School Protests and the Making of the Post-Ottoman Mediterranean: Student Politicization as a Challenge to Italian Colonialism in Rhodes, 1915–1937

Abstract

Student unrest under Italian rule in Rhodes reveals youth's contribution to the transformation of Mediterranean politics in the 20th century. A condition of possibility for this unrest was the precolonial infrastructure of Rhodes, where new schools emerged in the last decades of Ottoman rule. During the Italian military occupation (1912–23), schools reflected identifications such as Ottoman patriotism and Greek irredentism. Student activism expanded beyond school issues and intersected with Italy's uncertain attitude concerning Rhodes's future, the warfare ravaging the Eastern Mediterranean, and the unmaking of Ottoman authority. Italian governors considered youth politicization to be influenced by elder politicians and limited to communal factionalism. After a decade of reforms under Italian sovereignty following the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), unrest reappeared in the 1930s. Students sympathized with ideas like pro-fascist Zionism and anticolonial Greek nationalism. They addressed issues of loyalty and belonging linked to Italian rule's dilemmas of fascist assimilation and colonial separation. Contrary to the 1910s, the authorities repressed student unrest and admitted that youth politicization was autonomous from the influence of the elders, conflicting with the fascist colonial order. Discussing student activism during this imperial transformation goes beyond narratives centered on state policies or one exclusive confessional group, highlighting interconnections between communal affairs, colonial governance, and regional geopolitics.