The Monument to Victory in Bolzano: desacralisation of a fascist relic

Abstract

The Monument to Victory in Bolzano, raised to remember Italian soldiers who fell in the First World War and to celebrate the victory over the Austro-Hungarian army, was contested from the moment of its installation in 1928. The German-speaking inhabitants of Bolzano were offended by its expression of Italian patriotism and the monument continued to symbolise the antagonism between the Italian- and the German-speaking population in the period following the end of Second World War. The monument’s explicit fascist propaganda attracted strong polemical reactions and some political groups even asked for it to be demolished. A recently-opened permanent exhibition in the crypt of the monument explores the twentieth-century dictatorships of Italy and their impact on Bolzano. Its historicisation offers a new interpretation of the monument – not one based on a schism between the populations of Bolzano, but rather one proposing reconciliation. This historicisation happens through the contextualisation of the monument, an efficient tool for the ‘desacrilisation’ of politically charged buildings; by exposing the detested ideology that they represent, they are stripped of their original ‘sacred’ character. This process also shows that it is possible for controversial, politically significant structures to become legitimate parts of a country’s modern heritage.

Keywords:

• War memorial
• fascist legacy
• Italy
• historicisation
• contextualisation
• reinterpretation

Notes

1. In 1928, a decree declared that every new public building should be decorated with the Lictoral fasces (Gentile 2007, 89).

2. This conference was titled ‘Marcello Piacentini Roma 1881–1960 Architetto e Urbanista’, and took place at the University La Sapienza, Rome.

3. Bozen is the German equivalent of Bolzano.

4. The demography of Bolzano had changed radically since the 1920s. In 2001, around 70% of the population was Italian-speaking, a fact that probably had an influence on the referendum, in which 62% voted in favour of the original name of the piazza.

5. Another example is the monument Valle de los Caídos, built in Francoist Spain.