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), referring particularly to Pino Rauti, a founder and leader. Following the experience of the magazine <jats:italic>La Voce della Fogna</jats:italic> and the Hobbit Camps, the first publishing initiatives of the Nuova Destra – <jats:italic>Diorama letterario</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>Elementi</jats:italic>, influenced by Alain de Benoist and the French <jats:italic>Nouvelle Droite –</jats:italic> were established. The second part analyses the path of the Nuova Destra as an autonomous cultural current. After Marco Tarchi’s expulsion from the MSI in 1981, the Nuova Destra launched an aggressive publishing strategy that failed to make the necessary organisational leap and came to an end around 1994. Nevertheless, the Nuova Destra has created a recognisable current, culturally eclectic and capable of ranging over different fields of knowledge with ‘metapolitics’ and ‘right-wing Gramscism’.","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143677639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-03-12DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.73
Rosario Forlenza
{"title":"The end of fascism?","authors":"Rosario Forlenza","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.73","url":null,"abstract":"<p>When did fascism end? Did it end in July 1943, with the fall of Mussolini from power, or in April 1945, with Liberation Day? The argument of this article is that fascism was not simply a historical experience but a political form that attempted to transcend Italy’s social and political fractures with fantasies and unrealistic but nevertheless captivating expectations. Its hypnotic contagious power cast a mimetic spell that can be continuously reloaded: by blurring the boundaries between truth and lies; by exploiting crowd irrationality; by establishing boundaries between outsiders and insiders; by perpetuating negative sentiments of hostility, fear and envy within society; and by manipulating time. The argument, therefore, is that fascism has never ended, not merely in the sense of political and cultural continuity, but in the deeper sense of immanency within the body politic of Italy’s democracy. As such, it is meaningless to wonder whether fascism might come back. It is here and now, in the only form that current historical circumstances allow it to exist – and yet it might be countered by a process of rejection that individuals and political communities can and should exercise in their everyday life, adopting the political form generated by the Resistance.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143599948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern ItalyPub Date : 2025-02-25DOI: 10.1017/mit.2024.69
Francesco Fusi
{"title":"‘Beyond Paisans’: Italian-American service members and the Allied liberation of Italy","authors":"Francesco Fusi","doi":"10.1017/mit.2024.69","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.69","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers of Italian origin were drafted into the US military and sent to fight overseas against the Axis powers. For many, this was an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to the country and remove suspicions raised by Italian communities’ ties with the Fascist regime. The prospect of fighting in their homeland aroused mixed feelings among those who were sent to Italy from June 1943. On the one hand, the presence of cultural and family ties stimulated the establishment of supportive relations with Italians and was seen by Washington as a useful tool for promoting ‘good occupation’ policies in Italy. However, the ethnic background of these soldiers did not always act as a socialisation factor with Italians, but sometimes gave rise to contradictory and even hostile attitudes that were linked to harsh judgements about Italians’ responsibilities for Fascism and their predisposition, or otherwise, to democracy. This article reconstructs the contribution made by these ethnic personnel to the liberation of the peninsula and the particular views they held of Italy and Italians between war and liberation.</p>","PeriodicalId":18688,"journal":{"name":"Modern Italy","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143486356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}