The Italian people really wanted the Unit, or Italy as we know it was only a fabrication of the Freemasons?

The partisans were all Communists who carried out an ideological civil war?
These three are just some of the historical issues that still split opinion in our country, and around which they create myths.
A little 'because in general any good excuse to take sides, even at the cost of forcing the memory of the facts; and a little 'because indeed much of the complex Italian history and lends itself to interpretations to pull the sleeves.
So we decided to dismantle or evaluate some of the most overused stereotypes about Italian history: those who still return to this advocate of forcing a pretext for political and social causes.
And to do so we rely on considerations of Professor Alessandro Barbero, who at this moment probably the frontman of the historic advisory services in Italy.
He became famous for his collaborations with cultural programs by Alberto Angela on RAI (and other historical broadcasts), Barbero today it is creating an aura around almost as an icon of Italian culture.
Why it has an enormous ability to tell the story linking it to the present and making it alive.
STEREOTYPE 1: "We descend CULTURALLY DIRECTLY from the Roman Empire, founding REPRESENTING THE PERIOD OF ITALIAN HISTORY THAT COUNTS.
THE BARBARIAN INVASIONI PUT AN END TO ALL. "
The first stereotype that we face one of the most thorny and controversial, both because it is rooted in a time frame much lungola history of Rome, including the Roman Empire to the west at least fall 1229 term annisia perch has gone through phases of all kinds.
So already framing the empire as something homogeneous that can represent a continuum of cultural and historical roots pretty rough.
The relationship that many Italians have with the Roman Empire perceived history has two main aspects: the vision of purity of a moment of great importance in the Italian peninsula in mondoquindi Italy as a center of dominioe the barbarian invasions (then generally in concept extended immigration) as something harmful, which puts an end to a golden age for "Italy."
"With regard to the first assumption," Barbero said, "we can say that taken individually definitely true.
C 'was a moment in which all the inhabitants of Italy were Roman, and considered themselves subjects of the empire. "
However, he continues, "also true that some Italians were previously Sunnis, or roosters, or Greek, and a thousand other things.
And then there were phases in which some Italians considered themselves Lombards, Byzantines other, other Arabs, and so on.
So when we talk about culture a heritage associated Italians, there is no reason to think that that stage has been more significant than the others. "
Among other things, he explains the professor, considered themselves Romans not only the inhabitants of the peninsula; but also those of Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, Spain, North Africa, and so on.
This is because "the Roman Empire extended over three continents, and the height was much more likely that a Roman citizen he felt at their cultural center in Syria, which is not closer to the Alps."
Turning to the barbarian invasions, in this case some undeniable historical truth are isolated from their full context.
"Some historians for years have tried to play down the impact of the barbarian invasions had on the Empire," says Barbero, "while in its most violent phases, it really was a traumatic event, and not reducible simply to assimilation of cultures that had blown up the limes. "
It should be said that for centuries, the empire has been managing massive migration flows, drawing a big lead thanks to very solid political organization.
Whoever accepted the superiority of the state could easily become a citizen.
"The Romans ran a multiethnic empire, and never thought that being citizens meant to come from a particular country, or have the skin of a certain color," notes the professor.
STEREOTYPE 2: UNIT OF ITALY WAS A FARCE ORGANIZED BY MASONS, THE PEOPLE DID NOT WANT THE UNIFICATION, AND WAS A THUG MURDERESS GARIBALDI.
Although we currently live a very particular political moment, in which the South rises more and more his approval of the League, the anti-Italian sentiment and the split between the north and south of many citizens and political factions over time cemented a series of nonsense absurd sull'Unit of Italy.
The neoborbonici and Venetian independence with their myths about the Borbonia Felix and Serenissima are a perfect example, but generally do not need to be part of these groups to feed false anyway beliefs about the Risorgimento and the historical figures that have led to ' Unit.
All these myths serve to fuel the idea that certain areas of Italy should demand independence, or should claim the wrongs, because Italians have never really felt a united people, and because there are too many irreconcilable differences.
Barbero pressed immediately that these regionalist and separatist impulses are really very recent, and date back to the late eighties and the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
"Some of the popular indignation was no longer incanabile in the workers or union struggles," he says, "and then that first arose in groups that propagated these ideas.
