Italian fascism and the aesthetics of the 'third woy'

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 293-316

  Ben Ghiat, Ruth ^a  

^a FORDHAM UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041311709     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200949603100205     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. On this point, see Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right Nor Left (Berkeley 1986), and 'La terza via fascista o la ricerca di una cultura politica alternativa', Storia contemporanea (December 1991), 961-74
2. Robert Soucy, 'French Fascism and the Croix de Feu: A Dissenting Interpretation', Journal of Contemporary History, 26, 1 (January 1991), 159-88
3. and Emilio Gentile, Il culto dellittorio (Bari 1993). Sternhell views fascism as a product of the revision of Marxist ideology, while Soucy sees it instead as a new variety of authoritarian conservatism. On the debate over Sternhell's work, see Robert Wohl, 'French Fascism, both Right and Left: Reflections on the Sternhell Controversy', Journal of Modern History (March 1991), 91-8
4. See Massimo Bontempelli, 'Ufflcio di Roma', Quadrante (May 1933)
5. Giuseppe Bottai, Il Centro Nazionale Corporativo (Milan 1931), 23
6. On this point, see Soucy, op. cit., 181-2
7. The non-fascist 'personalist' movement in France of Emmanuel Mounier may be viewed as a response to these same anxieties. On his doctrine of 'personalism', see Jean-Louis Loubet Del Bayle, Les non-conformistes des annees trente (Paris 1969)
8. Emmanuel Mounier, Le personnalisme (Paris 1947)
9. On the philosophy of Giovanni Gentile, see Sergio Romano, Giovanni Gentile: la filosofia al potere (Milan 1984)
10. and Danilo Veneruso, Gentile e il primato della tradizione culturale italiana (Rome 1984). Gentile served as ghostwriter for the first half of Mussolini's article on fascist doctrine for the Enciclopedia Italiana. See Mussolini, 'La Dottrina del fascismo', Enciclopedia italiana, IX/847-51
11. also Alberto Mondadori, 'Collettivismo', Camminare, 1 April 1934
12. Bottai, 'Statismo corporativo', Critica fascista, 1 February 1933
13. Mussolini, op. cit., 849, and his speech of 14 November 1933, in Scritti e discorsi (Rome 1934), VIII/257-73
14. Bottai, Totalità, perennità, universalità della rivoluzione fascista', Quadrante (December 1933)
15. David Roberts, The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism (Chapel Hill 1979)
16. Alan Douglas, From Fascism to Libertarian Communism: Georges Valois against the Third Republic (Berkeley 1992)
17. Alexander De Grand, The Italian Nationalist Association and the Rise of Fascism in Italy (Lincoln 1978). On the cultural response to these concerns in Italy, see Walter Adamson, Avant-Garde Florence: From Modernism to Fascism (Cambridge, MA 1993)
18. Karl Jaspers, Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Berlin 1932), 49
19. José Ortega y Gasset, La rebelión de las masas (Madrid 1966), 270
20. René Guénon, La crise du monde moderne (Paris 1932)
21. Antonio Gramsci, Passato e presente (Rome 1971), 62-3
22. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York 1936), 154. On the ideology of the crisis, Sternhell, op. cit., 213-65
23. Michela Nacci, Tecnica e cultura della crisi, 1914-39 (Turin 1982)
24. Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism (Cambridge 1984), 49-69
25. See the ideological programmes of Drieu la Rochelle, Socialisme fasciste (Paris 1934)
26. Carlo Rosselli, Socialisme liberate (Paris 1930)
27. Henrik De Man, Au-delà du marxisme (Paris 1927), and Nationalisme et socialisme (Paris and Brussels 1932)
28. Marcel Déat, Perspectives socialistes (Paris 1930). On the ideological fluidity of these years, see James D. Wilkinson, The Intellectual Resistance in Europe (Cambridge 1981), 1-22
29. Nicola Perroti, 'La crisi attuale dello spirito', Saggiatore (March-April 1930)
