The Irreligiousness of Fascism

Bibliographic Data

ID9206397
AuthorsValerio Severino (0000-0002-6304-4823, Sapienza University of Rome, corresponding author), Valerio S Severino (University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of History, Cultures, ReligionsPiazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome)
Year2016
Volume63
Issue5-6
Pages525-547
Publication date2016-10-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNumen (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-5973 • E-ISSN: 1568-5276
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15685276-12341437
OpenAlexW2565149757
LanguageEN
References cited15

This essay aims to reexamine the debate on the impact of Fascism on religious studies, by reconstructing what Raffaele Pettazzoni, one of the founding fathers of this field of research in Italy in the first half of the twentieth century, meant by “religion of the state.” His research on the origin of the religious state in Iranian history and in the Greek polytheistic prototype of the polis offers a key to the interpretation of his further analysis of the religious Fascist phenomenon. Mingling approaches of both political science and history of religions, this study constitutes an introduction to a new understanding — which remained hidden in Pettazzoni’s texts — of Fascism as a degeneration of state religiousness. While Fascism is an example of the sacralization of politics (according to one of the leading historians of Fascist ideology, Emilio Gentile), Pettazzoni showed how in other ways Fascism perpetuated the pre-Christian crisis of the religious state

Epistemology · Field (mathematics) · History of religions · Ideology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies

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