The Monument to Victory in Bolzano
Desacralisation of a Fascist Relic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5701068 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Håkan Hökerberg (The Swedish Institute in Rome, Rome, Italy, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 759-774 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-14 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13527258.2017.1321572 |
| OpenAlex | W2610547345 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 14 |
The Monument to Victory in Bolzano, raised to remember Italian soldiers who fell in the First World War and to celebrate the victory over the Austro-Hungarian army, was contested from the moment of its installation in 1928. The German-speaking inhabitants of Bolzano were offended by its expression of Italian patriotism and the monument continued to symbolise the antagonism between the Italian- and the German-speaking population in the period following the end of Second World War. The monument’s explicit fascist propaganda attracted strong polemical reactions and some political groups even asked for it to be demolished. A recently-opened permanent exhibition in the crypt of the monument explores the twentieth-century dictatorships of Italy and their impact on Bolzano. Its historicisation offers a new interpretation of the monument – not one based on a schism between the populations of Bolzano, but rather one proposing reconciliation. This historicisation happens through the contextualisation of the monument, an efficient tool for the ‘desacrilisation’ of politically charged buildings; by exposing the detested ideology that they represent, they are stripped of their original ‘sacred’ character. This process also shows that it is possible for controversial, politically significant structures to become legitimate parts of a country’s modern heritage
Ancient history · Archaeology · German · Ideology · Patriotism · Political science · Politics · Population · Reactionary · Sociology · Victory · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Demography · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy
To make a land Hellenic
Between censure and celebration
Collecting Mussolini
Material Legacies
Remaking a monument
The Republican legacy of Italy’s Fascist ossuaries of the First World War
Dealing with difficult heritage
The ex-Casa del Fascio in Predappio and the question of the “difficult heritage” of Fascism in contemporary Italy
Legacies of Fascism
Fascist architecture between pragmatism and inertia. An analysis of dissonance in the reuse of the ex-Case del Fascio of Aprilia and Vicarello
Agonistic interventions into public commemorative art
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,22 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |