Resurrections and rebirths: how the Risorgimento shaped modern Italian politics

Abstract

The Risorgimento was the process of independence and unification of the Italian nation between 1848 and 1860, and has remained a powerful symbol of Italian politics ever since. Elaborating on Jan Assmann’s concept of cultural memory, the article discusses the Risorgimento at crucial moments in twentieth-century Italian politics: the 1911 anniversary of unification, the elaboration of the Risorgimento during fascism, the re-appropriation of the Risorgimento by the left and by the Resistance during the 1930s and 1940s, the general semantic space carved by the post-war democratic forces on both right and left with reference to the Risorgimento, and the sudden return to the memory of the Risorgimento in the 1990s and afterwards. The aim of the article is to understand both continuities and changes in the reference to the Risorgimento in twentieth-century political discourse, and to put into perspective Italy’s ‘particular’ road to modernity within a comparative European frame.

Keywords:

• Risorgimento
• Patria
• nation
• cultural memory
• political symbolism
• ritual

Notes

1. Atti Parlamentari. Senato del Regno. Legislatura XXIII, 1ª Sessione [, 1909–1910, Documenti, Disegni di legge e relazioni, 339-A (4 July 1910), 2.

2. On 2 February 1918, Mussolini – in an article titled ‘Torna, torna Garibaldi’ (‘Come Back Garibaldi, Come Back’) published in Il Popolo d’Italia – had lauded garibaldinismo as ‘the spirit to face the distress and inconveniences of the war’ and the ‘will to win’.

3. See the poster produced by the Republic of Salò, ‘Mazzini-Garibaldi-Crispi-Mussolini’, at http://www.manifestipolitici.it/.do#5 (accessed 25 November 2016).

4. Perché la regione. Viaggio nell’Italia da regionalizzare, 34 minutes, Archivio audiovisivo del movimento operaio e democratico.

5. On 2 June 1946, Italians voted in an institutional referendum against monarchy and in favor of the Republic. Coincidentally, 2 June is also the anniversary of the death of Garibaldi.

6. The Vittoriano was closed on 12 December 1969 when two bombs exploded on the monument in a terrorist act. The event is little remembered since this was the same day as the Piazza Fontana (Milan) terrorist act.