Una Coscienza Coloniale: forging imperial women in the Fascist Colonial Institute of Bologna

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the Fascist Colonial Institute (ICF) of Bologna as a local space in which fascist ideals of empire, gender and class collided and were reproduced. Founded shortly before Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, the ICF served to transmit colonial consciousness to the Italian people, and, most especially, to young middle-class women. Analysis of the local Bolognese ICF, however, reveals a more complex reality. Courses designed to create fascist imperialists out of middle-class women and forge a ruling settler class for the colonies evidence that the institute used the empire as a tool to shore up gender norms in fascist Italy. The author argues that an unintended outcome of these courses was that the ICF became a space of limited freedom and of social and professional mobility for its young women participants. In addition to learning transgressive skills, these women took advantage of their affiliation with the institute, using it as a springboard for further employment opportunities. The paper is based on a rich collection of sources from the Bolognese branch of the ICF, held in the Museo Civico del Risorgimento di Bologna in the Archivio dell’Istituto Fascista dell’Africa Italiana – Sezione di Bologna.

KEYWORDS:

• Fascism
• fascist empire
• gender
• class
• women
• colonial consciousness
• Bologna
• Colonial Fascist Institute

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the friends and colleagues who gave me generous feedback on the various drafts of this article, especially Anne Thomson, Lucy Riall, Ignacio García de Paso and Johannes Pelzl. Thanks also to Oisín Montanari, John Kennedy, Paul Barrett, Zoe Lauri and Ben Carver for their sharp reader responses at our writers’ group sessions. I owe a great thank you to Katharina Seibert and Barnabas Balint for organising the excellent ‘Rallying Europe’ conference and this special issue. And to Lia Brazil and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and encouragement. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Mirtide Gavelli at the Museo Civico del Risorgimento di Bologna for her kind assistance with the archival material.

All translations are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Sangiorgi, quoted in “L’inaugurazione dei corsi coloniali per le donne Fasciste,” Il Resto del Carlino, November 9, 1937.

2. Museo Civico del Risorgimento di Bologna, Archivio dell’Istituto Fascista dell’Africa Italiana – Sezione di Bologna (henceforth AIFAIB), titulo (tit.) 1, busta (b.) 1, fascicolo (f.) 3, Cerrina Feroni, “Circolare 2 – Statuto dell’ICF,” February 16, 1935.

3. For a perceptive view on the ‘nationalistic frenzy’ that took hold of Italy in the build-up to the Ethiopian War that takes into account the propagandistic mechanisms of the fascist regime, see Del Boca, The Ethiopian War, 1935–1941, 26–7. Paul Corner also problematises the idea of popular consensus for the war, talking rather of heavily orchestrated enthusiasm that was manipulated by the regime for the international stage; see Corner, The Fascist Party, 192–200; for more on the regime’s concerted effort to reinvigorate mass popular enthusiasm for Italy’s imperial war, see Duggan, Fascist Voice, 260.

4. Emilio Gentile labels this fascist drive to remould Italians into new fascist men as an ‘anthropological revolution’, Gentile, The Struggle for Modernity, 5–9; see also Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s analysis of the fascist ‘bonifica’ (reclaiming) of Italians in Ben-Ghiat, “Modernity is Just Over there,” 382; similarly, Valeria Deplano discusses the importance of empire in the fascist attempt to transform the old liberal Italian man into the new imperial fascist man in her “Making Italians,” 580–98.

5. Of course, there are exceptions to this. For a recent study that follows a bottom-up approach to women’s experience in fascist Italy see Gissi, “Reproduction.” For classic literature on this subject see: De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women; Willson, The Clockwork Factory; Saraceno, “Costruzione della maternità,” 475–97.

6. For a local report on the art exhibition, see L’Asfalto, May 11, 1935. For a summary of the conference on Abyssinia see L’Avvenire d’Italia, May 22, 1935.

7. Il Resto del Carlino, October 28, 1935.

8. Il Resto del Carlino, May 15, 1936.

9. Duggan, Fascist Voices, 260.

10. Anthony Cardoza illustrates the strength of the socialist movement in the province of Bologna from the early 1900s in Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901–1926, 7–8 and chapter VI.

11. Stefano Cavazza does suggest the continued existence of low-level organised anti-fascist activity in Bologna throughout the Fascist ventennio; see Cavazza, “Miti e Consensi,” 480–2.

