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Italian neopatriotism: Debating national identity in the 1990s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

Silvana Patriarca
Silvana Patriarca*
Affiliation:
University of Florida, Department of History, 4131 Turlington Hall,PO Box 117320, Gainesville FL 32611. E-mail: [email protected] and [email protected]
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Summary

This article discusses some of the distinguishing features of the debate over national identity that took place in Italy in the 1990s. Reacting against the threats of the Lega Nord and in response to the new ideological and political landscape of the post-Cold War order, a number of Italian intellectuals rediscovered the value of patriotism. Searching for the origins of the Italians' allegedly weak sense of national identity, some questioned the Resistance and the party system that originated from it. While this historical revisionism has been the object of well-deserved criticism, there is another type of thematization of identity which has received less attention: it deploys the old notion of an ‘Italian character’, which appears frequently in the press and the media. The article shows that this discourse, too, is a way of articulating patriotism, and then reflects on the meaning that this reconfiguration of ideologies and identities acquires in the new context, both domestic and international.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , May 2001 , pp. 21 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

1. See Liperi, Felice, ‘La patria cantata da destra e da sinistra’, LiMes. Rivista italiana di geopolitica, 4, 1994, pp. 177–88, p. 180.Google Scholar

2. I borrow the notion of identity framing from Grossi, Giorgio, Italia Italie. Immagine e identità nell'attualità televisiva, Rai Nuova Eri, Rome, 1994, p. 77.Google Scholar

3. On changes in television see Grossi, , Italia Italie, pp. 80 ff.; on popular culture see Liperi, , ‘La patria cantata’, p. 181.Google Scholar

4. Cassano, Franco, Peninsula. L'Italia da ritrovare, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1998 is a case in point.Google Scholar

5. See for example McCarthy, Patrick, ‘Italy: a new language for a new politics?’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2, 3, 1997, pp. 337–57.Google Scholar

6. Papers presented at the conference were subsequently published in Rusconi, Gian Enrico (ed.), Nazione, etnia, cittadinanza in Italia e in Europa, La Scuola, Brescia, 1993. Several newspapers covered the events: see for example Lami, Lucio, ‘Una storia da riscrivere’, Il Giornale, 3 December 1992.Google Scholar

7. De Felice, Renzo, ‘Democrazia e stato nazionale’, in Spadolini, Giovanni (ed.), Nazione e nazionalità in Italia. Dall'alba del nostra secolo ai giorni nostri, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1994, pp. 37–14.Google Scholar

8. Several of the contributions to that conference were published in issue 4, 1994, of LiMes. Rivista italiana di geopolitica, entitled ‘A che serve l'Italia. Perchè siamo una nazione’.Google Scholar

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16. In doing this Rusconi relied on the most important history of the Italian Resistance to appear in recent years: Pavone, Claudio, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella resistenza, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1991 —a substantial study which reproposed, from a democratic leftist perspective, the interpretation of the Resistance as, in part, a civil war.Google Scholar

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18. della Loggia, Ernesto Galli, La morte della patria. La crisi dell'idea di nazione tra Resistenza, antifascismo e Repubblica, Rome–Bari, Laterza, 1996, pp. 56–71.Google Scholar

19. The indexes of Corriere della Sera (now available in digital format) show that this newspaper has paid a great deal of attention to the issue of Italian national identity since the early 1990s, particularly thanks to the frequent interventions of Galli della Loggia and other contributors. La Stampa has tended to propose the issue of national identity more in terms of feelings of belonging and of patriotism understood à la Rusconi (who is one of its contributors).Google Scholar

20. See the interview of Renzo De Felice by Bosetti, Giancarlo and Chessa, Pasquale, ‘La memoria divisa che ci fa essere anomali’, in Bobbio, Norberto, De Felice, Renzo and Rusconi, Gian Enrico, Italiani, amici nemici, Donzelli, Rome, 1996, pp. 9–54, p. 51. For De Felice's praise of Rusconi's work see Mussolini l'alleato 1940–1945, Einaudi, Turin, 1997, 2, p. 105; La guerra civile 1943–1945, Einaudi, Turin, 1997, pp. 338–9, and Rosso e nero, ed. Pasquale Chessa, Baldini e Castoldi, Milan, 1995 (especially the introduction).Google Scholar

