‘A League of Minds’? Uses and abuses of the League of Nations’ internationalism by Fascist Italy

ABSTRACT This article aims to shed light on the rationale behind Fascist Italy’s participation in the League of Nations’ (L.o.N.) cultural organizations, as well as on the strategies and diplomatic tools it adopted with a view to setting the intellectual cooperation agenda in the 1920s and 1930s. Although inspired by a strong nationalist ideology, the Fascist regime, at least initially, successfully adapted its cultural diplomacy strategies to the multilateral context of the L.o.N., embracing the language and tools of internationalism. In the long run, however, this delicate balance between nationalist and internationalist attitudes proved untenable: Mussolini’ project aiming to convey a positive and tolerant image of Fascism to the outside world was firstly tainted by the measures taken in 1931 to regiment Italian intellectuals, and then finally collapsed with the aggression to Ethiopia. However, this article shows that the involvement in the L.o.N.’s cultural organizations, while providing Fascism with international channels for circulating its propaganda, also determined instances of real cooperation: the most emblematic case is represented by the development of cinematography, which can be considered Italy’s long-term contribution to the enhancement of intellectual cooperation within the L.o.N. in the interwar period.