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PROGRAM | GIACOMO MATTEOTTI'S MURDER AND THE RISE OF THE TOTALITARIAN STATE
June 2 | NYU, Casa Italiana Zerilli Marim�
24 West 12th Street | Free admission, refreshments
6 pm | Panel
Mauro Canali (University of Camerino)
Spencer Di Scala (University of Massachusetts, Boston)
8 pm | Film screening
ll delitto Matteotti, by Florestano Vancini, 1973 (in Italian)
The barbaric murder of Matteotti, committed on 10 June 1924, marked the end of the so-called 'legalistic' period of the Mussolini administration. Prior to that date, Mussolini had been skillful in navigating between conflicting pressures. On the one hand he continued to display a purely formal respect for the political procedures and the institutions of the liberal state, on the other, he was encouraging the use of violence and was establishing his own secret police to intimidate the most active anti-Fascist leaders.
Giacomo Matteotti, uncompromising opposition leader, had denounced publicly this state of affairs, violence, intimidation and corruption in the 1924 elections. Moreover, he had begun to uncover Mussolini's shady deals with Standard Oil over the monopoly in Italian territories. After his death Italy entered the dictatorship that became the blueprint of European totalitarianism.
Twenty years later, with the creation of the Matteotti Brigade that fought alongside the Anglo-American forces in the liberation of Italy, Matteotti's views on democracy and the liberal state became a symbol of resistance and rebirth. In 1947 the Italian Constitutional Assembly honored his name in proclaiming the constitution of the Italian Republic. Read
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PRINTED MATTER | THE MASTER PUPPETTEER - MUSSOLINI'S MANIPULATION OF US CORRESPONDENT IN FASCIST ITALY
Alessandro Cassin in conversation with Mauro Canali
Mussolini a darling of the American media of the 1920's and late 1930's? This long forgotten fact, together with his being described by some of the mainstream American publications as a strong, respected and innovative political leader, constitute the substance of the following interview.
Recent research by historian Mauro Canali unveils in shocking detail the strategies and tactics used by the architect of the first totalitarian state of 2Oth Century Europe -and later Hitler's main European political and military ally- to spy on, control and manipulate American correspondents in Italy. An apparatus of hundreds of spies, telephone operators, stenographers and technicians followed every word and move of the American journalists, who remained to the end unaware of it. Read
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PRINTED MATTER | SOME OBSERVATIONS ON CATHOLICISM, FASCISM AND TOTALITARIANISM DURING THE PAPACY OF PIUS XI
Emilio Gentile on David Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini
When he allowed the fascists to participate in his religious function with their pennants, the archbishop was certainly not naive to the fact that Mussolini, a socialist, had served as a propagandist for atheism. Not only was he was fiercely anticlerical, but he had also proclaimed himself to be an anti-Christian pagan, who remained as such when he converted to interventionist nationalism in 1914 and in 1919 when he started the fascist movement. But he also knew that in 1921 Mussolini had already long abandoned atheism, anticlericalism and anti-Christianity, and that he had often exalted the Church in Rome, in print and in his speeches. Read
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ICINY | A CIVIL WAR: CLAUDIO PAVONE'S CLASSIC ON THE ITALIAN RESISTANCE
May 28 | 6 pm
Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue, NY. Free admission
David Forgacs (NYU), Silvana Patriarca (Fordham University), Stanislao G. Pugliese (Hofstra University).
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THANKS
Centro Primo Levi thanks its readers, audience, contributors and main supporters: Viterbi Family Foundation, Cahnman Foundation, Peter S. Kalikow, Dr. Claude Ghez, David Berg Foundation, John Elkann, Exor, Fairholme Foundation, Charles Hallac & Sarah Keil Wolf, Jeffrey Keil & Danielle Pinet, Marian and Jacob K. Javits Foundation, Andrew Sabin, Lily Safra, Joseph S. & Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust, Ezra Zilka
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