30. Camillo Pellizi, 'Sul manifesto realista', Universale (January 1933)
31. Antonio Banfi, La crisi (Rome 1967). Banfi's book collects lectures he gave in 1933-4 at the University of Milan
32. See also many of the responses to a survey on the future of Italian culture sponsored by the review Saggiatore (August-October 1933). On the influence of crisis ideology in Italy, see Eugenio Garin, 'Gli italiani e la crisi europea', Terzo programma 3 (1962), 168-76
33. and M. Cottone, 'Recezione di Spengler in Italia', preface to Oswald Spengler, Il tramonto dell'Occidente (Milan 1978)
34. Adriano Tilgher, 'Quesiti sulla nuova generazione', Saggiatore (May 1932)
35. Editorial note, Saggiatore (December 1932)
36. Enzo Paci, 'Cenni per una nuova clima', Orpheus (February 1933)
37. For the fascist manipulation of the crisis, see Nacci, 'La crisi della civiltà: fascismo e cultura europea' in Ornella Faracovi (ed.), Tenderize della filosofia nell'età del fascismo (Livorno 1985), 41-72
38. Giuseppe Carlo Marino, L'autarchia della cultura. Intellettuali e fascismo negli anni trenta (Rome 1983), 19-56
39. Pier Giorgio Zunino, L'ideologia del fascismo (Bologna 1985), 131-5
40. Mussolini, 'Decidersi!', Il Popolo d'Italia, 12 January 1932. Compare the tone of this article with Mussolini's early writings: 'In campo da soli', Il Popolo d'Italia, 29 October 1919, in Scritti e discorsi (Rome 1934), 11/39-42
41. and 'Dopo due anni', Il Popolo d'Italia, 23 March 1921, in ibid., 153
42. Mussolini, 'Fra due civiltà', Il Popolo d'Italia, 22 August 1933. Also Bottai, 'Impegni per l'anno decimo', Critica fascista, 21 (1931)
43. Gherardo Casini, 'Esortazione di una letteratura', Lavoro fascista, 17 September 1932
44. Carlo Linati, 'Approssimazioni', Ambrosiano, 1 April 1931
45. 'Gazzettino ufficiale', Il Selvaggio, 15 No̊vember 1931
46. also Giorgio Granata, 'Valori positivi della crisi', Critica fascista, 15 November 1932
47. See Massimo Cimino, 'Dal concetto di classe a quello di funzione', Saggiatore (December 1932)
48. Enzo Paci, 'Appunti per la definizione di un atteggiamento', Orpheus (November 1933). For a discussion of the pluri-relational cognitive style that accompanied modernization, see Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space (Cambridge, MA 1983), and Peter Berger, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (New York 1974)
49. See Giuseppe Melis, Il pensiero di Mussolini e il significato del fascismo (Milan 1930)
50. Granata, 'Realismo', Saggiatore (November 1933)
51. Luigi Chiarini, 'Per una nuova cultura', Il Giornale d'Italia, 7 November 1933
52. Mussolini, 'La dottrina del fascismo', 850. On fascism's flexibility as a 'secret weapon', see Rino Longhitano, Rivoluzione nazionale (Catania 1932), 156
53. Mussolini, cited in Riccardo Mariani, Fascismo e città 'nuova' (Milan 1976), 54
54. See Mussolini, 'Discorso all'assemblea quinquennale del regime', 10 March 1929, in Scritti e discorsi (Rome 1934), VII/21. On the fascist revision of modernity, see Emilio Gentile, 'Impending Modernity: Fascism and the Ambivalent Image of the United States', Journal of Contemporary History, 28, 1 (January 1993), 7-29
55. Bernando Giovenale, "Macchine e uomini nella crisi presente', Quadrante (December 1933)
56. The ideas of the Futurists, like those of the Florentine avant-gardists who wrote for Leonardo and La Voce, received almost no mention in the pages of the cultural journals I have quoted from in this article. For the need to go beyond Futurist aesthetics, see 'I giovani e la nuova cultura', Orpheus (December 1933)
57. Corrado Cagli, 'Anticipi sulla scuola di Roma', Quadrante (October 1933)
58. Quote from Gino Severini, 'Lettere a Quadrante. Sul mosaico come espressione e come tecnica', Quadrante (June 1933)
59. see also the letter by the ex-Futurist Carlo Carrà in the same issue
60. Mario Soldati, '(Panorami): America', Quadrante (May 1933), reprinted in Soldati's America primo amore (Rome 1935)
