Introduction
In Italy, when the so-called First Republic came to an end in the early 1990s, even the ‘antifascist paradigm’ that underpinned its civil religion fell into crisis.Footnote 1 At the same time, and in response to this awareness, public discourse on the Resistance was revived, gaining an unprecedented presence in popular culture.Footnote 2 As a result, new actors – often using new languages – joined the traditional institutions responsible for preserving, promoting and disseminating the legacy of the Resistance.
The role of veteran partisan associations (Cecchini Reference Cecchini1998; Dogliani Reference Dogliani, Miccoli, Modona and Pombeni2001; Scirocco Reference Scirocco2018), which have opened their doors to young people (starting with the Associazione Nazionale Partigiani Italiani in 2006) and have developed new collaborations,Footnote 3 obviously remains important. However, while partisan associations are primarily concerned with promoting memories and values, there are also places specifically dedicated to the preservation of documents and objects relating to the Resistance – namely, archives and museums, which have reconstructed its history in collaboration with universities. In this context, it is worth highlighting the uniqueness of the Italian case, with its network of historical institutes of the Resistance (formerly INSMLI, now Parri). Founded in 1949, this network brings together more than 60 institutes throughout Italy,Footnote 4 which were originally set up to preserve – in derogation of traditional archival legislation – the sources relating to partisan formations, but which have since become centres for research and dissemination, particularly active in the fields of education and public history (Carrattieri Reference Carrattieri2020). Museums and sites of memory have also played a very important role; despite the lack of national co-ordination, they have collected and preserved artefacts and formed a territorial centre for the memory of the Resistance. Since 2016, some of them have joined together in a network called Paesaggi della Memoria.Footnote 5
However, after the watershed of 1993–5, and especially at the turn of the millennium, new entities have sought to revive and renew the partisan memory, expanding and redefining its boundaries and, above all, trying to transmit it to new generations. Some of them are documentation and research centres, mainly doing cultural work on the Resistance;Footnote 6 others have a more militant profile,Footnote 7 while still others are primarily recreational.Footnote 8 I will describe here a selection of these organisations, all created between 1999 and 2009 but now well established, which combine these various dimensions and, in my view, stand out for the originality and effectiveness of their proposals. Although this map is by no means exhaustive, it provides important examples – both geographical and typological – of the current national landscape.
The Fondazione Brigata Maiella
In 1999, the Fondazione Brigata Maiella was established in Gessopalena, an Abruzzo village mined and destroyed by the retreating Germans in December 1943. It was promoted by the Associazione Nazionale ex-combattenti – Gruppo Patrioti della Maiella in collaboration with the Abruzzo regional council, the provincial administration of Chieti, the municipality of Gessopalena and the Aventino–Medio Sangro community, joined in 2005 by the Fondazione Pescarabruzzo and in 2015 by the University of Chieti–Pescara. It preserves and promotes the memory of the Gruppo Patrioti della Maiella, the partisan group founded and led by Ettore Troilo, who fought in the Resistance from Casoli to Asiago and was awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valour in 1963 (Patricelli Reference Patricelli2021).
The Fondazione Brigata Maiella collects material and promotes research on the war and on contemporary history in general,Footnote 9 but it also organises commemorative and public outreach activities. In doing so, it aims to:
awaken in young people and in all citizens a love for the Homeland, for peace, for democratic freedoms, for work, for the culture of legality and an awareness of the sacrifice of those who took up arms for these ideals against tyranny and dictatorship, for the redemption of Italy’s dignity in the context of the international community.Footnote 10
In addition to its involvement in the annual celebration of 25 April at the Sacrario (in 2018 with President Mattarella), its projects include ‘Let Us Not Forget’ (carried out in 2016 in partnership with Malta, Lithuania and Latvia), the marking of sites of memory linked to the Brigata Maiella, the Dizionario biografico dei Maiellini database, the exhibitions ‘La nostra resistenza’ (April 2016) and ‘Dal Sangro al Senio’ (February 2019), and the feature film Terra senza nome (2001, directed by Guido Chiesa, Francesco Teresi and Francesco Trento).
