Academic literature on the topic 'Italy – Civilization – 1945-'

The liberal world order has produced immense benefits for Europe and people across the planet. Beginning in the 18th and 19th centuries, liberalism reinforces the natural rights of man to life, liberty and property, and has transformed the world in ways that have improved the material and social circumstances of humankind. But the liberal order that has been in place in Europe since 1945, after two world wars, is showing signs of deterioration. Today, this liberal order is being challenged by a variety of forces. The essence of the European experience is the development of a civilization that considered itself to be a unity and yet was politically decentralized. Former free towns in Italy and the Low Countries became bastions of a self‑governing middle class in the Middle Ages. However, with time, states tend to overgrow taking more and more resources, which results in the increase in taxes and public spending, excessive regulation, deficits and public debt. There is a fight between the advocates of two different ideals of the European Union, the non‑liberal and the liberal vision. There is a consensus in that the market economy is the system that best produces the most, removing millions of people from poverty. But it is the unequal distribution of the wealth created that is often criticized. We examine the distribution of income, before and after taxes and transfers, concluding that market liberalization does not necessarily lead to increased social inequality. On the other hand, two of the most important threats challenging the liberal order in Europe are populist parties and protectionism. Finally, this paper suggests a way towards a future Europe, deepening the single market and economic integration, but transforming the obsolete and dysfunctional nation‑states into other forms of decentralized political units.

Jacob Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought, Richard Sigurdson, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, xii, pp. 279.Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) has long been recognized as one of the most important historians of the nineteenth century. His principal works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), and his posthumous Greek Cultural History (1902) and Reflections on History (1905), remain in print and continue to be read and studied with profit today. Indeed, the questions raised in his study of the Italian Renaissance still define how historians interpret this field of history.

The resettlement of villages strongly damaged by catastrophes during the 20th century played a key role in the modification of the Apennine landscape in Italy. Following their abandonment, the remains of the medieval settlements progressively deteriorated in their ruined condition, becoming ghost villages often made of sparse portions of buildings, traces of outer walls, and isolated vestiges of ancient monuments colonized by vegetation. Five cases of central Apennine abandoned villages in the Abruzzi region (Frattura, Sperone, Albe, Salle, and Gessopalena) were investigated, combining information on the local adverse geological conditions with the historical reconstruction of their abandonment and resettlement, based on archive documents from the 19th and 20th centuries. The history of these localities was conditioned by two strong earthquakes that struck the Abruzzi region in 1915 (magnitude 7.1) and 1933 (magnitude 5.9), and by slope instability. In all cases, abandonment and resettlement produced new villages against the background of ancient ruins and remains. In conclusion, the paper discusses the potential use of the material traces of local histories with educational aims. Geological evidence of natural hazards, remains of the abandoned settlements and resettled villages could be arranged in museums aimed at increasing the awareness of natural hazards and risks.

Rome after the Second World War presented something of an anomaly. Of all the traditional capitals of European civilization it was the least affected by the conflict. Because of the Pope's presence, it had not been bombed, and it had escaped the heavy fighting in the campaigns to the south. Indeed, so easily was it taken that one film was to show the Eternal City captured by a single jeep. Italy was also faster to recover than any of the other combatants. American money flooded into the country, and political life was quickly under way again. All this made it a good place for visitors, a relative bright spot amidst a shattered landscape. Harold Acton, the English historian who went there in 1948, remarked that “After the First World War American writers and artists had migrated to Paris: now they pitched upon Rome.” Among those who visited Rome or lived there for a period after the war were Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Frederic Prokosch, Daniel Cory, Alfred Kazin, Samuel Barber, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick (slightly later), as well as Acton himself and a host of less well-known figures. Many were entertained by Lawrence and Babel Roberts, under whose influence “the Roman Academy became an international rendezvous for artists and intellectuals.” While they were there, a large proportion of these writers made a pilgrimage to the Convent of the Blue Sisters, where since 1941 George Santayana had been living in a single room.

