Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T20:59:12.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Fragmented Transformation: Giovanni Pirelli’s War Writings, 1940–1944

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2016

Rachel E. Love
Rachel E. Love*
Affiliation:
Department of Italian Studies, New York University
*
*Email: rel343@nyu.ed
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the unpublished First World War diaries of Giovanni Pirelli – heir to the helm of the Pirelli tyre company – for their account of how the war and fall of Fascism may have catalysed his dissociation from his family, his class, and his ideological foundation. In the post-war period, Pirelli traced the source of his rejection of his inheritance to his experiences during the Russian retreat, but in the moment, the expression of this kind of transformation is fragmentary and complex. Scholars often look to war diaries and letters for their testimony to the state of the individual in combat. Through close reading, I trace how Pirelli’s writings negotiate his immense privilege and his attempt to construct a moral identity in the midst of war. I consider how they demonstrate his break with his wartime ideals and Fascism and how they anticipate his later transition from industrial heir to socialist activist. My examination of these diaries reveals the ambiguities inherent in this transformation of Fascist and bourgeois subjectivity.

Italian summary

Quest’articolo esamina i diari di guerra di Giovanni Pirelli – primo erede dell’azienda Pirelli e noto intellettuale socialista e anticolonialista del dopoguerra – per come raccontano la sua esperienza della seconda guerra mondiale, la fine del fascismo e la Resistenza, e per come anticipano il suo distacco dalla sua famiglia, la sua classe, e le sue origini ideologiche. Negli anni del dopoguerra, Pirelli ha ritenuto la ritirata dalla Russia come l’evento alla base di questo suo gran rifiuto, ma durante il conflitto l’espressione di queste trasformazioni è più frammentaria e complessa. Questo articolo ripercorre il modo in cui i diari articolano la sua consapevolezza dei privilegi familiari e sociali, e il suo sforzo di costruire una sua personale identità morale. Un’esame di questi scritti offre un suggestivo ritratto delle ambiguità del processo di trasformazione di un soggetto fascista e borghese. Questo studio è contestualizzato nel quadro più ampio degli studi su lettere e diari di guerra e la loro testimonianza sullo stato dell’individuo in combattimento.

Keywords

Giovanni PirelliSecond World WardiarieslettersFascismAlberto Pirelli
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 261 - 272
Copyright
© 2016 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albertoni, E. A., Antonini, E., and Palmieri, R., eds. 1962. La generazione degli anni difficili. Bari: Editori Laterza.Google Scholar
Avagliano, M. 2006. Generazione ribelle. Diari e lettere dal 1943 al 1945. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Ben-Ghiat, R. 2002. ‘Italian Fascists and National Socialists: The Dynamics of an Uneasy Relationship.’ In Art, Culture, and Media under the Third Reich, edited by R. A. Etlin. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bernard-Donals, M., and Glejzer, R. 2001. Between Witness and Testimony the Holocaust and the Limits of Representation. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Bland, C. 2004. ‘“In Case the Worst Comes to the Worst”: Letters Home from Berlin, 1942–1945.’ Gender and Politics in the Age of Letter Writing, 1750–2000, edited by C. Bland, and M. Cross. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Bolaggi, G., and Colombini, C., eds. 2014. Partigiani in Val di Susa. I nove diari di Aldo Laghi. Milan: FrancoAngeli.Google Scholar
Bourke, J. 2004. ‘Introduction: “Remembering” War.’ Journal of Contemporary History 39 (4): 473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bravo, A. 2005. ‘Armed and Unarmed: Struggles without Weapons in Europe and in Italy.’ Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10 (4): 468–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgwyn, H. J. 2007. ‘General Roatta’s war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942.’ Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9 (3): 314–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capogreco, C. S. 2001. ‘Internamento e deportazione dei civili jugoslavi (1941–1943).’ In I campi di conconcentramento in Italia. Dall’internamento alla deportazione (1940–1945), edited by C. Di Sante. Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Culley, M. 1985. A Day at a Time: The Diary Literature of American Women from 1764 to the Present. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York.Google Scholar
Del Boca, A. 2015. Nella notte ci guidano le stelle. La mia storia partigiana, edited by M. Franzelli. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Feltrinelli, C. 1999. Senior Service. Milan: Feltrinelli.Google Scholar
Gobetti, A. 1972. Diario partigiano. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Gobetti, E. 2013. Alleati del nemico. L’occupazione italiana in Jugoslavia, 1941–1943. Rome: Laterza.Google Scholar
Grandi, A. 2000. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. La dinastia, il rivoluzionario. Milan: Baldini & Castodi.Google Scholar
Hartley, J. 1999. ‘“Letters are everything these days”: Mothers and Letters in the Second World War.’ In Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600–1945, edited by R. Earle. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Mondadori, A. 1996. Lettere di una vita, 1922–1975, edited by G. C. Ferretti. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Pirelli, G. 1972. Giovannino e i suoi fratelli e altri racconti. Milan: Fabbri.Google Scholar
Pirelli, G. 1990. Un mondo che crolla. Lettere, 1938–1943, edited by N. Tranfaglia. Milan: Rosellina Archinto.Google Scholar
Pirelli, E. 2002. Legami e conflitti. Alberto e Giovanni Pirelli. Lettere 1931–1965. Milan: Rossellina Archinto.Google Scholar
Santarelli, L. 2004. ‘Muted Violence: Italian War Crimes in Greece.’ Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9 (3): 280–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S., and Watson, J. 2001. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Tranfaglia, N. 2010. Vita di Alberto Pirelli (1882–1971). La politica attraverso l’economia. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Vicchi, G. 2015. Diario partigiano, edited by L. Alessandrini, and R. Mezzacasa. Bologna: Pendragon.Google Scholar
Weill-Ménard, D. 1994. Vita e tempi di Giovanni Pirelli. Milan: Linea d’ombra edizioni.Google Scholar
Winter, J. 2006. Remembering War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Zangrandi, R. 1947. Il lungo viaggio attraverso il fascismo. Contributo alla storia di una generazione. Milan: Mursia 1998.Google Scholar