Youth, Generations, and Collective Action in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Italy

Abstract

Across nineteenth-century Europe young people inspired both revolutionary optimism and establishment anxieties. The French Revolution, historian Sergio Luzzatto has argued, "inaugurated a political rhetoric around young people that had lasting repercussions: that youth in its liberality and exuberance is a permanent danger to the political and social order." 1 From the radical democrats of Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy to the students of populist Russia, the "fathers and sons" paradigm of generational conflict reinforced assumptions about the involvement of young people, particularly males, in radicalism and collective action. 2 Eric Hobsbawm's seminal study Bandits highlighted the predominance of unmarried men under the age of twenty-five in rural unrest in Italy, Hungary, Manchuria, and Columbia, and argued that youth was "a phase of independence and potential rebellion. Young men, often united in formal or informal age bands, can move from job to job, fight and rove." 3 When preparing for rebellion in the 1860s, the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaimed, "Youth of Ireland! All depends on you! Upon your courage and devotion hangs the fate of your country. You are our vanguard." At the same time the Irish Times dismissed the movement as nothing more than a lot of "hot-headed Irish youths" with no reasonable objectives. 4Acknowledgments: The research for this article was supported by the Irish Research Council. I am grateful to the anonymous CSSH reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. My thanks also go to Enrico Dal Lago, Enda Delaney, and Louise Jackson, and to the participants in Edinburgh's Modern Irish History seminar, for their advice on earlier versions. 934Depending on one's position, then, youth was something to be celebrated or denigrated.In the nineteenth century, young people were excluded from the electoral process, held little or no security over their labor, and were tied to rural household economies where jealousies relating to inheritance drew them into family conflicts. The alternative of migration to urban centers for employment disrupted relationships and created difficult adjustments. Young people's circumstances, it would appear, gave them reason to engage in radicalism and protest. Yet whether they did so is far from clear. Assumptions about their involvement regularly rest on, first, broad views associated with evolutionary psychology that see younger men as more likely to be caught up in violence, and second, the records of the authorities who believed lower-class youths were intrinsically prone to lawlessness and who exaggerated their role in unrest. This article examines concepts of youth, maturity, and generations in nineteenth-century Ireland and Italy and the perceived connections between young people and political and social unrest. I will show that, rather than being consistent, the involvement of younger generations in collective action was uneven, and varied significantly according to specific historical contexts.

Retracted: Structural measures to prevent radicalism among youth

“…Obviously, this is due to the lack of consensus in the scientific and expert environment regarding the essential features and forms of extremist activity, the criteria for classifying acts that fall under the definition of extremist. In some cases, the uncertainty of the scientifically grounded political and legal essence of the phenomenon of radicalism and extremism leads to the fact that these terms become a means of defamation of opponents in political struggle (Whelehan, 2014). Such a free and subjective handling of terminology, which is based only on emotional and expressive perception, steadily leads to false ideas about this phenomenon, which neutralizes its essential features and semantic load.…”

Rural Luddism and the makeshift economy of the Nottinghamshire framework knitters

“…While this was -and is -often an assertion levelled by the authorities as a device for de-legitimizing protest, the evidence suggests that many of them were young (in their late teens or very early twenties), -those who were relatively new to the trade and, presumably, saw little prospect of making a successful career. 145 were executed in 1817, some of them were in the early thirties, including Towle, yet they would have been in the mid-twenties when Luddism commenced. 147 John Westby, a young Luddite who was killed at Bulwell in November 1811, had married at Arnold on 30 November 1807, and he was buried at Arnold parish church.…”

Peasants, bandits, and state intervention: The consolidation of authority in the Ottoman Balkans and Southern Italy

“…General Alfonso La Marmora explicated the relationship between the different social classes in Southern Italy, stating that “… If ignorance and ferocity are the characteristics of the inferior class, egoism and intrusion into the dominating positions are the so‐called features of gabellotti ” (Serra, , p. 36). The new Italian state and its officials recognized these degenerating social conditions while portraying those who were revolting through the lens of cultural relativism, and labelling dissidents as criminals and emotional reactionaries (Whelehan, ). The victory of the ruling classes in the suppression of the peasant revolts in Southern Italy also influenced Italy's poor economic performance (Sereni, ).…”