Straipsnyje analizuojamos Karsavino Eurazijos ir simfoninės asmenybės teorijos ir jų įtaka asmeniniam Karsavino likimui, jo sofiologinėms mesianistinėms nuostatoms. Aptariama svarbiausių filosofinių Karsavino idėjų genezė: gyvo religingumo ir bendrojo religinio fondo, gnostinės pleromos interpretacijos, Šv. Trejybės dialektika ir jos santykis su N. Kuziečio filosofija, simfoninės asmenybės teorija. Pagrindinis teiginys apie Karsavino ir Kuziečio filosofijų skirtumą yra pagrįstas kristologiniais Karsavino argumentais apie Kuziečio filosofijos nepakankamumą aiškinant Dievo kaip Possest eksplikacijos ir komplikacijos problematiką. Karsavinas, remdamasis ortodoksiniais kristologiniais teiginiais, simfoninės asmenybės bei ideokratijos teorija bei tipologine, istoriosofine civilizacijų klasifikacija, pagrindžia kairiąją Eurazijos sąjūdžio ideologiją, kuri išliko aktuali ir šiandienos Rusijos politinei situacijai. Straipsnyje parodomos lietuviškosios filosofijos ir Karsavino samprotavimų paralelės ir keliamas klausimas dėl Eurazijos ideologijos nesvarstymo tarpukario Lietuvoje. Straipsnio pabaigoje grįžtama prie filosofinio Karsavino apsisprendimo, saikingų, asmeninių mesianistinių jo nuostatų ir sokratiško likimo tardymų, įkalinimo Abezės lageryje laikotarpiu. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: gyvasis religingumas, simfoninė asmenybė, panteizmas, gnoticizmas, mesianizmas.Historiosophical Messianism of L. Karsavin and the Idea of Eurasia Gintautas Mažeikis SummaryThe historiosophical and messianistic ideas of L. Karsavin and his ideology of left Eurasia were based on the theological and gnostic symbolism of the early 20th century, F. Schelling’s philosophy of Myth and Universality, Vl. Solovjov’s Philosophy of Universality, Mystics of Christology, the Orthodox understanding of Saint Trinity, typological theory of civilizations. At the beginning of his mediaeval researches Karsavin investigated sacral events in rural areas in the 17th–18th centuries, especially in Italy, magic activities and popular beliefs in Christian Saints, based on uncritical, natural, live religious feelings and spontaneous faith. He maintained live religious faith to be the background for the significance and utility of all canonical religious rules and churches. These ideas are similar to the French school of Annales and to the M. Bakhtin’s theory of Carnival issues of the Mediaeval tradition of laughter. However, Karsavin re lated his consideration of spontaneous hierophany to the gnostic tradition of Divine Pleroma. It is important to them in order to interpret the philosophy of Nicolaus Cusanus, especially his conception of God as Possest and a permanent and contradictory process of explicatio and complicatio. On the basis of Cusanus’ philosophy, Karsavin developed his personal idea of dialectics of Saint Trinity as a union of Divine personalities. Karsavin maintained that the conception of Cusanus is insufficient because Cusanus didn’t explain the role of Christ in the full reunification of sinful human beings with God. By Karsavin, Cusanus avoided pantheistic tendencies and therefore couldn’t develop the theory of divination of personality. On the contrary, Karsavin develops the idea of divination of oneself in his theory of Symphonic personality. Every personality is a form of free solution and responsibility, love and self-sacrifice. Therefore, the personality develops itself from an autonomous individual into the personality as a family, the personality as a nation, as a state, and finally the personality transforms into a cosmic human being, or Adam Kadmon. The hierarchic growth of personality, his ontology presupposes his essential responsibility for the development of nation, state, culture and civilization. It was the basis of Karsavin’s messianism. The nation or culture couldn’t be developed in the necessary direction, towards divinity, without creative and self-sacrificing activity of the individual. The hierarchical conception of the world personality presupposes the ideocratic form of government. The idea of the ideocratic power makes Karsavin’s political considerations similar to the Soviet system of power. Karsavin from 1925 until 1929 was the leader of the left wing of the Eurasia movement which was located in Paris. He initiated and supported a dialog with Bolsheviks’ representatives. However, Karsavin strongly criticized communism and Bolsheviks from the Orthodox point of view. Karsavin was a deep believer and couldn’t support the destruction of churches by the Soviet regime. However, today it is possible to say that Karsavin’s political visions are very similar to the modern Vl. Putins’ regime in contemporary Russia. Eurasia and Symphonic Personality ideas became important motives for Karsavin’s coming to Lithuania in 1928. However, after arrival he didn’t participate in any political movement and developed his civilization ideas, the conception of ideocratic power and Symphonic Personality there. In the Lithuanian period, he becomes closer to the Russian Orthodox tradition of Old Believers and its ideas of self-sacrifice to populace. Karsavin didn’t emigrate from Lithuania in the threat of Soviet occupation. On the contrary, he spread his ideas of Symphonic Personality, dialectics of Trinity, self-sacrificing after the War and even in the concentration camp in Abeze until his death in 1952. Keywords: live religions, Symphonic Personality, pantheism, gnosticism, messianism.-size: 11pt;">

