![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
Abstract
The Italian populist movement Lega Nord once famously claimed that the north of Italy was a nation (‘Padania’) that should be granted independence. Padania was posited by the party through a combination of outrageous anti-Italian statements, gatherings in places of historic and symbolic significance and through the selective appropriation of the past. This article takes this new ‘nation’ as a case study through which to further our understanding of the discursive strategies of nationalist movements, as they reinvent and rewrite history and redefine identities. It argues that some within the Lega, far from simply adopting a covert strategy of reinvention of the past (like many of their fellow nationalists do), openly advocated such strategy as a means of ‘liberation’. Moreover, the analysis highlights crucial contradictions between: the reality of strong, heterogeneous local identities in northern Italy and the effort of creating a new unitary community in the area; the needs of a hyper-modern economy and the longing for a mythic past; and, finally, a dubious rediscovered paganism and rooted Catholic traditions. The article argues that the lack of territorial and symbolic coherence in northern Italy was a crucial factor in making the Lega's attempts at re-invention less than compelling.
This article has benefited from the valuable feedback given by two anonymous referees and from discussions with Dr. Federica Guidi.
Notes
1. In the 2001 national elections the Lega attracted only 3.9 per cent of the vote, although at least it secured a place in the second Berlusconi government. The party has partially recovered in the European elections 2004, but only slightly (by getting 5 per cent of votes).
2. Despite a poor showing in the 2001 national elections (see above) the Lega now occupies key positions in the Berlusconi government. The centre-right alliance known as ‘House of Liberties’ looks in fact remarkably similar to the one led to victory by Berlusconi in 1994, the PM's own movement Forza Italia and the National Alliance being the largest parties within it.
3. Il Sole delle Alpi has now been replaced by the weekly publication Il Federalismo.
4. The Liga Veneta predates the Lega Nord. Following the creation of the latter with the aim of bringing together several regionalist formations of northern Italy, however, the Liga Veneta eventually became a ‘regional branch’ of the Lega Nord.
5. All quotations from the party's literature have been translated by myself.
6. See Mascetti (Citation1998: p.4). This article contradicts Oneto's account though, as the latter talks about the fifth and not the sixth century in his book (see Oneto, 1997: p.53).
7. This is inaccurate: while it is certain that there were Celts in Italy in prehistoric times, historians speak of the sixth and not the eighth century - see, for instance, Grassi (Citation1991). Furthermore, it is doubtful that one can talk of a Celtic presence anywhere in Europe before the sixth century BC (Robb, Citation2002: p.239).
8. The point can still be made even once the Lega's chronology has been corrected: Celtic peoples were already in northern Italy in the sixth century BC, therefore the invasion of Belloveso (which in reality took place in the fourth century) was not met by fierce resistance in the north.
9. See Oneto, (Citation1997: p.54). That the area was homogeneously Celtic after the descent of Belloveso is debatable. Recent excavations at Monte Bibele show that the town was inhabited by both Celts and Etruscans well after the Celtic conquest (Grassi, Citation1991). Thus, it would be more correct to talk about a mixing of cultures and a continuous shifting of boundaries, especially on the Apennines. Also, the Celts were themselves diverse in terms of their cultures, ways of life and languages (Grassi, Citation1991: pp.55–64), as new Celtic peoples were still descending into the country in the third century BC. Finally, the Celts did not systematically expel or kill the defeated ‘others’, rather often adopting their more ‘civilised’ ways (Moscati, Citation1991), one more reason to doubt the appropriateness of any definition of the north as ‘homogeneously Celtic’.
10. See Oneto (Citation1997: 1997: pp.56, 57). Oneto makes no reference to the genetic legacy of pre-Celtic populations here.
11. See Oneto (Citation1997: p.80). It is true that these peoples never knew any form of political unity (Grassi, Citation1991: p.7). However, despite being belligerent, they were also open to external cultural influences, e.g. dress and material culture (Moscati, Citation1991).
12. This claim is confirmed by historians, i.e. P. Renucci in A.A.V.V. (Citation1974: p.1102). Delogu also sees the conquerers as being rather slow in adapting to the new environmnent and learn from it (in Galasso ed., Citation1980: pp.44–47).
13. See Montagna (Citation1996). Delogu confirms that relations between Liutprand ‘the Catholic’ and the papacy were overall good (in Galasso ed., 1980: pp.145–152).
14. Bossi even resorted to quoting the film Braveheart in his political speeches of the second half of the 1990s.
15. Smith (Citation1986) refers to such systems as ‘communal mythomoteurs’.
16. During the days of the ‘Declaration of Independence’ - a symbolic event without immediate consequences that nonetheless captured the attention of the Italian media for months - the leghisti took a sample of water from the source of the river Po all the way to its mouth in Venice. Destro (Citation1997) convincingly argues that the water of the river was proposed by the Lega as a symbol of purity and regeneration.
17. A quick glance at the Lega's past is sufficient to reveal how recently the party has re-discovered its ‘deeply felt’ Catholic beliefs: in fact, not only the Church has often criticised the offensive and ‘egoistic’ tones of the party's propaganda, but the party itself has in its turn been critical of both the Church and Catholicism until recently (e.g. Miglio (Citation1993: pp.163–176) accusing the Church of ‘having sold Saint Peter’; Pich, Citation1997). A recent example of how the Lega has repositioned itself as the defender of Christianity is provided by the article published in La Padania to commemorate the Western victory of Lepanto against Muslim forces in 1571 (see Anonymous, Citation2003: p.1).
18. Robb (Citation2002: p.242) uses this definition when referring to people who choose to be Celtic.
19. We are following Smith (Citation1998) here in defining writers such as Anderson, Gellner and Hobsbawm as ‘modernist’.
20. Reprinted in Bossi (Citation1999: pp.129–138).
21. See Hobsbawm and Ranger (Citation1983). For a discussion of the use of the past by the Italian fascist right see Cofrancesco (Citation1984).
22. There are also historians that fiercely oppose such an interpretation, of course (e.g. Fumagalli, Citation1988).
23. A.D. Smith, quoted in Hutchinson and Smith (Citation1994: p.154).
24. Being in disagreement with the national leadership, Fabrizio Comencini, the leader of the Lega in Veneto, was thrown out of the party in 1998. Bossi accused him of having attempted to divide the northerners, Comencini replied in pure leghista style by telling the Lombards not to boss him around in his own region of Veneto (see, for instance, Cavalera, Citation1998; Marozzi, Citation1998). The tension between the Veneti and a very centralising Lombard leadership has always posed a threat to the unity of the party.
25. The Lega Nord has been rather successful in playing the part of the ‘opposition within government’ since the centre-right return to power in 2001 (Albertazzi and McDonnell, Citation2005). The forthcoming elections of 2006 will show whether this will translate into considerably increased support from northern voters.