Currently chaired by Nicola Mattoscio (Mattoscio Reference Mattoscio2015, Reference Mattoscio2020) and directed by Costantino Felice and Enzo Fimiani, the Fondazione has been very important for two reasons in particular: on the one hand, it has helped revive interest in the Resistance in southern Italy (Fimiani Reference Fimiani2016; Armino and Marzolla Reference Armino and Marzolla2024); and on the other, it has shed light on the specific nature of the partisan formations that joined the Allied armies (Cappellano and Orlando Reference Cappellano and Orlando2022).
The Centro Studi Movimenti
The Centro Studi Movimenti was founded in Parma in 2000. It collects material and conducts research on doctrines, organisations and anti-systemic movements in the contemporary era.Footnote 11 Its archive/library preserves documentary and book material on the history of mobilisation for equality and liberation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: from workers’ struggles to anti-imperialist and international solidarity protests, from movements for the defence of the ecosystem to gender liberation, from antifascist struggles to those for an open and libertarian society. This material, described in 2006 by the Soprintendenza of Emilia Romagna (the body responsible for the archival heritage) as an ‘archive of considerable historical interest’, is available to researchers and citizens alike, and has allowed the Centro Studi Movimenti collective to conduct original research and organise educational activities and public outreach events.Footnote 12 These include training courses for teachers (‘Fuori classe’), modules for students of all levels (‘Che storia’ for primary schools and ‘‘68 e dintorni’ for secondary schools, both using alternative sources, workshops and guided tours), memory trips (‘Itaca’), heritage walks and exhibitions, such as ‘Dieci volti per la liberazione’ (2013), in which ten life-size silhouettes of local partisans – whose biographical experience was chosen as a point of reference to rethink this collective experience – were displayed at key points in Parma.
In 2015, the Centro launched the Libera università del sapere critico (LUSC), a free university offering multidisciplinary courses aimed at reviving the cultural and political critique of existing power relations. In fact, the Centro sees itself as an integral part of today’s anti-systemic movements, which it tries to support from its specific position as a place of cultural reflection and preservation of memory. In this context, courses have been held on antifascism (William Gambetta in 2016), the postwar transition (Simeone Del Prete in 2020), 1943 (Santo Peli in 2023) and the partisan war (again Peli in 2024).
The Centro has agreements with local authorities and universities in and around Parma, and since 2017 it has been associated with the INSMLI network (now Parri).
The Archivi della Resistenza association
The Archivi della Resistenza association (Circolo Edoardo Bassignani) was created in 2004 in Fosdinovo,Footnote 13 between the Gulf of La Spezia and the Apuan Alps, shortly after the opening of the Museo Audiovisivo della Resistenza in Le Prade (about three kilometres from Fosdinovo). Designed by the renowned Studio Azzurro, the museum documents the liberation experience in the provinces of Massa Carrara and La Spezia, along the western Gothic Line. It is the first narrative museum in Italy: that is, it is not focused on a material collection but based on images (photographs, films and especially video interviews).Footnote 14
From the beginning, the association that has run the museum since 2012 has focused on oral history and audiovisual material. It brings together different generations and skills: researchers and teachers in the humanities (especially textual sciences and historical-anthropological sciences), experts in music and film production, grassroots activists from antifascist associations and students from local schools and universities. It has gained a national reputation for its social documentation work, and its mission is to collect and promote the oral heritage, mainly through the audiovisual (and now also digital) recording of the personal accounts and life stories of Resistance protagonists. This conception of history ‘from below’, which favours the point of view of the non-hegemonic classes, has led to a constant expansion of the fields of study, from labour memories to the history of the workers’ movement and the struggle for rights (feminism, anti-globalisation movement, etc.), from peasant traditions to oral literature and protest songs, from international resistance movements to migrant histories, all in a perspective that seeks to go as far as the construction of an ‘archive of the present’.
