Studies of the Lega Nord (Northern League) have tended either to ignore the existence of earlier movements for regional autonomy in the 1950s – such as the Movimento Autonomista Bergamasco – or, on the contrary, assume continuities between the two movements at the expense of analysis of the significant discontinuities. This article argues that neither approach has been successful in capturing the importance of precursors to leghismo and that a more nuanced analysis is required. Focusing on the Movimento Autonomista Bergamasco (MAB) in its various incarnations between 1947 and 1970, I argue that the Bergamascan autonomists of the post-war period in many ways laid the foundations for Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord; however, it is historically inaccurate to claim a direct line of continuity between mabismo and leghismo due to the differing contexts in which each movement operated: the critical junctures of the post-war era and post-tangentopoli respectively. What emerges from a closer analysis of the relationship between the two movements, as mabismo evolved into leghismo in the 1980s is a picture of regional autonomism distancing itself from the ideal of national unity and being increasingly drawn to secessionism.

Political and criminal violence are an integral part of recent Italian history. Killings and mass murders have moulded everyday life and the collective memory of the Italian people, changing the shape of public life. Veneration of the dead has taken on a symbolic function and become part of a new ‘civil religion’, which has redefined Italy’s national identity. Scholars are currently examining the role of mafia victims in this phenomenon, concentrating in particular on the bombings that took place in 1992. Following the crisis that marked the end of the First Republic, symbolic ties to figures like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino became an essential aspect of redefining democratic mobilisation. Nevertheless, when examined from a long-term perspective, the relationship between the Italian population and the celebration of mafia victims is more complex than it may at first appear. This article aims to analyse the contradictions inherent in the issue, focusing on the funerals of mafia victims in order to examine the relationships between political and institutional bodies, the Italian population as a whole, and the local community, in the celebration of the dead. Through this analysis, it seeks to consider both the achievements and failures in the construction of this new ‘civil religion’ in a contemporary society.

Between 8 September 1943 and the end of the war, Italian Military Internees were confronted daily with a stark choice between continued resistance and opting to assist the Reich by fighting or working. Extraordinarily, over 600,000 said no, and endured internment or forced labour until they were liberated or died. Paradoxically, the minority who made the more predictable choice of opting to cooperate, the so-called optanti, constituted an anomaly. This article examines their motivation by giving an overview of the political background, the experience of deportation, the Lager environment and the phases and methods of propaganda. Primary sources indicate that hunger was a common denominator in their decision, but that the weight of other factors, which varied with individuals, broadly speaking fell into three categories: bleak honesty, specious cynicism and maverick idealism. These categories are illustrated by four case studies: the mass adhesion at Biala Podlaska and the individuals Pietro Faraci, Tranquillo Frigeni and Remo Faustini.

This article presents the results of some empirical research on extortion in Palermo. The project is based on the administration of a structured questionnaire with traders in various districts within Palermo and villages in the provincial interior, in two phases, the first in 2007 and second in 2012. The objective was to explore traders’ opinions on the various aspects of the phenomenon of extortion: its characteristics, causes, possible solutions, and the responsibilities of every actor in the battle against this illegal enterprise. In the period in which the research was undertaken, there was a wave of strong anti-mafia and anti-racketeering activism, particularly stimulated by the emergence in 2004 of the Comitato Addiopizzo and culminating in the establishment of the first ‘antiracket’ association in Palermo.

This article studies post-war Italy’s forgetful attitude towards its Fascist past by interpreting a political measure, the Togliatti amnesty (1946), and 1950s film censorship as ‘institutionalised forms of (…) amnesia’ (Ricoeur 2004, 452). The amnesty, which erased the Fascists’ legal responsibility for war and political crimes, represented the first act of oblivion of the Republican political establishment, embodying a forgetful mindset that influenced Italian culture through institutional instruments like film censorship. In 1950s Italy, censorship acted as a further form of institutionalised amnesia aimed at erasing from films the traces of the compromising continuity between the Fascist past and the democratic present. The story of the making and unmaking of the Italian episode of I vinti by Michelangelo Antonioni is a meaningful example of this dynamic. Producers and government commissioners censored the plot and changed it from a story about a neo-fascist militant to one about a young bourgeois who smuggles cigarettes. However, Antonioni resisted the institutional imposition to forget by choosing locations where the material dimension of the landscape still embodied the Fascist legacy of the country.

The first British cultural institute on foreign soil was founded in Florence in 1917. However, it was the creation of the British Council in London in 1935 that marked the beginning of the strengthening of the British cultural presence abroad. The aim of this drive was to promote knowledge of British culture and civic and political life overseas, to defend national prestige and, given the escalating expansionist policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, to encourage the preservation of dialogue between the major European powers, underpinned by democratic principles. Bridging a gap in research into the relationship between Italy and Great Britain in the interwar period, this article reconstructs the case study of British cultural diplomacy in Florence between 1922 and Mussolini’s declaration of war, analysing how British culture was used in politics and propaganda and investigating the relationship of the management of both the British Institute of Florence and the British Council with Fascism. In doing so, it offers original insight into British history and the country’s cultural institutions in Fascist Italy, and into the wider field of Anglo-Italian political and cultural relations during the period of dictatorship in Italy.

Disarmament and non-proliferation education is a key tool in curbing the spread of nuclear weapons, with a view to their elimination. This article examines the remarkable story of the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO) on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary of continuous engagement in educational and training activities. ISODARCO offers a unique forum where nuclear experts from different backgrounds and approaches can meet, debate, and promote action as a transnational knowledge-based network of experts and, equally important, pass on their expertise to the ‘next generation of non-proliferation specialists’. The contribution of this small Italian NGO is indeed noteworthy, highly praised at the national and especially international level, and worth the attention of an audience broader than just non-proliferation and security experts.