The aim of the article is to study the functioning of the key components of the Western “myth of Russia” in travelogues by Italian writers, who visited the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, in the period of frequent cultural, political and economic contacts between the two countries. The study is based on the analysis of the travelogues by Vincenzo Cardarelli (The Journey of a Poet in Russia, 1928-1929, published in 1954) and by Corrado Alvaro (The Masters of Deluge: A Journey to Soviet Russia, 1935). Among journalists working in the USSR in those years, famous writers enjoyed a certain degree of intellectual autonomy, compared to common reporters, and were less dependent on editorial policies and censorship that is why their travelogues are among the most interesting Italian testimonies about the USSR of that period. The analysis of the texts shows that in spite of many differences in ideology, travel itinerary, and the tone of writing, the travelogues of both authors are based on the same elements of the “Russian myth”, which formed in Europe during the 19th century and still shapes the Western image of Russia to a great extent. Relations between Russia and Italy are considered in the context of the East-West dichotomy, which makes the authors see Russia as a barbarian Asian country. This image together with the concept of the “Russian soul” generates a specific idea of the Russian national character, which describes Russians as collectivist, passive, fatalist, driven by a “nomadic instinct”, eager to suffer, primitive and close to nature, infantile. The analysis of the topoi of the official Fascist propaganda of that period demonstrates that elements of the “Russian myth” in the Italian travelogues interact with propaganda cliches and, consequently, come to serve certain political interests, creating in public consciousness the image of the Other and thus highlighting the superiority of the Western (and, particularly, Italian) civilization. The travelogues of the 1920s and 1930s, which criticize the Soviet reality, describe Bolshevism as a typically Russian phenomenon, and support nationalist and anti-Slavic trends in Italian society, are used by the Fascist authorities as an instrument of fight against Socialists, their main ideological opponents, and, consequently, provide legitimacy to Mussolini's regime. At the same time, visits of Italian intellectuals to the USSR increased public interest towards Soviet Russia and contributed to the development of cultural and, indirectly, political and economic contacts between the two countries.