12. During the fascist ventennio in Bologna (1920–43), between 110 and 115 citizens of the city were killed by fascist violence, 5613 citizens were identified by the regime as anti-fascist, over 500 were imprisoned or exiled, and 1136 fled into self-exile. For a broad overview of how Bologna experienced fascism and for these statistics, see Sauro Onofri, “Gli anni della dittatura,” 432; see also Reichardt, Camicie nere, camicie brune for a meticulous study of squadrismo in Bologna, especially 160–70.

13. Di Figlia, “The Shifting Evocations of Squadrismo,” 586.

14. Grazioli, “La gioventú fascista’ e la espansione italiana,” Il Resto del Carlino, November 11, 1935.

15. The term was coined by Mussolini as a commandment for fascist youth in 1930. As seen in Gentile, “Fascism as Political Religion,” 238; see also, Spackman, Fascist Virilities, 34.

16. Gentile, “Fascism as Political Religion,” 239; Dagnino, “The Myth of the New Man,” 142–4; Koon, Believe, Obey, Fight, xvi.

17. Sangiorgi, “Colonizzazione e civiltà,” Il Resto del Carlino, November 29, 1935.

18. Deplano, “From the Colonies to the Empire,” 34.

19. Spackman, Fascist Virilities, 35.

20. Forgacs, Italy’s Margins, 74.

21. As seen in Del Boca, “L’impero,” 470.

22. Deplano, “From the Colonies to the Empire,” 48.

23. Palumbo, “Orphans for the Empire,” 225–54; Pickering-Iazzi, “Mass Mediated Fantasies of Feminine Conquest,” 197–224.

24. Pickering-Iazzi, “Mass Mediated Fantasies of Feminine Conquest,” 207.

25. Ibid., 200.

26. Gissi, “Reproduction,” 115.

27. Saraceno, “Costruzione della maternità,” 481.

28. Willson, “Italy,” 11.

29. For a study of one of the earliest fascist women’s welfare organisation(s) see, Downs, “The Most Moderate Italianization?” 1087–1102; for an excellent overview of women’s participation in the fasci femminili see Dittrich-Johansen, Le ‘militi dell’idea’.

30. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, 196.

31. Willson, The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy, 7.

32. Ibid., 180.

33. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, f. 3, undated letter from Vera Fornasari to ICF of Bologna.

34. Il Resto del Carlino, May 14, 1936.

35. Mulder, The Economic Weapon, 204.

36. S. Roggero, Fascismo e lavoro, 194, as seen in Zamagni, “La dinamica dei salari,” 540.

37. Favero, “Le statistiche dei salari’ industriali in periodo fascista,” 343.

38. “Corso di Nozioni Mediche Coloniali,” Il Resto del Carlino, May 14, 1936.

39. Pickering-Iazzi, “Structures of Feminine Fantasy,” 123.

40. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Circolari e Organizzazione, letter from President of ICF Bologna G. Sangiorgi to renowned colonial physician and senator, Professor Aldo Castellani, July 10, 1936.

41. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Circolari e Organizzazione, letter with course schedule sent from Pier Ludovico Bertani to Professor Bertani, June 7, 1936.

42. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Circolari e Organizzazione, letter from Giuseppe Penso to President Sangiorgi,

43. “Il Prof. Girolami … parla delle condizioni sanitarie dell’Impero,” Il Resto del Carlino, June 28, 1936.

44. Lombardi-Diop, “Pioneering Female Modernity,” 145.

45. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Circolari e Organizzazione, letter from ICF of Bologna to unnamed member of parliament, May 20, 1936.

46. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, f. Diplomati dal Corso di Nozioni Mediche Coloniali, 1935–1936.

47. These letters of correspondence can be found in AIFAIB tit. 12, b. 9, f. “Corrispondenza Allievi,” and tit. 12, b. 10, f.3. The archive also contains dozens of pieces of internal correspondence and letters from professors of ‘Notions of Colonial Medicine’ and other courses. These are spread across tit. 1, b. 1, f.1, and tit. 12, b. 9.

48. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, f. 3, letter from Vera Fornasari, undated.

49. Spackman, Fascist Virilities, 35.

50. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Corrispondenza Allievi, letter from C. Serrafini, July 11, 1936.

51. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Corrispondenza Allievi, letter from student to ICF of Bologna, July 16, 1936.

52. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Corrispondenza Allievi, letter from Vera Albore to ICF of Bologna, October 5, 1936.

53. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, 6; Saraceno, “Costruzione della maternità,” 481.

54. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Corrispondenza Allievi, letter from Celestina H. to ICF of Bologna, July 7, 1936.

55. Il Resto del Carlino, July 26, 1936.

56. Dittrich-Johansen, “Per la Patria e per il Duce,” 149.

57. Saraceno, “Costruzione della maternità,” 478–82.

58. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Corrispondenza Allievi, letter from Zicardi Aba to ICF of Bologna, August 29, 1936.

59. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Corrispondenza Allievi, letter from student to ICF of Bologna, October 15, 1936.

60. Saraceno, “Costruzione della maternità,” 479. Saraceno points out that the regime’s vision of gender was not unique to Fascism, and, in fact, similar legal frameworks could be found in many democratic countries; Lorenzo Benadusi excellently describes the tension that existed between the hyper-masculine ethos of the fascist squads ‘in which for men everything was permitted and everything was licit’ (or, ‘combative masculinity’) with the regime’s later efforts to foster established order and promote the controlled values of the bourgeois man (‘disciplined masculinity’). See, Benadusi, “Masculinity,” 58–66.

61. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, f. 3, letter from Sandra Pettè and Augusta Bettini to ICF of Bologna, March 25, 1942.

62. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, f. 3, letter from Sandra Corbelli and Ema Baladelsi to ICF of Bologna, March 26, 1942.

63. Gentile, The Struggle for Modernity, 5–9.

64. Benito Mussolini, “L’ulivo e le baionette,” 57–60.

65. Ibid.

66. Labanca, Oltremare, 250.

67. In Italian: Istituto Fascista dell’Africa Italiana.

68. Deplano, “From the Colonies to the Empire,” 34.

69. Patriarca, Italian Vices, 147.

70. Il Resto del Carlino, November 9, 1937.

71. Spadaro, “Intrepide massaie,” 29.

72. Spadaro, “The Italian Empire ‘at Home’,” 120.

73. Sangiorgi, quoted in “L’inaugurazione,” Il Resto del Carlino, November 9, 1937.

74. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. Circolare e Organizzazione, “IFAI Circolare 1149,” September 14, 1938.

75. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, “Registro dei Corsi Coloniali.”

76. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, f. 11, “Relazione,” Aldo Andreoli, July 4, 1938.

77. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 10, “Iscritte al corso di preparazione della donna per la vita coloniale Anno XVII,” 1939.

78. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, “Preparazione della donna, circolare no. 4,” December 9, 1939.

79. Poggiali, “La donna italiana in Africa Orientale,” 53.

80. AIFAIB tit. 1, b. 1, f. 6, “Circolare 7,” Amadeo Fani, October 9, 1937, 1–3.

81. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, “Circolare 1223,” December 23, 1938.

82. D’Ascenzo, “Maestras y asociacionismo docente en Italia,” 113.

83. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, “Circolare 1222,” December 23, 1938.

84. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, “Schema esemplificativo delle lezioni pratiche dei corsi di preparazione della donna. Anno XVIII,” 1939, 3.

85. Ibid., 5.

86. Ibid., 3.

87. Ibid., 4.

88. Ibid., 2.

89. Barbara Spadaro, “The Italian Empire ‘at Home’,” 123.

90. Pergher, “Empire,” 186–7.

91. AIFAIB, tit. 12, b. 9, letter from Aldo Andreoli to the president of the IFAI in Rome, July 4, 1938.

92. Willson, “Empire, Gender and the ‘Home Front’,” 491; Giuliani, Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy, 65–108.

93. Spadaro, “Intrepide massaie,” 29.

Additional information

Funding

This research was related to a funded PhD project at the European University Institute. It was carried out during research missions funded by the institute.

Notes on contributors

Lewis Ewan Driver

Lewis Ewan Driver is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His dissertation focuses on everyday life and conceptions of empire during fascist dictatorships in Italy and Spain. His research interests include fascist studies, fascist empire, authoritarianism, everyday life, microhistory, gender studies and the Mediterranean space.