Abstract
Until relatively recent times, in its analysis of the history of Fascism, Italian scholarship has concentrated most on the years of the Fascist rise to power 2015/10/7and those of its final crisis (1943–45). It has shown far less interest in the record of the regime in office, that ‘time of consensus’, as Renzo De Felice has baptised it, in a controversial but as yet largely uncontested interpretation.1 In regard to television documentaries, this tendency is still more pronounced, with the focus being very much fixed on 1943–45,2 despite the screening in 1972 of Nascita di una dittatura (Birth of a Dictatorship), one of RAI’s major programmes. This documentary was directed by Sergio Zavoli, a television journalist and not a historian who, in the 1980s, would rise to the presidency of RAI.
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Notes
Some of the problems with the De Felicean view are examined well in E. Collotti, Fascismo, fascismi, Florence, 1989; cf. also N. Tranfaglia, Un passato scomodo. Fascismo e postfascismo, Bari, 1996.
For a general analysis, see G. Crainz, A. Farassino, E. Forcella and N. Gallerano, La Resistenza italiana nei programma della RAI, Rome, 1996. The book comes with an attached disk containing a database of radio and television programmes up to the end of 1995.
The two best histories of the Republic are P. Ginsborg,A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943–1988, Harmondsworth, 1990
S. Lanaro, Storia dell’Italia repubblicana, Venice, 1992.
See, generally, G. Quazza, Resistenza e storia d’Italia, Milan, 1976.
For a convincing review, see N. Gallerano, ‘Critica e crisi del paradigma antifascista’, in Fascismo e antifascismo negli anni della repubblica, special issue of Problemi del socialismo, 7, 1986, pp. 106–33.
R. Battaglia, Storia della Resistenza italiana, Turin, 1953 (rev. edn, 1964).
See T. Codignola, ‘La Resistenza nelle scuole’, Il Ponte, August–September 1960
U. Segre, ‘Una grande lacuna nella scuola’, Il Giorno, 2 December 1960.
See, for example, C. Cesa, ‘Un convegno su scuola e Resistenza a Firenze’, Belfagor, 31 May 1965
M. Legnani, ‘L’antistoria dei manuali scolastici’, Belfagor, 30 September 1965.
On this matter, see F. Levi, L’ebreo in oggetto, Turin, 1991. Levi, summing up the views of many, wrote: ‘It is true, in Italy, at least at the beginning, Anti–Semitism came from above; from above and not from outside’ (p. 8).
See, for example, the assessment of the programme by A. Grasso, Storia della televisione italiana, Milan, 1992, p. 280.
N. Tranfaglia, ‘Fascisme e mass media: dall’intervista di De Felice agli sceneggiati televisivi’, Passato e Presente, 3, January–June 1983, p. 143.
N. Tranfaglia, ‘Fascisme e mass media: dall’intervista di De Felice agli sceneggiati televisivi’, Passato e Presente, 3, January-June 1983, p. 143.
See H. Rousso, Le syndrome de Vichy 1944–198…, Paris, 1987, pp. 11429. It is available in English as The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944, Cambridge, MA, 1991.
R. De Felice, Intervista sul fascismo, Bari, 1975 (rev. edn, 1997); it is available in English as
R. De Felice, Fascism: an Informal Introduction to its Theory and Practice, New Brunswick, NJ, 1977.
For a later analysis of what went on there, see M. Dondi, ’Piazzale Loreto 29 Aprile: aspetti di una pubblica esposizione’, Rivista di storia contemporanea, 18, 1990, pp. 219–48.
On this episode and the reaction it inspired in Milanese Fascism, see L. Ganapini, Una città, laguerra. Milano 1939–1951, Milan, 1988, pp. 154ff.
More than 300000 people attended the latter, widely advertised both in schools and in the newspapers. It was deliberately arranged to combine entertainment with ‘objectivity’. De Felice acted as the key historical editor. The message to the masses was thus a combination of a ‘revival’ and a reconciliation with the past even if it was Fascist. For comments, see T. Mason, ‘Il fascismo “Made in Italy”’, Italia contemporanea, 158, 1985, pp. 5–32 (its English version is T. Mason, ‘The Great Economic History Show’, History Workshop, 21, 1986, pp. 3–35).
Cf. also G. Crainz, ‘Il fascismo al Colosseo’, Rivista di storia contemporanea, 13, 1985, pp. 127–35.
See the later penetrating analysis, C. Pavone, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, Turin, 1991.
P. Ortoleva, ‘Raccontare la storia nell’epoca dei mass media’, in G. De Luna (ed.), Insegnaregli ultimi cinquant’anni. Riflessioni su identità e metodi della storia contemporanea, Florence, 1992, pp. 53–72.
For a critical reading, see G. De Luna, L’occhio e l’orecchio storico, Florence, 1993, pp. 97–138.
B. Spinelli, ‘La TV e l’Italia malata’, La Stampa, 8 April 1994.
For example, see G. Chiesa and G. De Luna’s ‘25 aprile. La memoria inquieta’ of 24 April 1995.
N. Gallerano (ed.), L’uso pubblico della storia, Milan, 1995.
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Crainz, G. (1999). The Representation of Fascism and the Resistance in the Documentaries of Italian State Television. In: Bosworth, R.J.B., Dogliani, P. (eds) Italian Fascism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27245-7_8
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