21. De Felice, , Mussolini l'alleato 1940–1945, 2; La guerra civile 1943–1945. Google Scholar

22. Among the most important contributions see in particular Bobbio, Norberto, ‘Revisionismo nella storia d'Italia’, in Bobbio, et al., Italiani amici nemici, pp. 55–60 (orig. publ. in La Stampa , 4 September 1995); Tranfaglia, Nicola, Un passato scomodo. Fascismo e postfascismo, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1996; Francesco Barbagallo, ‘Stato, masse e partiti nell'Italia democratica’, in Giovagnoli, Agostino (ed.), Interpretazioni della Repubblica, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1998, pp. 63–70, p. 67; de Luna, Giovanni, ‘La storia sempre nuova dei quotidiani e la costruzione del senso comune’, Passato e presente, 16, 44, 1998, pp. 5–14; Gozzini, Giovanni, ‘L'identità introvabile’, Passato e presente, 17, 47, 1999, pp. 19–20; Serneri, Simone Neri, ‘A past to be thrown away? Politics and history in the Italian Resistance’, Contemporary European History, 4, 3, 1995, pp. 367–81. Among the non-Italian contributions see Bosworth, R. J. B., The Italian Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretations of Mussolini and Fascism, Arnold, London, 1998; Ward, David, ‘Fifty years on: Resistance then, Resistance now’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 4, 1, 1999, pp. 59–64.Google Scholar

23. Serneri, , too, thinks that moderate public opinion is the main target of this ideological struggle—‘A past to be thrown away?’, p. 374.Google Scholar

24. On the left, the strongest supporter of patriotism is probably the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Luciano Violante: see a conversation between him and Stefano Rodotà entitled ‘Memoria, identità, modernizzazione’, MicroMega, 12, 1, 1997, pp. 34–18.Google Scholar

25. See Anderson, Perry, ‘Fernand Braudel and national identity’, in Anderson, , A Zone of Engagement, Verso, London and New York, 1992, pp. 251–78.Google Scholar

26. I am indebted for this view to Lass, Andrew, “'What are we like?” National character and the aesthetic of distinction in interwar Czechoslovakia’, in Banac, Ivo and Verdery, Katherine (eds), National Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe, Yale Center for International and Area Studies, New Haven, 1995, pp. 39–64, p. 47.Google Scholar

27. Cassano, Franco in ‘La differenza italiana ovvero l'altra faccia della luna’, Il Mulino, 48, 2, 1999, pp. 221–6, refers to this type of talk as the ‘anti-Italianism’ of the Italians and distinguishes a ‘low’ and a ‘high’ modality in it. He does not, however, take into consideration the politics of the discourse.Google Scholar

28. For an example see Il Corriere della Sera, 15 December 1999.Google Scholar

29. Montanelli, interviewed by Gervaso, , ‘Gli italiani? Pecore anarchiche che non fanno una nazione’, Il Messaggero, 30 March 1998. Montanelli is an extremely prolific writer and his letters have often been collected and published as books: see, for example, Le stanze. Dialoghi con gli italiani, Rizzoli, Milan, 1998. In this and other publications he claims that after his adherence to Fascism until about 1937 he embraced liberal and anti-Communist ideas. Needless to say he is an active supporter of anti-anti-Fascist historiography.Google Scholar

30. For Il Messaggero, beside the Montanelli–Gervaso interview cited in note 29 see, in particular: ‘Che cos’è l'Italia? Il cortile di un carcere durante l'ora d'aria’, 15 December 1997, and ‘Violante: “Italiani cinici. Ha ragione Leopardi”’, 25 March 1998; for La Voce see: ‘Vizi e virtú d'Italia’, 17 May 1994; for Panorama, see: ‘Italiani e no’, 25 Aprile 1993; ‘Bella Italia, odiate sponde…’, 9 July 1994; ‘Stato nascente’, 9 December 1994; ‘Saremo mai un paese normale?’, 21 July 1995; ‘Leopardi e Gattopardi’, 15 July 1997; ‘L'Italia è sfatta ma ci sono gli italiani’, 28 May 1998.Google Scholar

31. Prezzolini, Giuseppe, Codice della vita italiana, Biblioteca del Vascello, Roma, 1990, 2nd edn, 1993, p. 37. Part of it was first published in the nationalist Rivista di Milano, 1, 1918, pp. 4–8, and signed ‘Noi’. Montanelli has recognized that Prezzolini has had a major influence on his intellectual development.Google Scholar

32. On Mussolini's attitude see Gentile, Emilio, La Grande Italia. Ascesa e declino del mito della nazione nel ventesimo secolo, Mondadori, Milan, 1997, ch. 9.Google Scholar

33. Among Giorgio Bocca's numerous essays see in particular Italiani strana gente, Mondadori, Milan, 1997. Placido often writes in the culture and reviews section of La Repubblica. Google Scholar

34. I look at this version in some detail in my essay ‘National identity or national character? New vocabularies and old paradigms’, in Ascoli, Albert and von Henneberg, Krystyna (eds), Making and Remaking Italy. The Cultivation of National Identity Around the Risorgimento, Berg, New York and Oxford, 2001, pp. 299–319.Google Scholar

35. Leopardi, Giacomo, Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi degl'italiani, Marsilio, Venice, 1989; Feltrinelli, Milan, 1991; Mondadori, Milan, 1993; Rizzoli, Milan, 1998. The text is also included as an appendix to Franco Ferrucci, Nuovo discorso sugli italiani, Mondadori, Milan, 1993.Google Scholar