The association explicitly aims to build an ‘archive in the making’, which suggests that research in the field is constantly evolving (hence the frequent sharing of memories through family photographic archives), even when the mission is to document contemporary political movements and struggles.Footnote 15 In addition, the association is highly committed to the dissemination of its collected material through the publication of booksFootnote 16 and the production of documentaries.Footnote 17
Particular attention has been paid to the organisation of popular cultural initiatives. These include a festival of the Resistance, ‘Fino al cuore della rivolta’ (the title is taken from a poem by Paolo Bertolani), first held in 2005. It is divided into two events: the first in spring (in the week preceding 25 April) in Fosdinovo, with an art exhibition and a concert dedicated to the anniversary of the liberation; the second in August at the museum in Le Prade, a highly evocative natural setting, which also involves the interesting repurposing of a place of struggle (and later also a summer camp for children). Regular participants include Tano D’Amico, Angelo d’Orsi and Maurizio Maggiani, and the festival offers a packed programme of debates, testimonies and performances, accompanied by commercial events and food and wine tastings (one of the most original gimmicks is the production and sale of ‘partisan bitters’ since 2017).
When the association took over the management of the museum in 2012, the latter also became home to the archive and the audiovisual laboratory. In addition, it developed a rich programme of educational activities and cultural events, including book launches, exhibitions, lectures, dinner concerts, theatre performances and children’s entertainment (which is also at the heart of the Ninin festival in December). On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of ‘Fino al cuore della rivolta’, it produced a three-CD box set with a compilation of 49 tracks, featuring the main artists who performed at the festival. In 2023, the association (chaired by Alessio Giannanti, author of Testi con-testi [2013]) celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the museum, and in 2024 the twentieth anniversary of the festival.
The Fondazione Nuto Revelli
The Fondazione Nuto Revelli was set up in Cuneo in 2006, on the initiative of Revelli’s family and a group of friends.Footnote 18 Its purpose is to publicise and develop the work of Revelli, a fighter in Russia and a member of Giustizia e Libertà in the Stura Valley, who died in 2004.Footnote 19 The Fondazione has its headquarters in Revelli’s home at Corso Brunet 1, which was adapted to house the extensive archive dedicated to the Resistance and ethno-anthropological studies, considered of great historical interest by the Soprintendenza. In addition to its role as an archive, in 2012 the Fondazione revived the alpine hamlet of Paraloup (at 1,360 metres above sea level, in the municipality of Rittana), making it a place of dual memory: of the partisan war and of the peasant life that characterised the hamlet before it was abandoned.Footnote 20 The chalets were rebuilt according to an innovative and sustainable architectural design and harmoniously integrated into the landscape.Footnote 21 Today, they house a tourist and cultural centre with a restaurant, hotel and theatre, open all year round and managed through a social project.
The Fondazione is one of the most important oral history archives in Italy, with more than a thousand hours of recordings (recently restored and digitised) and over 50 linear metres of photographs, letters and personal accounts of the Second World War (especially the Russian campaign), the liberation struggle and the peasant world in general. It applies the method that Revelli himself used, aimed at ‘cultivating’ memory in relation to the territories that produced it and transmitting its living and transformative power to contemporary society, especially younger generations. The protection of heritage and the transmission of memory are thus seen as key to promoting social well-being and justice (Stewart Reference Stewart2008; Bernardi Reference Bernardi2019).
Chaired by Nuto’s son Marco and run by Beatrice Verri, the Fondazione is part of AICI (Associazione degli Istituti di Cultura Italiani), the Paesaggi della Memoria network and the Rete del ritorno ai luoghi dell’Italia in abbandono. Since 2024, it has also participated in the Polo del₠’900 of Turin and the Liberation Route Europe network. It organises an annual competition for schools, entitled ‘Ricordando Nuto’, and a national prize for immigrant and non-immigrant citizens, Scrivere altrove, in co-operation with Mai Tardi – Associazione amici di Nuto. From 2017 to 2020, it participated in the ‘MigrAction’ project, part of the Interreg Alcotra Italy–France programme. During this period, it created the Museo multimediale dei racconti in Paraloup, in collaboration with the Musée de la Vallée in Barcelonnette, and organised the Frontière festival, an open-air theatre event on a wooden stage overlooking the Maritime Alps. In September 2019, the band Marlene Kuntz chose the theatre of Paraloup for the reading/concert ‘Bella ciao’, organised in collaboration with the Nuovi Mondi festival of Valloriate as part of the ‘Muovere le Montagne’ project.
