The battle for influence: Commemoration of transnational martyrs in the Italian diaspora of the U.S. under fascism

Abstract

This article analyses the role commemoration of Fascist and anti-fascist martyrs played in the battle for political influence in the Italian diaspora of the United States during Mussolini’s early rule. It is structured around two case studies: the socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, killed in Rome in 1924, and Giuseppe Carisi and Michele Ambrosoli, two Blackshirts killed in the Bronx on their way to the Memorial Day parade of 1927 in New York. Through an examination of sites of memory and commemoration ceremonies held in both Italy and the U.S., it adds a transnational element to the study of the role of secular martyrdom in the construction of collective identity, concluding that the transnational exchange evident in commemoration of both case studies added to the propagandistic power of the martyrological narrative by drawing meaning from geographical distance from Italy.

“Martyrs for God and Spain”. National Martyrdom in Spain from the Civil War to the Historical Memory Law

“…Свои фашистские мученики были и в других странах, в том числе Хорватии и Украине David, 2020). В итоге фашистское мученичество стало транснациональным и позволило выстраивать связи между режимами, отношения которых не всегда бывали гладкими (Zavatti, 2022), а также между диаспорами и метрополиями, что хорошо изучено, скажем, на материале итальянской диаспоры в США (King, 2021) и некоторых других примерах.…”

Transnationalizing fascist martyrs: an entangled history of the memorialization of Ion Moţa and Vasile Marin in Spain and Romania, 1937–41

“…7 As shown by a case study focused on the memorialization of two other Italian Fascist martyrs who died abroad, the foreign elements contributed to empowering the martyrological narrative of the Fascist regime, decoupling the idea of martyrdom from the nation state and aligning it to Fascist ideals, with a view to conquering the hearts and minds of the Italian diaspora. 8 Like Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany exploited on an international scale the potential offered by comrades who had fallen abroad. For example, the spectacular funeral held in 1936 for Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the Nazi Party in Switzerland, involved a funerary train trip from Davos, where he had been shot by a Jewish student, to his hometown in Mecklenburg.…”