Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 February 2026
This chapter concentrates on Italian broadcasters who worked for the BBC. By exploring their memoirs and the years preceding their emigration to Britain, it aims to understand their political and cultural milieu. This in turn allows us to comprehend why they ended up working for British propaganda and to what extent their backgrounds and experiences as immigrants are mirrored in the content of the programmes.Analysis of a selection of memoirs published by these broadcasters during or after the war also reveals their intended mission at the BBC. Their aim was not to engage with their fellow academics or intellectuals. Rather, they wanted to support ordinary Italians whose lives were constantly at risk. This objective was in line not only with the broader aim of the BBC to educate and entertain the masses, but also with the broadcasters’ personal life experiences in Britain. In Italy they were established academics, lawyers or politicians. Yet their forced emigration to another country and the outbreak of war turned them into ordinary men.The first section of the chapter focuses on the existing literature about anti-fascist political emigration from the early 1920s to the promulgation of the Italian racial laws, while each of the subsequent sections refers to a specific Italian broadcaster. The criteria for choosing the biographies for inclusion in this chapter are the importance of the broadcasters on the Italian political and cultural scene and the number of programmes under their names found at the BBC Written Archives Centre.
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