В статье рассматривается история раскопок крупнейшей римской гробницы, а именно мавзолея императора Цезаря Августа. Основное внимание уделяется результатам недавних археологических работ и тому, как они повлияли на представление о памятнике. Гробница первого римского императора в пост-античную эпоху претерпела различные трансформации и неоднократные грабежи, в результате которых сильно пострадала. Памятнику находили практическое применение вплоть до 1930-х гг. За многовековую историю мавзолей использовали как каменоломню, крепость, которую не раз разрушали, виноградник, сад, амфитеатр для корриды, театр и концертный зал. Первые археологические работы на территории памятника проводились уже в XVI в. Именно с них начинается история исследования монумента и результаты, полученные тогда, до сих пор имеют большое значение для науки. На протяжении длительного времени после эпохи Ренессанса объект изучался только периодически, в связи с какими-либо строительными работами, проводившимися на его территории. Работы на памятнике активизируются с начала XX в. Масштабные раскопки состоялись в 1920-30-е гг. Их проведение диктовалось не научными целями: Бенито Муссолини стремился использовать римское наследие в своей пропаганде. Тем не менее, в результате проведенных работ мавзолей был не только освобожден от пост-античных наслоений, но полученные тогда результаты заложили современное представление о памятнике. Интерес к мавзолею возобновляется только через семьдесят лет. Непосредственным толчком было решение реконструировать мавзолей и площадь вокруг него. В результате раскопок, проведенных департаментом культурного наследия столицы Рима, были получены археологические данные, изменяющие взгляд на внешний облик монумента и позволяющие поставить точку в дискуссии по данному вопросу. 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With this study the problem of being individual and identity will be read through the interaction between history and nature in Dino Buzzati’s, who is one of the leading figures of 20the century Italian litetaure and wel-known fort he novel “The Desert of Tartars” in our country, illustrated novel titled “The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily” (La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia). This novel, which will be examined in the study, is among the important works of Italian children’s literature and is also a product of the author’s deep relationship with the art of painting. Buzzati, who wrote his works with the countless connections he made between imagination and reality, and his painting, which hides behind his writer career, bears the traces of his fantastic narrative features. It is aimed to deal with the relationship between nature and human, the war and the conditions that created it, the loss of identity due to the loss of the individual and the self-culture that created him, in the context of the conflict between nature and civilization. In the first part, the relationship between narrative, individual-society and nature will be examined within the framework of ecocriticism, and then how wildlife is presented within fantastic narrative features will be determined. In the second part, it is aimed to examine how the phenomenon of war, which is one of the historical elements comunicated by narrative, is transmitted in a fantastic narrative in the context of the conditions that created it. One of the most distinctive features of the work is that this fantastic narrative, published in 1945 in Corriere dei Piccoli, a weekly magazine for children published in Italy between 1908-1995, also touches upon real issues that the author has examined and observed through his journalism career.

Randolph Bedford (1868–1941) was an Australian journalist, politician and novelist, a lifelong socialist despite making a small fortune from mining. He was among the ‘brain drain’ of Australians at the turn of last century, who hoped to emulate Melba’s success in England. Many of his contemporaries, such as Henry Lawson, experienced disillusion and poverty, and returned home. Bedford differed in his versatility, and also his profound rejection of the British Empire. He could not sell his novels initially, nor his speculations to British investors, but was able to put his mining experience to use in Italy. There he became one of the first Australians to fall in love with the country. His attraction to Italy was partly aesthetic, its artistic glories, but also because it reinforced his sentimental Australian nationalism. He saw similarities in landscape, and also in climate. He wrote despatches back to the Bulletin called ‘Explorations in Civilization’, which became a book in 1916. The subtitle was ‘An Australian in Exile’, reversing the ‘Exiles We’, of the first settlers, with their nostalgia for Britain. In contrast, Bedford saw nothing good in London and the Empire. He disliked it upon first sight, and his irreverence and socialist sympathies had no place in the conservative British investment milieu. Bedford would sell two novels in Britain, via Henry Lawson (whom he helped in London) and his literary agent J. B. Pinker. But he returned home, certain expatriate life was not for him, and devoted his energies to Australia. His real success was in Explorations in Civilization, superb travel-writing, perhaps his best work. It shows his love for his country being reinforced through the perceived similarities between it and Italy, a second homeland for him. He even paid its people his highest compliment: that they were his preferred settlers for Australia.

