scholarly journals “I am Just a Policeman”: The Case of Carlo Lucarelli’s and Maurizio de Giovanni’s Historical Crime Novels Set during Fascism

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Barbara Pezzotti

This article analyzes two successful Italian novels set during the Ventennio and the Second World War, namely Carlo Lucarelli’s Carta bianca (1990) and Maurizio De Giovanni’s Per mano mia (2011). It shows how Lucarelli confronts the troubling adherence to Fascism through a novel in which investigations are continually hampered by overpowering political forces. By contrast, in spite of expressing an anti-Fascist view, De Giovanni’s novel ends up providing a sanitized version of the Ventennio that allows the protagonist to fulfil his role as a policeman without outward contradictions. By mixing crime fiction and history, Lucarelli intervenes in the revisionist debate of the 1980s and 1990s by attacking the new mythology of the innocent Fascist. Twenty years later, following years of Berlusconi’s propaganda, De Giovanni waters down the hybridization of crime fiction and history with the insertion of romance and the supernatural in order to provide entertaining stories and attract a large audience. In the final analysis, from being functional to political and social criticism in Lucarelli’s series, the fruitful hybridization of crime fiction and history has turned into a mirror of the political and historical de-awareness of Italian society of the 2000s in De Giovanni’s series.

Res Publica ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Domenico Rossetti Di Valdalbero

In the last five years, the Italian political system registered its most important crisis. All parties, existing since the second world war, disappeared or were greatly transformed.  The main purpose of this article is to analyse the deepest causes of the first Italian republic's collapse, following some specific interpretations of ltalian political observers.L. Ricolfi bases his theory on the emergence of "Lega" and the return of laïque culture in Italy. The old christian democratic and communist parties will suffer the most from these changes.A. Sofri emphasizes the identity of northern regionalism between the "Lega" and the "Pool of Milan" ('Clean hands operation"). A real opposition emerges between the judges of Milan and the politicians of Rome.S. Romano and M.L. Salvadori prefer the historical approach: for them, the events of1990-1994 are very similar to what happened in 1922-1926and in 1943-1945. The absence of a pacific alternative and the "ideological war" among political forces produce the effect that every change in Italian politics implies an end of regime.L. Ornaghi and V.B. Parsi deal with the "values" of citizens which, very often, do not correspond to the values of old politicians. For them, a democracy for the political parties -as structured in the last 45 years- must give priority to a democracy for the citizens.


Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-281
Author(s):  
Dubravka Stojanović

AbstractThe author comments on the political and economic options in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that started at the beginning of 2020. She revisits responses to the crises of the First World War, the Great Crash of 1929, and the Second World War, sorting them into ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’ responses, and outlining their respective consequences.


Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Cinnamon

ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial administration and Gabonese auxiliaries in an era of pre-independence liberalization. Thus, regional political events in the 1950s rehearsed later configurations of power, including presidential politics, on the national stage.


2020 ◽  

The historical consciousness of the peoples of Europe is still being shaped by their own national histories. The question of the political order that prevailed during the interwar years has remained a perennial issue among historians. The dominant hallmark of this prelude to the Second World War was the rise of dictatorships and the question of whether we can characterise this period as one of uninterrupted crisis. This collection of studies examines the quest for a new European order and the interconnections between domestic and foreign policy during the 1920s and 1930s. It collates different national perspectives in a single volume and asks searching questions about the consequences of the decisions made during the period under examination. With contributions by Dragan Bakić, Maciej Górny, Kurt Hager, János Hóvári, Georg Kastner, Miklos Lojko, Markus Meckel, Ulrich Schlie, Christian Schmidt, Thomas Weber and Werner Weidenfeld.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Pietro Vitali

Abstract In Italy’s complex political past, the memory of resistance against nationalism has always been at the centre of political clashes between the right and the left. Considering that the memory of the Second World War (WWII) is still alive in Italian society, an analysis of the violence perpetrated by the Fascists and Nazis on Italian territory in this period is a way to discuss the historical responsibilities of both. This article aims to oppose this instrumental use of history. The aim of this work is to show how violence was exerted against Italian civilians during WWII through a spatial and statistical inquiry. I created an Atlas of Nazi–Fascist Repression combining three different databases into a unique dataset.


