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Legacies of Fascism: architecture, heritage and memory in contemporary Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2017

Hannah Malone
Hannah Malone*
Affiliation:
Friedrich Meinecke Institute, Free University of Berlin, Germany
*
*Email: hannaholiviamalone@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article examines how Italy has dealt with the physical remains of the Fascist regime, as a window onto Italian attitudes to the past. The ventennio left indelible marks on Italy’s cities in the form of urban projects, individual buildings, monuments, plaques and street names. In effect, the survival of physical traces contrasts with the hazy memories of Fascism that exist within the Italian collective consciousness. Conspicuous, yet mostly ignored, Italy’s Fascist heritage is hidden in plain sight. However, from the 1990s, buildings associated with the regime have sparked a number of debates regarding the public memory of Fascism. Although these debates present an opportunity to re-examine history, they may also be symptomatic of a crisis in the Italian polity and of attempts to rehabilitate Fascism through historical revisionism.

Italian summary

L’articolo esamina come sono stati gestiti in Italia i resti materiali del regime fascista, analizzandoli come riflesso degli atteggiamenti degli italiani verso il loro passato. Il ventennio lasciò tracce indelebili sulle città italiane sotto forma di edifici, progetti urbanistici, monumenti, targhe e nomi stradali. In effetti, la sopravvivenza di simboli del Fascismo contrasta con i vaghi ricordi del periodo fascista che permangono nella coscienza collettiva degli italiani. Cospicua, ma per lo più ignorata, l’architettura fascista è nascosta sotto gli occhi di tutti. Ciononostante, a partire dagli anni Novanta, l’eredità architettonica del regime ha suscitato numerose polemiche riguardo alla memoria pubblica del Fascismo. Da un lato questi dibatti potrebbero offrire un’opportunità per riesaminare la storia, ma dall’altro potrebbero anche essere sintomatici di una crisi nella politica italiana o di tentativi di riabilitare il Fascismo attraverso il revisionismo storico.

Keywords

FascismChristopher Dugganlegacy, defascistisationarchitectureBenito Mussolini
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 22 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue: The Force of History: Modern Italian Historiography and the Legacy of Christopher Duggan , November 2017 , pp. 445 - 470
Copyright
© 2017 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

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