Cultural activity and intellectual networks: Lisbon's Italian Cultural Institute from Fascism to the Second World War (1928–45)

Modern Italy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-387
Author(s):  
Simone Muraca
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Cultural Activity ◽  
World War ◽  
Italian Fascism ◽  
Intellectual Networks ◽  
Second World

From the late 1920s onwards, Italian cultural diplomacy in Portugal was responsible for an increasing number of activities and initiatives directed at the Portuguese intellectual public. From Mussolini's perspective, the ideological ground shared by the Salazar regime and Italian Fascism meant that it was important for Italy to nourish links and exchanges with Portugal. This article examines cultural diplomacy in Lisbon, using one particular centre as the focus of analysis: the Italian Cultural Institute and its networking activities with intellectuals in the Portuguese regime. Within these transnational intellectual networks, a prominent role was taken by the Institute's successive directors between 1928 and 1945. These figures varied substantially in their biographical trajectories and seem to have exemplified the idiosyncrasies and contradictions of Fascist cultural policy in Portugal, which was one of a range of attempts, never fully realised, to export the idea of Italian Fascism.

A ‘Sound Investment’? British Cultural Diplomacy and Overseas Students: The British Council's Students Committee, 1935–1939

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
Alice Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Overseas Students ◽  
British Council ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Run Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second World

This article explores the UK government's first foray into cultural diplomacy by focusing on the activities of the British Council's Students Committee in the run-up to the Second World War. Students were placed at the heart of British cultural diplomacy, which drew on foreign models as well as the experience of intra-empire exchanges. While employing cultural internationalist discourse, the drive to attract more overseas students to the United Kingdom was intended to bring economic and political advantages to the host country. The British Council pursued its policy in cooperation with non-state actors but ultimately was guided by the Foreign Office, which led it to target key strategic regions, principally in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.

Between Rosas and Sarmiento: Notes on Nationalism in Peronist Thought

1983 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-332
Author(s):  
Colin M. Winston
Keyword(s):  
Body Politic ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Italian Fascism ◽  
Instant Replay ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Second World

Despite its crucial importance to the development of twentieth century Argentina and the volumes of scholarly, journalistic and partisan exegesis the movement has generated, historians have yet to reach a minimal consensus on the nature of Peronism. In the quarter century since Perón's first fall from power, numerous efforts have been made to explain, glorify or denigrate his regime. Many anti-Peronists have dismissed their bête noire as an unprincipled demagogue, motivated solely by political opportunism and an insatiable desire to retain power. Some supporters of the regime echo its propaganda by picturing Perón as taking the first great strides toward a politically free, economically independent and socially just Argentina. Certain anti-Peronists and a number of foreign commentators grudgingly admit that the movement had political and ideological content, but then label it as an imported fascist interlude, an alien virus that infected the body politic of Argentina just as it neared the end of the long march towards liberal democracy. The London Economist recently described the advent of Peronism as an instant replay of Italian Fascism. “The bulk of his supporters were the lower middle class immigrants who poured into the country from impoverished Italy after the second world war… The new arrivals cheered El Lider as they had cheered Il Duce for two decades. Perón representated the same historical phenomenon as Hitler and Mussolini…”

Fascist Samurais: the Japanese race in the Italian imaginary during the Second World War and beyond

Modern Italy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77
Author(s):  
Michele Monserrati
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
World War I ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Italian Fascism ◽  
Transnational Actors ◽  
Racial Policy ◽  
Common Effort ◽  
Second World

Between 1938 and 1943, Fascist intellectuals debated the problem of how to create a racial policy that would encompass the Japanese within the Aryan doctrine. This article demonstrates how internal divisions in the Fascist party over racial issues generated alternative versions of pro-Japanese propaganda, which influenced the racial thinking of the Italian far-right even long after the Second World War. I show how Italian racial theories developed to underpin the alliance with Japan were transnational in scope, as they involved both German and Italian scholars in a common effort to lobby state racial policies. Specifically, I consider George Montandon and Julius Evola as two transnational actors engaged in building a case for the inclusion of the Japanese in the family of Aryan races, speaking either from a ‘biological’ or ‘spiritual’ perspective. While by the end of the Second World War the ‘biological’ thesis for the inclusion of the Japanese race had evaporated, the ‘spiritual’ thesis would continue to influence a generation of Italian far-right militants, especially during the ‘Years of Lead’. To make sense of this legacy, I suggest that the foundational myth of Italian Fascism, based on the spiritual heritage of the multiethnic Roman empire, responded to the neofascist quest for transnational affiliations against Western materialism.

The Moscow Trials

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan M. Wald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Activity ◽  
World War ◽  
Leon Trotsky ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World

The impact of the Moscow Purge Trials is discussed from several angles. One concerns the activities of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky, and especially the hearings held in Mexico over which John Dewey presided. Another is the impact of the trials in encouraging a flowering of cultural activity and a closer relationship between Trotsky and United States writers. A third is the political demoralization that set in as the United States drew closer to involvement in the Second World War. Edmund Wilson’s To the Finland Station is among writing explored.

scholarly journals From Gaullism to Anti-Gaullism: Denis Saurat and the French Cultural Institute in Wartime London

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Faucher
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Charles De Gaulle ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Second World ◽  
De Gaulle

This article explores the case of the French cultural institute in London which found itself at the nexus of Gaullist as well as anti-Gaullist networks during the Second World War. By analysing the support that the institute’s director, Denis Saurat, brought to Charles de Gaulle in the early days of Free France, the article contributes to our understanding of the formation of Free French political thought. This study analyses Saurat’s shifting position in the movement, from being Gaullist to becoming an active partisan of anti-Gaullism. The examination of Saurat’s networks and politics helps to re-appraise further trends of anti-Gaullism caused by leftist views not least regarding the lack of democratic principles that characterized Free France in 1940–2. Finally, Saurat’s anti-Gaullism was also prompted by his refusal to put the French cultural institute in London at the service of de Gaulle and support Free French propagandist, cultural and academic ambitions in the world. Overall this article argues for a reassessment of London-based leftist anti-Gaullism understood not just through issues of personalities and democracy but also through the prism of cultural diplomacy and propaganda.

scholarly journals The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
East Central ◽  
Italian Fascism ◽  
History Of ◽  
East Central European ◽  
Second World ◽  
Radical Form

This article briefly presents the history of the radical form of Ukrainian nationalism paying especial attention to the geopolitical circumstances which formed this movement. Then, it analyzes some aspects of this phenomenon such as its main ideologists, racism, antisemitism, religion, rituals, leaders, concepts of revolution, and the ethnic, political and mass violence conducted before, during and after the Second World War. The article argues that the extreme and genocidal form of Ukrainian nationalism did have a fascist kernel and should be considered a form of European or East Central European fascism. Nevertheless, because of the specific cultural, social and political Ukrainian circumstances the radical form of Ukrainian nationalism differed from better known fascist movements such as German National Socialism or Italian Fascism, and thus it requires a careful and adequate investigation.

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