Defence Date: 26 February 2019
Examining Board: Prof. Pavel Kolář, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Lucy Riall, European University Institute; Prof. Hannes Grandits, Humboldt University of Berlin Assoc.; Prof. Igor Duda, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula
Yugoslav discovery of its own Mediterraneaness was the result of several factors – global politics manifest in Yugoslav engagement in the Non-Aligned Movement, economic benefit from foreign tourism and the development of the Adriatic as the centre of Yugoslav entertainment. The new socialist government had to find a balance between the Yugoslavization of three main cultural spheres – Central European, Balkan, and Mediterranean – and multi(national) culturality symbolized in the ideological postulate of “brotherhood and unity”. In the building of a specific Yugoslav culture, the spread of mass media and consumerism played an important role and enabled shaping Yugoslav popular culture. Two things were crucial: the introduction of self-management and opening to the Western countries. The first caused the liberalization of the cultural sphere and the “democratization” of culture, while openness to the West contributed to the further internationalization and commercialization of culture. In a country that had just started developing its entertainment industry, the Italian example not only filled a gap in the everyday needs of Yugoslav citizens, but it also shaped their taste, and expectations from domestic production. Three case studies – popular music, television entertainment, and fashion and lifestyles – demonstrate the Yugoslav Mediterranean was built upon direct Italian influence, ideological work on the creation of a specific Yugoslav culture, a collective imaginary of the Adriatic as a shared space among all Yugoslav people, and the promotion of Yugoslavia as a tourist destination. Finally, the development of domestic and foreign tourism at the Adriatic had not only an economic purpose, but also played an important soft-power role in disseminating information on everyday life under the Yugoslav socialist experiment. The international dimension of Yugoslav tourism thus created a platform for the promotion of the country and the Yugoslav good life abroad, with happy and satisfied tourists returning home with images of the sunny and light-hearted Mediterranean
Chapter 2 'Popular Music and the Sounds of the Sea' of the PhD thesis draws upon two earlier versions published as articles “Opatijski festival i razvoj zabavne glazbe u Jugoslaviji (1958–1962.)” (2016) in the journal 'Časopis za suvremenu povijest' and “A romanthic southern myth (2005) in the journal 'TheMa – Open Access Research Journal for Theatre, Music, Arts'.

Defence date: 20 March 2000
Examining board: Prof. Victoria de Grazia (Columbia University) ; Prof. Peppino Ortoleva (Università degli Studi di Siena) ; Prof. Luisa Passerini (EUI- co-supervisor) ; Prof. Gianfranco Poggi (EUI - Supervisor)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
In this thesis, Adam Arvidsson traces the development of Italy's postmodern consumer culture from the 1920s to the present day. In so doing, Arvidsson argues that the culture of consumption we see in Italy today has its direct roots in the social vision articulated by the advertising industry in the years following the First World War. He then goes on to discuss how that vision was further elaborated by advertising's interaction with subsequent big discourses in Twentieth Century Italy: fascism, post-war mass political parties and the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s. Based on a wide range of primary sources, this fascinating book takes an innovative historical approach to the study of consumption.

Extensive developments and changes in the economic, political, social, cultural and scientific fields have undoubtedly brought problems and disturbing phenomena in many parts of the world, such as the trafficking and exploitation of human beings. Every year many women, girls and children are illegally transported across the borders of their countries of origin, sold or bought, bringing to mind all the primitive ways of human slavery, seen in stark contrast to the galloping development that society has taken today, as well as aspirations for a worldwide civilization and citizenship. Regarding Albania, the beginning of trafficking in human beings dates in 1995 (Annual Analysis of 2003 of the State Social Service, Tirana), where the country found itself in a situation of instability of political, economic, social and cultural changes, as well as in a transitional geographical position to was used by traffickers, mostly Albanians, as an “open door” for the recruitment, transportation and sale of women, girls and children from Moldova, Russia, Romania, Turkey, Albania, China, etc. Albania is identified as a source and transit country for trafficked women and children. In addition, many NGOs and international organizations report significant increase cases in the trafficking of human beings. In 1999, official sources reported that young women and girls had been lured or abducted from refugee camps in Albania during the Kosovo crisis and then sold for prostitution in Italy and the United Kingdom. Reports from Italy, Germany, Belgium and the UK suggest that Albanian women and girls, which are trafficked for prostitution mostly are from rural areas (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Review Conference, September 1999). It is almost common to talk about the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings, about the motivating and attractive factors, the consequences associated with this phenomenon of Albanian society. Given the extent of the trafficking phenomenon during the last 30 years transition period in Albania, the Government has made different legislative and institutional efforts, through a strategic approach to combat and mitigate this phenomenon. However, the elements of identification, protection, reintegration and long-term rehabilitation for victims of trafficking remain issues of concern and still not properly addressed, in the context of the institutional fight against trafficking in persons, which should have as its primary goal the protection of the human rights for victims of trafficking and not their further violation or re-victimization (Annual Report of the European Commission, 2007).