On the Resistance, it is worth mentioning two projects: ‘Memoranda’, which uses places and objects to teach about the Second World War (Tarpino Reference Tarpino2023); and ‘Artistic Resistance’ (in collaboration with the Museo dell’arte contemporanea in Rittana), an artistic residency with two Chilean artists focusing on the theme of partisan women and an international band for the production of songs and site-specific performances on the theme of resistance. In 2019, the Fondazione also edited the annual issue of the digital journal Close Encounters in War, and in 2020 it published a book with interviews with Paraloup survivors, Resistenze. Quelli di Paraloup (edited by Beatrice Verri and Lucio Monaco).
Finally, to celebrate the centenary of Revelli’s birth, it co-ordinated a national committee that promoted various scientific activities,Footnote 22 as well as popular events, including the photographic exhibition ‘Ricordati di non dimenticare: Nuto Revelli, una vita per immagini’ (exhibited on banners in Cuneo in 2019 and in Turin in 2021, and elsewhere in the form of panels),Footnote 23 the theatre play L’anello forte by Anna Di Francisca,Footnote 24 and the web series Ricordati di non dimenticare.Footnote 25
The Associazione Quarantasettezeroquattro 47|04
The Associazione 47|04 was founded in Gorizia in 2009. It organises cultural activities in Venezia Giulia,Footnote 26 and one of its most characteristic features is its interdisciplinary approach; it co-ordinates the work of professionals from different fields, stimulating interaction and dialogue between historians (including its president, Alessandro CattunarFootnote 27) and visual artists, performing artists, computer scientists and musicians, and encouraging the intermingling of different languages. In addition, it adopts a topographical and transnational approach, focusing on the urban spaces of Gorizia–Nova Gorica and on participatory and multicultural practices in a cross-border and European perspective (for example, it collaborates with Italian and Slovenian entities and has promoted and participated in several European projects in the ‘Creative Europe’ and ‘Citizenship’ strands).
The association is involved in a variety of events: festivals and exhibitions; open-air shows and events in urban spaces, gardens and historical locations; site-specific performances; multimedia art installations in urban spaces; and participatory performances. In particular, it organises the urban multimedia festivals InVisible Cities (since 2015), Contaminazioni digitali (since 2017) and Ars (since 2020), and it contributes to the Terrevolute festival in San Donà di Piave. In the context of Go!2025, which promotes the candidature of Gorizia–Nova Gorica for European Capital of Culture 2025 , it has sponsored a network called Borderlands – Teatri di confine, which brings together various theatre groups from other border cities.
The association is also active in preserving memory and raising historical awareness. In 2017, it launched the diffuse museum Topografie della memoria, which guides visitors along a route made up of ten stops (six in Gorizia and four in Nova Gorica) where iron totems have been placed, proposing different forms of entertainment. In 2022 it organised the multimedia exhibition ‘Lasciapassare/Prepustnica’ in the Rafut Pass, and in 2024 it developed the audio-guided route ‘Orfana la mia città’. Also in terms of raising historical awareness, in 2012 it organised the multimedia exhibition ‘Le vite degli altri’ (on the memory of Gorizia), and in 2016 it produced the video-theatre show La dignità offesa (a reconstruction of the story of the Italian military internees during the Second World War through the life stories of two people who meet at Artegna station, a soldier from Rimini deported by the Nazis and a girl who helps him). In 2017 it participated in the European project ‘Burnt in Memory’ (with the installation of explanatory cubes in villages burnt by the Nazis in Italy, Slovenia and Croatia), and in 2019 it produced the lecture-performance Tracce (about five Jewish families in war-torn Trieste), followed in 2020 by Tracce. I linguaggi del contemporaneo raccontano il passato, a series of performances, shows and meetings focused on five different key moments in twentieth-century history in five places of memory in the territory of Friuli Venezia Giulia.
