Brief History of Italy:

Italian science fiction was, and is still, largely shaped by Italy’s strong cultural identity.  The country is strongly catholic due to the presence of the Vatican in Rome.  It also has a rich history of Roman and Greek influence which is present in everything from architecture to cuisine.  However, there have been a fair number of hardships and political movements that have changed the nation over time.  From Fascist rule under Mussolini, the Italian Unification, to the era of Berlusconi the politics of Italy have changed over the years.  Each one of these factors directly contributed to the influence of science fiction in both its appeal to its acceptance.

Fascism:

In James B. Whisker’s essay on Italian Fascism he makes the argument that the roots of the fascist movement in Italy are very complex.  It was an odd mix of liberalism, Marxism, syndicalism, Catholicism, and above else a strong state nationalism.  The ideology was pushing forth the idea of which to bring back Italy to its former glory, to that of roman ancestry’s.  It started in 1922 when Mussolini and three hundred thousand black shirts seized the state and then evolved itself in four stages.  The first of which was establishing a solid ideology and central core of ideas.  Then in 1925 the first fascist state was founded under a totalitarian based system.  It would continue to operate until 1938 under a system where the state was the most important entity of government.  In 1938 this would escalate even further as Mussolini would become entranced with Hitler’s version of Germany.  It was a state that was economically socialist based, and very nationalist.  Mussolini followed Hitlers example and made a state that was based first and foremost on Italian nationalism with the ideas of the ideal fascist man and women where each individual of society was beneficial to Italy’s collective whole.  Men were to be strong and run the land while women were to be child bearers and run households.  There was even a “payout” of sorts for those with a high amount of children as they were seen as contributing back to the state.  Violence was often used in this period as a means to come to power and silence dissenting views.

 

The First Republic:

When the second world war ended and socialism under Mussolini was brought to an end Italy needed a new system of governance.  There were several groups that emerged from varying areas of the political spectrum but the one that got the most support was that of the Christian Democrats.  Initially the party was fairly small but that changed when the Vatican laid a stake in it.  Italy is the home of the Vatican in Rome which is the roman catholic capital of the world.  Initially the pope at the time, Pope Pius, wanted the church to be separate from the political sphere but changed his mind as he wanted to safeguard the Lateran Treaty which recognized the Vatican as an independent state.  Supporting the Christian Democrat party would be the best way to achieve this end.  With the backing of the church the party grew exponentially.  However two other parties did also achieve some prominence in this time period.  The two main parties of note were the socialist party and the communist party which, along with the democrat Christians, formed the tri-polar party system of Italy.  Over the years each respected party acted as a balancing force in to each other much like the two party system in the United States.  However in the nineties global events would elicit a change in narrative.  The first global event would be that of the fall of the soviet union and the bringing down the Berlin wall.  This would bring communism tumbling down around the world.  Some communist countries continued to exist after this but this is generally considered to be the end of the Cold War in terms of communism.  Then in the 1990’s shortly after this fall there was an event that would change the landscape known as Mani Pulite, or Italian for Clean Hands.  This was an investigation of a very large number of Italian parliament officials on corruption charges.  It would spiral into the investigation and indictment of as many as half of the members of Italian parliament.  People, because of this event, were starting to lose faith in this system due to the high level of internal corruption.  Then along came Berlusconi who would bring an end to the first republic, as it was the first time in over fifty years a new party was elected.  What would follow would be the rule of man with questionable morals and even more questionable dealings.