Debating the Meaning of Fascism in Contemporary Italy

Abstract

This article takes up the question posed by Claudio Pavone—‘Have the Italians truly known how to come to terms with their past?’—and argues that Italians have indeed grappled with their Fascist past, albeit in varied, contradictory, ambiguous and incomplete ways. This article demonstrates the myriad ways in which Italians—historians, politicians, intellectuals, and segments of the general public—have debated the meaning of Fascism since the fall of Mussolini and the end of the Second World War. What follows below argues that selective remembering and wilful forgetting of the Mussolini regime are nevertheless evidence of an ongoing process of confronting the legacy of Italy's recent past.

Legacies of Fascism: architecture, heritage and memory in contemporary Italy

“…There was a sense that the memory of Fascism was too divisive and best forgotten. Plans to prosecute Fascist crimes and to purge public bureaucracy were soon abandoned on the grounds that they would destabilise the state and hinder the transition to democracy (Roy Domenico 1991; Pavone 1995, 139–146; Dondi 2001, 143–144; Battini 2003, 20–71; Ventresca 2006, 196). To mark the birth of the Italian republic in June 1946, the communist leader and Minister of Justice, Palmiro Togliatti, granted an amnesty to all but the most prominent Fascists as part of a strategy of pacification (Franzinelli 2016).…”

“…In this sense, architecture reflected, and supported, the transmission of memories to future generations through a selective process of remembering. Interventions into the built environment show that, alongside a tendency towards ‘collective amnesia’, there were limited efforts to tackle the past (Ventresca 2006, 189–190).

Figure 8 Bas-relief representing Mussolini on horseback on the exterior of the Palazzo degli Uffici in EUR, Rome (author’s photograph, 2017)

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“…From 1945 to today, the Fascist period has cast a long, but indeterminate, shadow over Italian culture and politics. Although Fascism is fundamental to the identity of republican Italy as an anti-Fascist state, public memories are hazy, selective and unreliable (Corner 2005, 176; Ventresca 2006, 200; Fogu 2006, 67). While the ventennio dominates Italian historiography, it occupies an ambiguous position in Italy’s collective consciousness.…”

“…There is no shared national narrative of Fascism and little consensus as to what it means for Italy today (Pavone 2000, 37; Fogu 2006, 149–150; Samuels 2015, 115). Divisions have been compounded, from the 1990s, by a tendency to revise history in a way that rehabilitates Mussolini’s regime (Tranfaglia 1996, 98–99; Corner 2002; 2005; Battini 2003, 1–8; Mammone 2006; Ventresca 2006, 195; see, for example, De Felice 1995). Revisionism emerged when the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Italian Communist Party and the fall of Italy’s first republic broke the anti-fascist coalition that had dominated Italian politics since the end of the Second World War (Luzzatto 2004, 8; Mammone 2006, 217; Fogu 2006, 161–167).…”

“…Instead of illustrating structural continuity in the law or bureaucracy, architecture offers concrete evidence of cultural continuity (Dondi 2001, 141). It presents an opportunity to tap into a popular memory of Fascism, and to explore Italian mentalities through the spaces of everyday life (Ventresca 2006, 204).…”