In the educational sphere, the association organises workshops and training courses for secondary school and university students, as well as refresher courses for teachers in media education, historical dissemination and active citizenship. The educational activities take place throughout the Friuli Venezia Giulia region and include dialogue classes, discussions with experts, historical analysis training, workshops for the creation of audiovisual products, storytelling and theatrical performances and shows. Projects designed in collaboration with schools include the participatory performances Giorno Zero // la resistenza che verrà non è la prima (in 2021 in Tolmezzo), Ma una tra tutte scintilla (in 2022 in Sacile) and Verrà l’alba (in 2024 in Udine). Finally, there were memory trips based on the unique Memobus format.
As suggested by the name of the association, which recalls two key moments in Gorizia’s (but also in Italian and European) postwar history (The peace treaty after WWII end the opening of European Union to Slovenia), Associazione 47|04 deals with contemporary events in general, focusing on key moments for this territory, such as the First World War and the Cold War. However, it has also developed more specific projects and activities on the Second World War and the Resistance.
For a public history of the Resistance
Although the experiences described here all have a different geographical location, cultural approach and even legal nature (apart from being third-sector organisations), they have some elements in common. First of all, they work along the entire cultural chain: from the collection and creation of materials to preservation, research, teaching and public outreach (also using audiovisual, multimedia and digital tools). Second, they allow for different memories (individual, collective, social, official) – even divided or conflicting ones – to interact with each other, making public history a resource for education, translation and mediation. Third, they are firmly rooted in the territory, which they value as heritage (in accordance with the Faro Convention), but with reference to general problems and in connection with international networks.Footnote 28 Thanks to their projects and activities, they are able to promote the knowledge of a plural and multifaceted Resistance, in which the shadows are not hidden and the humanity and drama of this chapter of twentieth-century Italian history are restored.
On some occasions, their approach has met with resistance from the more rigorous scholars or the guardians of the memory of the Resistance. But this ‘lightness’ of approach – in the words of Italo Calvino, quoted in the title – does not mean superficiality, let alone a denial of the high civic value of the theme, but rather the opposite: the multiplication and diversification of languages, based on a conscious and responsible interaction with different audiences, is a way to make this approach more widespread and successful. It is hoped that the eightieth anniversary of the liberation will also offer grounds and opportunities to relaunch antifascism as an essential part of democratic citizenship.
Translated by Andrea Hajek
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Alessandro Cattunar, Enzo Fimiani, William Gambetta, Alessio Giannanti and Beatrice Verri.
Mirco Carrattieri co-ordinates the scientific committee of Liberation Route Italy. He is a member of the scientific committee of the Istituto Cervi and of the Istoreco Reggio Emilia, of which he was president from 2009 to 2015. He was also the editor of the E-Review journal (2013–22), director of the Museo della Repubblica di Montefiorino e della Resistenza italiana (2016–19) and president of the Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri (2018–21). He holds a PhD in contemporary history, has held scholarships at the Fondazione Salvatorelli, the Fondazione Gorrieri, the Fondazione Basso and the Domus Mazziniana, and has been a research fellow at the Universities of Bologna, Modena and Bergamo. He works on the history of historiography, the history of the Resistance and public history. His most recent publications include: ‘La guerra partigiana’ in M. Carrattieri and M. Flores (eds), La Resistenza in Italia: storia, memoria, storiografia (GoWare, 2018); ‘I disegni dei partigiani’ in M. Carrattieri and I. Meloni (eds), Partigiani della Wehrmacht (Le Piccole Pagine, 2021); Red Lives Matter. Le statue di Lenin tra Ucraina e Cavriago (TM, 2023); Agli albori della democrazia: la Repubblica dell’Ossola (with L. Zanotta; Biblion, 2024); ‘Scarpe rotte eppur bisogna andar’. Una storia della Resistenza in 30 oggetti (with P. Boccalatte; Biblion, 2024); and ‘Tedeschi partigiani. Oltre l’ossimoro’ in C. Colombini and C. Greppi (eds), Storia internazionale della Resistenza (Laterza, 2024).
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