War Tourism ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Bertram M. Gordon

The study of memory tourism to war sites should not exclude the study of tourism during wartime. Both are components of war tourism, imparting meaning to war for both victors and vanquished. Both reflect their eras, whether through the gazes of the curious individual or the political and economic configurations sustaining the tourism industry. Germans who described a newfound appreciation of their homeland after touring occupied France show how tourism worked in two directions, impacting not only on the sites visited but also the self-image of the visitor. Local governments in France now reach a larger tourism public with new technology. A powerful hold of Second World War imagery in France continues to face ethical issues of sustainability and trivialization.


2019 ◽  
pp. 95-119
Author(s):  
John Ravenhill ◽  
Jefferson Huebner

Economic integration among Anglosphere economies peaked during the period from 1870 to 1960. Maintenance of Imperial Preferences and the Sterling Area ensured that Britain remained the dominant market for most colonies and Dominions in the early post-Second World War period. Britain’s entry into the EEC, the ending of Commonwealth preferences, and the rapid growth of Asian economies caused the UK’s share in Anglosphere economies’ exports to decline rapidly. Growth in the US market share offset some of this decline until the financial crisis of 2007–8 reversed this trend. The significance of intra-Anglosphere trade has declined substantially – from approximately two-thirds of countries’ total trade in 1913 and in 1947 to just over one-third in 2016. Contemporary trade patterns are shaped more by geography than history. The world economy remains substantially regionalised, especially for manufacturing. Many preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are regional in scope: Anglosphere economies have been prominent participants in these arrangements but their partners are typically neighbouring countries rather than other Anglosphere economies. The EU has been the most active negotiator of PTAs: the challenge for a post-Brexit UK will be to negotiate access to markets equivalent to that currently enjoyed through membership of EU PTAs.


Author(s):  
Marisa Kerbizi ◽  
Edlira Tonuzi Macaj

Ideology as a form of ideas and as a practical tool with determinative purposes in certain circumstances may become very influential and risky, too. Albanian literature, as one of the East Bloc countries where communism was installed as a political system after the Second World War, severely suffered the ideology consequences in art. The purpose of this research is to focus on some problems related to the limitations, restrictions, deviation, regression created by ideology in literature. Concrete case studies will complete the theoretical frame through the analytical, historical, aesthetical, and interpretative approach. The hypothesis sustains the idea that the political ideology of the Albanian dictatorial system has found many ways to damage the most representative authors and their artistic works of Albanian literature. The ideology claimed “the compulsory educational system” by interfering in the school textbooks, by excluding several authors from those textbooks, by denying their inclusion or the right for publication, or even by eliminating them physically.


Japanese Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Oda

Japan built its modern legal system on the basis of the codes imported from Europe, namely Germany and France. After the Second World War, there was some influence of US law, e.g. the Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure. The new Constitution, which remained unchanged until today, has introduced significant changes in the political and social system of Japan. It was proclaimed that sovereignty rested with the people and not the emperor. The Diet elected by universal election became the supreme body of the state. Another major reform was triggered by the US-Japan Structural Impediments Talks in 1989–1990.


Arthur Szyk ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 217-232
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Ansell

This chapter encompasses Arthur Szyk's final years. It shows his continued dedication to freedom struggles around the world even as it contemplates on the dwindling number of exhibitions he held during this period. During this time, the United States was also turning inward after the Second World War. This attitude was one which Szyk did not share and which his work, with its liberal and international themes, did not support. Moreover, the chapter reveals his growing sympathy towards the Soviet Union, which was so evident in the political cartoons and related works from the years of alliance during the Second World War. It also shows that, by the early years of the Cold War, his health was somewhat precarious, forcing him to choose his activities carefully.


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