61. See also Emilio Cecchi, 'Tacciuno Americano', Occidente (April-June 1934)
62. and Renato Paresce, '(Panorami): L'altra America', Quadrante (May 1935). A similar message is found in Mussolini's speech of 14 November 1933, in Scritti e discorsi, VIII/257-73. On the significance of 'America' for Italian intellectuals during fascism, see Emilio Gentile, op. cit, and Michel Beynet, L 'image de l'Amérique dans la culture italienne de l'entre-deux-guerres, 3 vols (Aix en Provence 1990)
63. Gaetano Ciocca, '(Panorami): Russia sovietica', Quadrante (June 1933). His essays are collected in Giudizio sul bolscevismo (Milan 1934). Ciocca spent from 1930 to 1932 in Russia supervising the construction of the first factory for the production of ball-bearings. His book went through four editions in five months. For other Italian views of Russia
64. see also the 1934 reportages of Corrado Alvaro which are reprinted in his book I Maestri del diluvio (Rome 1935)
65. Pier Maria Bardi, Un fascista nel paese dei soviet (Rome 1933)
66. and Ettore Lo Gatto, URSS 1931 (Rome 1932). For Italian impressions of Stalinist Russia, see Luciano Zani, 'L'immagine dell'Urss nell'Italia degli anni trenta: i viaggiatori', Storia contemporanea, 21 (December 1990), 1197-225
67. 'Introduzione', Saggiatore (August-October 1933)
68. Surveys include 'Quesiti sulla nuova generazione', Saggiatore (April 1932 - January 1933)
69. 'Opinioni sul romanzo', Corriere padano (1932), 'Inchiesta per un'arte del nostro tempo', Italia vivente (15 May-30 June 1933)
70. See, for example, Leo Longanesi, 'La crisi e l'estetica', L'Italiano, 11 (1932)
71. Gianni Marescalchi, 'Il nostro pessimismo', L'Orto (February-March 1932)
72. Attilio Riccio, 'Dove andiamo?', Oggi, 22 July 1933
73. Mario Pannunzio, 'Necessità del romanzo', Saggiatore (June 1932)
74. Bonaventura Tecchi, 'Opinioni sul romanzo', Corriere padano, 27 October 1932
75. Eurialo De Michelis, 'Chiarimenti sul "contenutismo"', Critica fascista, 15 April 1933; for calls for a 'return to man', see Delio Cantimori, 'Chiarificazione di idee', Vita nova (July 1932)
76. Granata, 'Nuova cultura', Saggiatore (December 1932)
77. Giovanni Titta Rosa, 'Narrarsi', Italia letteraria, 1 June 1930
78. G.B. Angioletti, 'La morale dell'arte', Italia letteraria, 4 January 1931
79. Arnaldo Bocelli, 'Ritorno al romanzo', Corriere padano, 28 August 1930
80. Titta Rosa, 'Invito al romanzo', Corriere padano, 16 February 1931
81. Pannunzio, op. cit
82. Alvaro, 'Opinioni sul romanzo', Corriere padano, 3 September 1932
83. Attilio Riccio, 'Arte e costruzione', Critica fascista, 15 April 1932
84. Granata, 'Aspetti del nuovo scrittore', ibid
85. Titta Rosa, op. cit
86. also Bocelli, op. cit. On literary realism in the 1930s and its links to postwar leftist neo-realism, see Alberto Asor Rosa, Scrittori e popolo (Rome 1965); and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, 'Fascism, Writing, and Memory: The Realist Aesthetic in Italy, 1930-50', The Journal of Modern History, 67 (September 1995), 627-65
87. also Antonio Delfini, 'La vita', Oggi, 18 June 1933
88. Tecchi, 'Pensieri sul racconto', Oggi, 2 July 1933
89. Elio Talarico, 'Trasfigurazione nelle arti', Oggi, 11 June 1933
90. Pannunzio, 'Precisazioni', Oggi, 8 October 1933
91. Perrotti, 'Perche la letteratura italiana non è popolare in Europa', Saggiatore (November 1930). For Bottai's role in shaping cultural policy in these years, see Alexander De Grand, Bottai e la cultura fascista (Bari 1978)
92. Genevieve Hoche, 'Une tentative de mediation culturelle sous le régime fasciste: G. Bottai et le groupe de "Critica fascista'" in Aspects de la culture italienne sous le fascisme: actes du colloque de Florence, 14-15 decembre 1979 (Grenoble 1982), 7-28
93. See Emilio Gentile, op. cit
94. Bellelma Forzato-Spezia, 'Sinclair Lewis', La Stirpe (1930), quoted in Oreste Del Buono (ed.), Eja Eja Alala! (Milan 1971), 166-7
