Making the Fascist Self: The Political Culture of Interwar Italy

The Wilder House Series in Politics, History and Culture

by Mabel Berezin

In her examination of the culture of Italian fascism, Mabel Berezin focuses on how Mussolini's regime consciously constructed a nonliberal public sphere to support its political aims. Fascism stresses form over content, she believes, and the regime tried to build its political support through the careful construction and manipulation of public spectacles or rituals such as parades, commemoration ceremonies, and holiday festivities. The fascists believed they could rely on the motivating power of spectacle, and experiential symbols. In contrast with the liberal democratic notion of separable public and private selves, Italian fascism attempted to merge the public and private selves in political spectacles, creating communities of feeling in public piazzas. Such communities were only temporary, Berezin explains, and fascist identity was only formed to the extent that it could be articulated in a language of pre-existing cultural identities. In the Italian case, those identities meant the popular culture of Roman Catholicism and the cult of motherhood. Berezin hypothesizes that at particular historical moments certain social groups which perceive the division of public and private self as untenable on cultural grounds will gain political ascendance. Her hypothesis opens a new perspective on how fascism works.

Genres: History

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 4 out of 5]

As well-read as I am when it comes to Nazi Germany, I have to admit that Mussolini's Italy is a bit of a historical blind spot for me. I have made countless jokes to friends about the ineptitude of the Italian forces in the Axis war effort, but I'm honestly in the dark about the actual history of Fascism in Italy over the twenty years that Mussolini was in power (plus the additional two years when Hitler had to prop him up after he lost power). So this book went a long way towards answering some of my questions about just what life was like in Fascist Italy.

"Making the Fascist Self" is all about the rituals and special occasions that overwhelmed the Italian calendar once Mussolini was made Prime Minister in 1922, following the much hyped (but historically suspect, as it turns out) "March on Rome" and subsequent show of force. Benito Mussolini ruled over Italy for a long time (longer than Hitler), and his regime was manifested in shows of strength and in pursuit of supposed "enemies" like Socialists and, later, Jews. The regime was unsparing in its devotion to spectacle, which Mabel Berezin says was something that was a longstanding part of Italian culture (this is the country that gave us opera, after all, and if that ain't theatrical, I don't know what could be). Italy was both the perfect place for Fascism to take root and the last place it would have any staying power; Fascism's somewhat vague political strategy didn't make for lifelong converts quite like the tenets of the Catholic Church. But Italy did embrace the notion of Fascism despite being on the winning side of the First World War because of perceived snubbing by the other Allies when it came to her territorial demands. And in the wake of that disappointment, Mussolini swung in to present himself as the person to make Italy great again.

This is an interesting book, to be sure. I think it makes me want to get more information on what Fascist Italy was like, and how Mussolini both maintained power and lost it. Like I said, I'm well-versed in the history of Nazi Germany, but Fascist Italy has always been an area of interest that I've never really pursued. This book goes a long way towards helping fill in the gaps, and it's a fun and illuminating read.

[Rapunzel Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the introductory chapter, the author distinguishes intention from reception in the introductory chapter and aims to address the meaning of public spectacle mean for both the regime and citizens. However, she spills much ink on the regime’s deliberate effort to create fascist rituals while overlooking the audience’s perception. In the case of March on Rome, Berezin relies heavily on the use of emotional language by Bolongnese newspaper Il Resto Del Carlino that exaggerated and dramatized the fascist influence. Nonetheless, in the previous chapter, Berezin notes that the lack of access to print and illiteracy impeded the making of the fascist nation, which appears to contradict the emphasis on the impact of newspaper propaganda. While the neglect of public perception may be due to the lack of personal narrative resources, it remains unclear whether overdramatic fascist performances reached a wider audience or were confined to the community of fascist fanatics. Additionally, the conclusion that fascist heroes never identified themselves as citizens of the fascist nation-state seems underwhelming and anticlimactic, especially given the author’s early assertion that the core of fascism lies in the fusion of the public and private self. It might have been more effective and cogent if Berezin had foreshadowed the conclusion that the constructed fascist identity was transient and precarious, and that it dissipated in tandem with the collapse of the fascist regime. Since the identities that fascist heroes prioritize were not converted by fascist rule, it raises the question of whether the merging of public and private life is still the essence of fascism, as argued by the author. What other mechanisms must be considered to account for the decades-long endurance of Italian fascist ideology? Is it necessary to view all other political ideologies that attempt to merge the public and private self through the lens of fascism?

[Riccardo Paul A G · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book begin like a Rocket and ends like a dick