'I Myself Still Remember': Political Memories in Interwar Italy and Beyond (original) (raw)

(organisation by Tamara Colacicco) In many European countries, the experience of the interwar dictatorships and their bellicose enterprises – such as the Italian Abyssinia campaign during the mid-1930s, the Second World War and the Nazi occupation of Europe in the early 1940s – generated a wave of literary and visual ‘political memories’. The case study of Italian ‘literary memories’ under Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship has been previously explored in terms of the attitudes among broader sections of Italian society towards Mussolini and the fall of his regime (Duggan 2012). However, there remain several gaps in the investigation of ‘memories’ of Fascism. For example, the ‘memories’ of Fascism understood as a European phenomenon have remained unexplored, as have the different forms through which Fascism has been remembered (or rejected) at a regional level in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Linking with Duggan’s pioneering research but conducting its investigation through different frameworks, this event aims to promote interdisciplinary discussion on the connection between politics, political propaganda, literary and visual memories, and dictatorships. In so doing, it explores the different forms through which ‘political memories’ were produced and their different political meanings, leading to a contribution towards analysis from a fresh and more complete perspective of the political life of 20th century Italy, Europe and beyond, as well as a consideration of the impact of memory in interwar and post-war political ideologies.