95. also Giacomo Lumbroso, review in Lavoro fascista, 1 February 1931
96. Ugo Ojetti, 'Lettera a John Dos Passos sulla povera America', Pegaso (August 1932)
97. Valentino Piccoli, 'Babbit o l'uomo standard', Critica fascista, 1 December 1932
98. Neumann's work, which often reads like a legal transcript, was published in 1933 by the militant editorial house Edizioni d'Italia in their 'Documents' collection. The blurb on the book jacket characterizes the book as a 'vivid document of social life in inflation-ridden Germany'
99. Bonaventura Tecchi, op. cit
100. Francesco Bruno, 'Realismo germanico', Saggiatore (July 1931)
101. Enrico Rocca, review of Berlin Alexanderplatz in Pegaso (May 1930)
102. see also his review of Erich Kastner's works Fabian, Emilio, and Auskunft, in Pegaso. (August 1932)
103. Luigi De Crecchio, review in Oggi, 16 July 1933
104. also Guglielmo Serafini, review of Jakob Wassermann's Elzel Andergast in Saggiatore (November 1932)
105. On the links between modernism and fascism in Italy, see Walter Adamson, op. cit., and 'Fascism and Culture', special issue of the Stanford Italian Review, 8 (1990). More general coverage may be found in Richard Golsan (ed.), Fascism, Aesthetics and Culture (Hanover, NH 1992)
106. Enrico Emanuelli, Radiografia di una notte (Milan 1932), 9
107. See Umberto Barbaro, Luce fredda (Lanciano 1931)
108. Armando Ghelardini, Malessere (Rome 1933)
109. Eurialo De Michelis, Adamo (Vicenza 1931)
110. Elio Talarico, Tatuaggio (Rome 1932)
111. See Anco Marzio Mutterle, Emanuelli (Florence 1968), 3. At the same time as Emanuelli was writing X-Ray of a Night, he was also engaged in a translation of the first novel by New Objectivity writer Jacob Wassermann, Die Juden von Zirndorf, for the Milan editorial house Corbaccio
112. On this narrative strategy, see Klaus R. Scherpe's essay on Döblin's novel, 'The City as Narrator: The Modern Text in Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz', in Andreas Huyssen and David Bathrick (eds), Modernity and the Text (New York 1989), 162-79
113. Emanuelli, op. cit., 79
114. The bewildering impact of consumer culture and the modern city on the individual is addressed more directly by Emanuelli in a story that served as a sketch for X-Ray of a Night. In 'Misteri di una mattinata', the young protagonist is so distracted and disoriented by the bright glare of taxis and city windows that he continually loses his train of thought. See the story in Il Lavoro (12 March 1931), 3
115. Soldati, op. cit
116. Emanuelli, op. cit., 139
117. See the reviews by Pier Maria Pasinetti in Il Ventuno, 28 August 1932, and Luigi Tonelli in Il Marzocco, 25 September 1932
118. also Attilio Borgognoni's survey of Emanuelli's oeuvre in Pan (August 1934)
119. For notice of Emanuelli's award, see Annuario della reale Accademia d'Italia 1932-33 (Rome 1933), 336
120. Vittorini, 'Radiografia di una notte', Il lavoro, 31 August 1932
121. also Mario Bonfantini, 'Prose di romanzi 1932', Rivista di sintesi letteraria (January-March 1934)
122. See Philip Cannistraro, La fabbrica del consenso. Fascismo e mass media (Bari 1975), 119-37
123. Maurizio Cesari, La censura nel periodo fascista (Naples 1978), 51-78
124. See Albertina Vittoria, Le riviste del Duce (Turin 1983), 85-131, on the changed cultural climate of the late 1930s
125. For examples of his war reportage, see 'La nuova Asmara', Il Lavoro, 2 January 1936
126. and 'Scontri di pattuglie e cammelli disgraziati', Il Lavoro, 5 January 1936
127. See Emanuelli, 'Un morto e un vivo in provincia', L'Orto (November 1937), and 'Per conoscere i Biellesi', L'Orto, (May 1939). Emanuelli began his next novel only in 1940. This work, which had none of the formal experimentalism of X-Ray of a Night, appeared in 1942 as Una educazione sbagliata
128. Mino Maccari, 'Brevario', Il Selvaggio, 30 January 1927