Abstract
This chapter, a study of Sardinian veterans in the aftermath of the First World War, describes a mobilization by ex-combatants that led neither to totalitarianism nor authoritarianism, but on the contrary to the beginnings of a democratic construction. The chapter describes the situation in the region after the war, how veterans first organized in an association and how the association developed into an autonomous political party with universal male suffrage before the rise of fascism in Italy.
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Notes
A former Spanish colony, the island became part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1720; it abandoned its institutional specificities, which had fallen into disuse after the granting of the “Albertine Statute” in 1848, and became “Italian” with the declaration of national unity in 1861. Initially divided into two provinces, the island is today an autonomous region composed of eight provinces. For a general historical framework, see M. Brigaglia, A. Mastino and G. G. Ortu (eds.), Storia della Sardegna, 2 vol. (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 2006).
On the specific period examined in this chapter see, G. Sotgiu, Storia della Sardegna dalla Grande Guerra al fascismo (Roma: Bari, 1990).
G. L. Mosse, De la Grande Guerre au totalitarisme. La brutalisation des sociétés européennes (Paris: Hachette, 1999).
This reputation was subsequently verified by a prominent school of research influential in English-speaking scholarship, following the work of Edward Banfield and those who came after him; see E. C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1958)
G. Almond and S. Verba, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little & Brown, 1963)
R. Putnam, Making Democracy Work (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
Banfield’s research, cleared of the pejorative connotations of the inf luence of the family sphere in sociopolitical interactions, would be taken up for the case of Sardinia by L. Pinna, La famiglia esclusiva (Bari: Laterza, 1967).
J. H. Benett, La Corse et la Sardaigne. Etude de voyage et de climatologie (Paris: Assadin, 1876), 209.
M. Brigaglia, “La Brigata Sassari come problema storiografico,” in G. Fois (ed.), Storia della Brigata Sassari (Sassari: Gallizzi, 1981), 2.
See G. Mazzoni, “Nobile sangue,” Il Giornale d’Italia, December 19, 1915, cited in “Per una storia della Brigata Sassari,” in Fois, Storia della Brigata Sassari, 30; more broadly we can refer to the publication during the conflict of the bulletin Pro Sardegna discussed in the panorama presented by P. Marica, Stampa e politica in Sardegna (Cagliari: La Zattera, 1968).
The Italian situation can be compared to what Becker describes for France. J. J. Becker, 1914: comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1977).
See for the French case: A. Prost, Les Anciens Combattants, 1914–1940 (Paris: Gallimard, 1977)
A. Prost, Les anciens combattants et la société française, 1914–1939, vol. 3 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1977)
H. Peres, Individus entre village et nation. Une expérience identitaire dans la formation de la France républicaine, Doctoral Thesis in Political Science, Bordeaux, University of Bordeaux I, 1993
A. Becker and S. Audoin-Rouzeau, 14–18, retrouver la Guerre (Paris: Gallimard, 2000).
L. B. Puggioni, “Il Partito Sardo d’Azione. Travaglio di rinascita nella gara eroica,” Il Solco, November 27, 1919, republished in L. Nieddu (ed.), Luigi B. Puggioni e il PSdA (1915–1955) (Cagliari: Fossataro, 1959), 37.
C. Hamidi, “Eléments pour une approche interactionniste de la politisation. Engagement associatif et rapport au politique dans des associations locales issues de l’immigration,” Revue Française de Science Politique 56, no. 1 (February 2006): 10.
G. Sabbatucci, I combattenti nel primo dopoguerra (Bari/Rome: Laterza, 1974).
On Lussu, see E. Vial, P. De Capitani, and C. Mileschi (eds.), Emilio Lussu (1890–1975). Politique, histoire, littérature et cinéma (Grenoble: Publications de la MSH-Alpes, 2008).
E. Lussu, “La Brigata Sassari e il Partito Sardo d’Azione,” Il Ponte, a. VII, 9–10 (September–October 1951): 1078–1079.
A. Schiavi, “Il numero e l’ idea”, in A. A. Quaglino, Chi sono i deputati socialisti della XXV legislatura (156 biografie) (Turin: Artale, 1920), cited by M. Ridolfi, “‘Partiti elettorali’ e trasformazioni della politica nell’Italia unita,” in P. L. Ballini and M. Ridolfi (eds.), Storia delle campagne elettorali in Italia (Milan: Mondadori, 2002), 78–79.
See C. Roux, Les “îles sœur.” Une sociologie historique comparative de la contestation nationalitaire en Corse et en Sardaigne, Doctoral Thesis in Political Science/ Comparative and European Politics, University of Lille II/ Siena, 2005.
E. Pilia, L’autonomia sarda. Basi, limiti e forme, Cagliari, 1920, republished in S. Sechi (ed.), Il movimento autonomistico in Sardegna (1917–1925) (Cagliari: Fossataro, 1975), 104–105.
S. Sechi, Dopoguerra e fascismo in Sardegna (Turin: Einaudi, 1967), 225.
Speech by Emilio Lussu in Paris, November 29, 1931, published in 1932, in the text by Giustizia e Libertà entitled La rivoluzione antifascista; republished in M. Brigaglia (ed.), Per l’Italia dall’esilio (Cagliari: Ed. Della Torre, 1976), 112–113 for the quotation.
R. Rémond, “Les anciens combattants et la politique,” Revue Française de Science Politique, 5, no. 2 (April 1955): 279.
Article 3 of the Statuto provvisorio del Partito Sardo d’Azione, 1921, republished in S. Cubeddu, Sardisti. Viaggio nel Partito Sardo d ’Azione tra cronaca e storia. Documenti, testimonianze, dati e com-menti. Volume I (1919–1948) (Cagliari: Edes, 1993), 179–180, note 3.
A. Oberschall, Social Conflicts and Social Movements (Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973).
C. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), p. 62.
E. Tognotti, “La base sociale del PSd’A nel primo dopoguerra. Note introduttive,” in Istituto Sardo per la Storia della Resistenza e dell’Autonomia (ISSRA), Lotte sociali, antifascismo e autono-mia in Sardegna. Atti del convegno du studi in onore di Emilio Lussu (Cagliari: Edizioni della Torre, 1982), 48.
A. Gramsci, “Alcuni temi della quistione meridionale” (1926), reprinted in the anthology by G. Melis (ed.), Antonio Gramsci e la questione sarda (Cagliari: Edizioni Della Torre, 1975), 239.
This was analyzed for the Corsican case in Roux, Les “îles sœurs. ” 44. On the relationship between Fascism, anti-Fascism, and Sardism in the island, see L. Marroccu, “Le origini del fascismo in Sardegna,” in M. L. Plaisant (ed.), Dizionario della Resistenza. Volume primo: storia e geografia della Liberazione, (Turin: Einaudi, 2000), 65–71
M. Brigaglia, “Per una storia dell’antifascismo in Sardegna,” in M. Brigaglia, F. Manconi, A. Mattone and G. Melis (eds.), L’antifascismo in Sardegna. Vol. 1. and G. Melis (Cagliari: Ed. Della Torre, 1986); Plaisant, “Sardegna”; Roux, Les “îles soeurs. ”
E. Lussu, Marche sur Rome et autres lieux (Paris: Ed. du Félin/Arte Editions, 2002 [first pub. Paris, Gallimard, 1933]).
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© 2012 Nathalie Duclos
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Roux, C. (2012). From the Great War to Democracy: Former Combatants and the Sardinian Autonomist Movement. In: Duclos, N. (eds) War Veterans in Postwar Situations. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137109743_10
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