📖 Want to go deeper into how Italy actually became Italy?
Check out Risorgimento: The History of Italy from Napoleon to Nation‑State by Lucy Riall.
It covers the messy, dramatic, and often misunderstood path from fractured states to a modern nation.
Spoiler: it wasn’t smooth, inevitable, or universally popular.
#ItalianHistory #Risorgimento #BookRec #HistoryToot #OnThisDay
🗓️ On this day in 1870 — Italian troops captured Rome, completing the unification of Italy via the annexation of the Papal States.
Rome becomes the capital. Vatican loses temporal power. The “Roman Question” begins.
Not just a military move — huge clash of politics, religion, nationalism.
Want to talk unification? It was messy. #OnThisDay #ItalianHistory #Risorgimento
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#Auspol #StrayanKulcha #ItalianCulture #ItalianHistory #fascism
I now haz new specs and less tired eyes, and so, back to #BobSantamariasThesis with this quote:
“Politically, Italians are authoritarian. That is
probably the second great reason why Fascism has endured in Italy
By this one does not mean that Italians are inferior in
any respect to the Anglo-Saxons, to whom authoritarianism is
anathema.”
🤔 not sure I agree anglo-saxons are anti-authoritarian.
the USA, quite famously, rejected the idea of kings… but kept the main features of european monarchies. leadership might not be hereditary but the rule of law, the idea of exclusive land title, and the unquestionable authority of those who enforce the law all assume authority is necessary for civilisation.
straya didn’t even reject kings
we (strayans) might e.g. be quicker to use first names rather than respectful titles, but perhaps that’s more about class than authority.
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ned kelly (1854-1880) has been a hero to some, but was ultimately subject to the authority of law. ned believed ACAB and he had a point, but there was no widespread pro-revolutionary sentiment brewing when he was actively agitating for change. people who might have said or thought “good on yer mate” were not about to risk everything by joining kelly’s war on the abuse of power.
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i’ve always loved baz luhrmann’s movie australia for the way it shows our character in action; strayans [& in the time this movie shows this basically means anglo-saxon strayans] are irreverent rather than anti-authoritarian.
at one point in the movie, someone was rude to a coloured person, but Drover was not upset enough to fight about it until he was himself demoted to the rank of coloured person because he liked/accepted [insert racist word here].
even that punch up is over in minutes; strayan attitudes to race / or authority are not affected one jot by this episode and are, in fact, quickly forgotten when lady ashley’s undies spill from her luggage. we know what our priorities are.
the movie quite oddly uses the stolen generations as part of its scaffolding and even the promotional tours kept bringing up the topic — the movie ends with a suggestion the stolen generations ended, but a) it actually hasn’t; it’s just been re-packaged and b) there’s a reason it’s not a classic hollywood type script of how good people banded together to defeat evil…
much of our history is just stuff that “happens”; occasionally we crack the shits but don’t follow thru very well. (& yeah, nullah symbolically takes his clothes off to go with his grandfather at the end, but the white people still “own” the land & nullah has to leave in order to be free)
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2025 and the western world is in thrall to law & order politics
with the exception of eras when there is absolutely nothing left to lose (like a depression) or most people have reasonable income opportunities (like a time of over-full employment), bucking authority is risky
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#Auspol #USpol #History #ItalianHistory #Fascism #DodgyAndGreatLeaders
#Reading or more like dipping into
B. A. SANTAMARIA
ITALY CHANGES SHIRTS:
THE ORIGINS OF ITALIAN FASCISM
MA THESIS
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
1934
and am enjoying focusing on sentences and letting my mind mull over ideas while i do/ watch/ read other stuffs. this might become a thread with occasional ramblings.
i’m struck by some parallels with USA (how could one not be?) but for context am reminded mussolini had established himself as leader much earlier than hitler and was, in fact, admired by hitler. (i think a great deal of hitler’s success was down to goebbels.) both mussolini and hitler lived in a time when the ongoing war of ideas between communism and capitalism were front and centre.
the labels and the details morph and change over time, but when our previous opposition leader threw words like “liberal”, “commie” or “woke” around, i suspect it was really more of the same.
in the red corner, people who think governments can and should care about everyone, and in the blue corner, those who think individualism is essential to god’s grand design.
I wonder, sometimes, if the USA is one western country that never really had a “left” at all.
On the very first page of his thesis, Santamaria suggests the Italian public embraced fascism (and the idea of a strong leader) because parliamentary democracy seemed to suck.
(Echos of this in Trump’s “drain the swamp” rhetoric, and his now open contempt for the system altogether)
Discussing Mussolini, Santamaria goes on to say Lenin believed “the only man who could successfully rule Italy was the one who reproduced in himself the main characteristics of the great mass of Italians”
The USA has a problematic electoral system, and many people are disenfranchised in one way or another. I don’t want to slander an entire nation, but I do wonder how many people found it easier to identify with Trump than with Harris?
Closer to home, how well do we identify with this or that type of leader in Australia? Do we reject potential leaders more easily than we embrace them?
1975 in Australia was a disappointment, but I distinctly remember that, apart from the scare about whitlam overspending/ seeking dodgy loans from someone with a foreign name, a lot of people were fed up with having to vote, and all the campaigning that goes with more-frequent-than-usual elections.
#OnThisDay, 25 June 1678, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia receives the Doctorate of Philosophy degree from the University of Padua. She's thought to be be first woman to receive a doctorate in the world.
https://carvehername.org.uk/elena-piscopia-first-woman-doctorate/
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #ItalianHistory #Histodons
"The Kiss," Francesco Hayez, 1859.
Hayez (1791-1882) was an Italian Romantic painter. He was known for grand historical paintings and portraits, as well as paintings like this...which, despite seemingly just a painting of a couple kissing passionately, is a political allegory.
Painted during the struggle for Italian reunification (following the Napoleonic wars and annexation by the Austrian Empire), on the most superficial level it shows a passionate embrace and the triumph of emotions. Deeper, it shows the nationalist ideals of a soldier getting ready to go to battle, also indicated by a barely-visible dagger in the man's cloak, and the blue, white, and red elements that reflect the flag of France, which was supporting Italy's reunification. (Another version colors the man's cloak green, reflecting the Italian flag.)
Despite its seeming innocuous nature, "The Kiss" was a popular image with those fighting for a united Italy. And it's a good reminder that Romanticism has a good dose of nationalism.
From the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.
#Art #Romanticism #FrancescoHayez #ItalianHistory #PoliticalAllegory #Kiss #Passion
Wittgenstein's Monster
Maude Nificent
CarveHerName
Michael J Burgess
The Language Garage
Smartphone Photographer
Hotspur🏳️🌈🇺🇦