Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T04:06:36.197Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Environment and leisure in Italy during Fascism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Patrizia Dogliani*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
*

Abstract

While vacation colonies, camps for children and young people, well-equipped beaches and playgrounds, and the first national parks were conceived in Italy during the Liberal period, it was not until the late 1920s/1930s that they were created and transformed by the Fascist regime. This article will analyse the purposes of the use of the environment and protected areas by Fascist organisations during the Fascist regime by different social groups and classes. It will try to answer several questions: how did Fascist mass organisations (youth organisations such as the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) and Gioventò Italiana del Littorio (GIL), leisure organisations like the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND), sports associations) relate to environmental space? Which popular activities were conceived for open-air, urban and national parks? How did the relationship between outdoor leisure and the environment develop in the ‘new’ middle class in the 1930s? How did Fascism conceive of the relationship between human beings and nature? The Nazi regime and the US New Deal were the strongest models at that time in terms of the politics of land conservation and leisure time. Did Fascism look to those experiments; did Fascism find its own modern ‘conservative’ relationship with the environment? This article will try to answer some of these questions, mindful of the lack of studies on Italy in comparison with the expanding historiography on the German and American cases.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvaro, C. 1935. Terra nuova. Prima cronaca dell'Agro Pontino. Rome: Istituto Nazionale Fascista di Cultura.Google Scholar
Anon. 1939. “La GIL e le caratteristiche d'un potenziamento fisico totalitario.” Lo sport fascista 1:1314.Google Scholar
Armiero, M. 2011. A Rugged Nation: Mountains and the Making of Modern Italy. Cambridge: White Horse Press.Google Scholar
Blasetti, A. 1929. Sole. Film, 68 min., B/W. Rome: Augustus.Google Scholar
Blasetti, A. 1931. Terra madre. Film, 87 min., B/W. Rome: Cines.Google Scholar
Bonetta, G. 1990. Corpo e nazione. L'educazione ginnastica, l'igienica e sessuale nell'Italia liberale. Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Bosworth, R. J. B. 1997. “The Touring Club Italiano and the nationalization of the Italian bourgeoisie.” European History Quarterly 27(3):371410.Google Scholar
Bureau international du travail. 1936. Les Loisirs du travailleur. Rapports présentés au Congrès international des loisirs du travailleur. Bruxelles, 15–17 juin 1935. Geneva: B.I.T. Google Scholar
Cutler, P. 1985. The Public Landscape of the New Deal. New Haven–London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
De Martino, S., and Wall, A., eds. 1988. Cities of Childhood: Italian Colonies of the 1930s. London: Architectural Association.Google Scholar
De Santis, G. 1950. Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi. Film, 100 min., B/W. Rome: Lux Film.Google Scholar
Dudek, P. 1988. Arbeitslagerbewegung und freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst 1920–1935. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1988.Google Scholar
Dogliani, P. 1994. “Genesi e sviluppo del National Park System statunitense.” Annale dell'Istituto per la Scienza dell'Amministrazione Pubblica 2:203226.Google Scholar
Dogliani, P. 2002. “Colonie di vacanza.” In Dizionario del fascismo, edited by De Grazia, V. and Luzzatto, S., 313316. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Dogliani, P. 2003. Storia dei giovani. Milan: Bruno Mondadori.Google Scholar
Dogliani, P. 2008. Il fascismo degli italiani. Una storia sociale. Turin: Utet.Google Scholar
Dogliani, P. 2009. “Propaganda and Youth.” In The Oxford Handbook of Fascism, edited by Bosworth, R. J. B., 185202. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Favre, S. 1939. “Propagandare il nuoto.” Lo sport fascista 7:1719.Google Scholar
Favre, S. 1941. “Resistenza, base della vittoria.” Lo sport fascista 1.Google Scholar
Ferrara, P. 1992. L'Italia in palestra. Storia, documenti e immagini della ginnastica dal 1893 al 1973. Rome: la Meridiana.Google Scholar
Forzano, G. 1933. Camicia nera. Film, 85 min., B/W. Rome: istituto Luce.Google Scholar
Germi, P. 1950. Il cammino della speranza. Film, 100 min., B/W. Rome: Lux Film.Google Scholar
Grivola, G. 1937. “Il piano regolatore del Terminillo.” Le Vie d'Italia 2:120125.Google Scholar
Holland, K. 1939. Youth in European Labor Camps. Washington, DC: American Council of Education.Google Scholar
Hunnicutt Kline, B. 1988. Work without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Kennedy, D. M. 1999. Freedom from Fear: The American People in the Depression and War, 1929–1945. New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maher, N. M. 2008. Nature's New Deal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Massano, G. 1934. “Il Parco nazionale del Circeo. Dal mito di Circe alla realtà fascista di Sabaudia.” Le Vie d'Italia 4:241256.Google Scholar
Mosse, G. L. 1974. The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich. New York: Howard Ferting.Google Scholar
Naele, . 1939. “Festa della bellezza.” Lo sport fascista 9:1517.Google Scholar
Paoletti, L. 1934. Naturismo. Arte del vivere. Milan: Corbaccio.Google Scholar
Partito Nazionale, Fascista. 1942. Panorami di realizzazione del fascismo, vol. IX: Le opere pubbliche del regime fascista. Rome: Società anonima edizioni Giovanissima.Google Scholar
Phillips, S. T. 2007. This Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the New Deal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rigoni Stern, M. 1995. Le stagioni di Giacomo. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Rigoni Stern, M. 2002. L'ultima partita a carte. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Sievert, J. 2000. The Origins of Nature Conservation in Italy. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Uekötter, F. 2006. The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vaccaro, G. 1939. “A buona guardia.” Lo sport fascista 10:67.Google Scholar
Visconti, L. 1942. Ossessione. Film, 135 min., B/W. Rome: Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane.Google Scholar
Weir, L. H., ed. 1928. Parks: A Manual of Municipal and County Parks, under the auspices of the Playground and Recreation Association of America and the American Institute of Park Executives. 2 vols. New York: A.S. Barnes.Google Scholar
Weir, L. H. 1937. Europe at Play: A Study of Recreation and Leisure Time Activities. New York: A.S. Barnes.Google Scholar
Williams, J. A. 2007. Turning to Nature in Germany: Hiking, Nudism, and Conservation, 1900–1940. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar