Mussolini between Hero Worship and Demystification

Exemplary Anecdotes,Petite Histoire, and the Problem of Humanization

Bibliographic Data

ID2109261
AuthorsGundle (0000-0003-2088-2998, University of Warwick, corresponding author), Stephen Gundle
Year2022
Volume64
Issue1
Pages122-149
Publication date2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417521000414
OpenAlexW4283367441
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

Mussolini is considered in this article as a figure around whom narratives have been developed for a century or more. Several biographies were published shortly after he came to power and many others have appeared in the decades since his death in 1945. This article explores the place of anecdotes in the construction of a legendary Mussolini in the 1920s and in the demystification that marked the period after World War Two. It is shown that early biographies were marked not only by hero worship but also by a commercially driven need to humanize and to amuse. After the war, humanization persisted as former Fascists and associates of Mussolini spread stories and anecdotes that made the dictator appear not as an evil tyrant but as a flawed and fallible human being. The agenda here was to make support for Fascism and its leader forgivable. A comparison of the anecdotes shows that both adulatory and demystificatory ones reserved a place for minor stories orpetite histoire.The resulting image, which placed some emphasis on his sex life, proved influential. It presented a challenge to historians and found its way into the biographical films that were made for cinema and television between the 1970 and the 2000s. It is suggested that, via anecdotes, Mussolini occupied an ambiguous and continuous place in the moral universe of Italians, functioning variously as a political and a gender exemplar

Ancient history · Art · Dictator · Emperor · HERO · Literature · Movie theater · Narrative · Patriotism · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Worship · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory · History · Law