36. In the spring of 1994 exponents of both camps—Montanelli and Placido—collaborated on a 10-episode TV series broadcast on RAI Tre called ‘Eppur si muove’ which was entirely devoted to analysis of the Italian character. See also the book based on it: Placido, Beniamino and Montanelli, Indro, Eppur si muove. Cambiano gli italiani, Rizzoli, Milan, 1995.Google Scholar

37. Balbo, Cesare, Le speranze d'Italia, Utet, Turin, 1925 (1844), p. 186.Google Scholar

38. Examples of this postunification literature are Carlo Lozzi, Dell'ozio in Italia, Unione Tipografico-editrice, Turin, 1870–1; Alfani, Augusto, Il carattere degli italiani, Barbera, Florence, 1876; Mazzoleni, Angelo, Il carattere nella vita italiana, Galli e Omodei, Milan, 1878. The quote from d'Azeglio is in I miei ricordi, Barbera, Florence, 1867, p. 6.Google Scholar

39. Cavalli, Alessandro, ‘Conclusione: gli italiani fra provincia ed Europa’, in La cultura degli italiani, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994, p. 161.Google Scholar

40. See Banac, and Verdery, , National Character and National Ideology.Google Scholar

41. Schiavone, Aldo, Italiani senza Italia. Storia e identità, Einaudi, Turin, 1998, p. 84.Google Scholar

42. Cerroni, Umberto, L'identità civile degli italiani, Mauri, Lecce, 1996, 2nd edn, 1997.Google Scholar

43. Carlo, Tullio-Altan, Populismo e trasformismo. Saggio sulle ideologie politiche italiane, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1989; Ethnos e civiltà. Identità etniche e valori democratici, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1995. Ironically, the conclusions he reaches in the latter are exactly the opposite of Robert Putnam's famous study of the performance of regional government in Italy: pointing out the better performance of the North, Putnam indicts the feudal past of southern Italy and praises the communes of the middle ages as the soil where civic consciousness emerged: Making Democracy Work. Civic Tradition in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993.Google Scholar

44. Vertone, Saverio (ed.), La cultura degli italiani, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994, p. 11.Google Scholar

45. Vertone, , La cultura, p. 11.Google Scholar

46. See, for example, Calvi, Gabriele (ed.), ‘Indagine sociale italiana. Rapporto 1986, ricerca promossa da Eurisko’, in Gambino, A., Inventario italiano, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1987, pp. 31–2.Google Scholar

47. della Loggia, Ernesto Galli, L'identità italiana, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1998, p. 163 (reviewed in this issue of Modern Italy).Google Scholar

48. della Loggia, Galli, L'identità italiana, p. 164. This stance closely follows De Felice's attitude.Google Scholar

49. See for example Cerroni, , L'identità civile, pp. 46–7; Tullio-Altan, , Populismo e trasformismo, p. 347.Google Scholar

50. Isnenghi, M. (ed.), I luoghi della memoria, 3 vols, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1996–7.Google Scholar

51. Bodei, Remo, Il noi diviso. Ethos e idee dell'Italia repubblicana, Einaudi, Turin, 1998, p. 154.Google Scholar

52. This is Franco Cassano's expression in ‘La differenza italiana’.Google Scholar

53. I am not saying that all these writers are involved in nation-building. Aldo Schiavone, for example, concludes his indictment of Italian character with the observation that the weakness of the national consciousness could be a strength in an international context in which the principle of national sovereignty is becoming less relevant in the organization of states.Google Scholar

54. I take issue here with Emilio Gentile's view of the neutrality of patriotism and nationalism in La Grande Italia, p. 4.Google Scholar

55. See, for example, the editorials ‘Buongiorno Italia’, LiMes. Rivista italiana di geopolitica, 4, 1994, pp. 7–13, and ‘Italiani di tutto il mondo …’, LiMes, 1, 1998, pp. 7–11 (issue devoted to ‘L'Italia mondiale nella sfida delle nazioni’). This journal was founded in 1993 by Lucio Caracciolo and it appears to be committed to relaunching Italy's international role. Its collaborators include intellectuals of different political convictions (both Galli della Loggia and Rusconi are on its advisory board).Google Scholar

56. See Bassetti, Piero, ‘Il mondo in italiano’, LiMes. Rivista italiana di geopolitica, 4, 1998; and on the 1998 web site of the journal, in a section entitled ‘ItaliaMondiale’.Google Scholar

57. On Italian foreign policy in the 1990s, see Croci, O., ‘The Italian intervention in Somalia: A new Italian foreign policy after the Cold War?’, in Mershon, Carol and Pasquino, Gianfranco (eds), Italian Politics. Ending the First Republic, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1995, pp. 197–215; Neal, Pernilla M., ‘The new foreign policy’, in Katz, Richard S. and Ignazi, Piero (eds), Italian Politics. The Year of the Tycoon, Westview Press, Boulder, Col., 1996, pp. 159–68; Bianchi, Andrea, ‘Italiani di tutto il mondo …’, LiMes. Rivista italiana di geopolitica, 4, 1994, pp. 221–32.Google Scholar