Before then the identity italianaanche in pluralit previous policy to the unity of Italy has always been known to the inhabitants of the peninsula. "
For the professor, "all the myths about the fact that Italians have never felt such are false history."
That unification have it only wanted the "Masons" and the Savoy, for example, simply not true.
First, because the Kingdom of Italy was accomplished through a long process at least 40 years, which has its beginnings in the early nineteenth riots twenties and continued with the endless attempts to Mazzini, the riots of 1848, and three wars d ' Independence.
The Savoy, Cavour, and the Kingdom of Sardinia in this wide and diverse context accounted for only one of the factors in play: in addition to the moderate liberals and monarchists were also Republicans, that over time, while failing all the time, they were still able create temporary republics in both Rome and Florence.
And the riots in Sicily to free themselves from Bourbon had been going on since time immemorial.
We talk so easily of Freemasonry and the privileged middle class because it tentain extremely becerodi enter the dynamics of the Restoration and of absolute monarchies in today's contexts.
But even if we were in the game ghostly elitist ambitions, the facts show that alone Freemasonry never been able to unify the country: enough to know the life of Giuseppe Mazzini.
"When Garibaldi sbarc in Sicily possessed 1,000 volunteers, who all came from the north," said Barbero.
If you have a minimum of respect for the Italians of that time, and consult the documents that we have left, it turns out that unify the country for many Italians was a top priority.
And not only of intellectuals such as Poerio and Settembrini, but also ordinary people. "
That being said there, you can not possibly deny that the Unit of Italy has also led aftermath very negative, especially in the South.
"There 'no doubt that the Historic Right has made many mistakes, and that many expectations of Italians have been disregarded," says the professor.
"The southern farmers who expected that expelling the Bourbons would also ended landlordism and who were granted lands were deeply disappointed.
But we must not confuse the posthumous misrule dissatisfaction with the idea that the Unit of Italy do not want anyone.
STEREOTYPE 3: MUSSOLINI STATE misled by HITLER.
The figure of Mussolini turn myths of all kinds, because of course is one of the most important historical crossroads and divisive in Italy, which still after nearly 100 years after the March on Rome fails to make a point to this story.
The stereotype that we are analyzing not used much when it comes down in the concrete of the figure of Mussolini, but is one of those hidden beliefs that contribute to mistificarne the work.
Why completely damning the final part of the fascist period, so disastrous as to leave room for too many excuses, obviously trying to save what's left.
important first to clarify, then, that Mussolini was not a puppet fallen into the hands of the Fhrer in a moment of lack of foresight and lucidity, but instead it was the teacher.
Mussolini came to power in Italy in 1922, 11 years before Hitler was he who taught the Nazis how to create a totalitarian state.
So much so that Renzo De Felice, one of the greatest scholars of fascism, in his essay The relationship between Fascism and National Socialism up the first leg of Hitler, Mussolini explains how Hitler himself would define "master of dictatorship."
"Clearly, if you want to do a total budget of Mussolini and his government," said Barbero, "to weigh are primarily the issue of the racial laws and entry into the war.
And in these two cases actually true that Mussolini was strongly driven by Hitler [known fact that Mussolini and Galeazzo Ciano hoped in all the ways that Germany would not come to start a war, because Italy was militarily unprepared.
"True that Mussolini was able to create a large consensus," continues the professor, "but to those who argue that war and racial laws aside, Mussolini did only good things, I would like to ask what would feel if tomorrow Calenda formed a team of 'blue shirts' and did go out in the street to beat up anyone who goes disliked.
Or if Di Maio gave orders to someone of her to disappear into thin air some deputies of the Democratic Party which is inconvenient.
STEREOTYPE 4: PARTIGIANI WERE ALL COMMUNISTS, AND THE STRENGTH WAS IN REALITY CIVIL WAR JUSTIFIED left politics.
The other large political and social confrontation which covers the period of the Second World War to the Resistance.
That over time seems to have become the exclusive preserve of the left, because there are many politicians and right-wing voters more or less covertly trying to belittle the celebration of April 25.
Com 'true that for many citizens left the Resistance almost become a form of "monopoly."
"Put it right away so," begins Barbero, "the resistance have made the men and women of all social classes, of all backgrounds, and from all parties.
Among those there were partisans departments put up already from September 8th Army officers and noncommissioned officers, which coalesce former soldiers who remained faithful to the King.
And since the King had said that Italy had become an ally of the Americans and the Germans the enemy, he had to fight the Nazis. "
In partisan files there were also many departments organized and animated by liberal ideas, liberal, secular, and absolutely non-Communist.
Then, says Barbero, "in working class areas or in areas where the riots of laborers had been cut short by the fascists in bastonatecome in the valleys of Biella or in the Po Valley of agrarila Most formations were communist."
It should not be forgotten, says Barbero, that even if the party strength as a spontaneous phenomenon, is immediately legitimized framed and organized jointly by the State.
The partisan refer to the legitimate Italian government, that of the King to the south, and that the Communists also choose to accept when Togliatti back to Salerno. "
In fact, unlike other partisan struggles of liberation war ended in fratricidecome those in Poland and Jugoslaviagli clashes between Italian partisan factions "can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and the usual cases are always mentioned because there are only ones."
In binary controversy of the second century of Italian "communists and fascists," one of the bipartisan mantra to shift to the long rule of the Christian Democrats the label side's policy.
In superficial historical view of these points of view Italy would not be ruled by a centrist Catholic party made up of many different currents, but it all comes down to the bone to argue their case.
All for being in the way we want to see the Christian Democrats.
The peculiarities of that party, Barbero says, "was to be formed by currents that had varied opinions on how you should run the country.
There were Democrats who were inclined to an opening to the unions and the labor movement, and those who feared these forms of contamination: and therefore these specifications are taken on the left or right and estremizzate. "
The Christian Democrats remains historically "an inter-class party, which can not completely be placed in any of the two areas," continues the professor.
"Although being a strongly anti-communist party, backed by the Vatican and by the Americans definitely say that DC was left to me seems even more extreme."
This commonplace, although less invasive and pervasivoanche because of the demands of the royalists now matter very few people one of the mantras of the Italian conspiracy system, which wants to see fraud and machinations everywhere.
It goes well with a thesis on their own plot because the outcome of the 1946 referendum you play well or badly on minimum distances, and when c 'cos a clear division in the will of the people, you try to insert ourselves more and something more.
"To understand how far from the mundane realities of politics and democracy that that referendum has been sabotaged, you have to see the situation for what it was," reconstructs Barbero.
"The referendum was held, and this good specify under what remained of a monarchical government.
Both sides then, the monarchists and the republicans, they used a very strong propaganda and like any referendum campaign respecting obvious that there have been lies, cunning policies, and so on. "
Sure, some fraud may have been there; but the correct question to ask if they were truly decisive.
"How many votes should be counted, tens of millions?
"And even if there were such fraud, we believe that cheating is the prerogative of a single faction?
To think that the fraud can distort the result of an election or a referendum means living on Mars. "
"What is certain," commentary, "that that referendum Demo extreme split the country.
The northern, more advanced and rich, vot Republic; while the south opt for the monarchy (Naples for decades remained the most faithful to the Savoy city, and this says a lot also the stereotype mentioned earlier).
In the city won the Republic, in the monarchy campaigns.
Part of our socio-political gestalt as a country surely that of victimhood.
And this old stereotype of Italians as assaulting people, always conquered and derubatoci have yet to give the Mona Lisa! It is part of the popular story undergrowth.
As all these scraps of extrapolated story is based on unquestionable truth, but viewed from a single perspective.
"Very true that Italians are a people of reservoirs, absolutely," says Barbero.
"But only if we look at a particular area of the world: we were invaded by more powerful nations and rich, as well as we were the invaders and rulers when it came to areas of the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations."
At the time of the Venetians, the professor recalls, "the hills of the Serenissima extended to Greece, and generally east of Trieste when the Italians pushed the conquest became a dominant people, which imposed its own rules and its own language.
And this explains so many tragic things that have happened next in the story. "
The same, says Barbero, "you must do to Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.
For the inhabitants of these countries we are the conquerors, the invaders. "
Update 07/24/2019: In an earlier version of this article, we had written that the Roman Empire lasted 1229 years.
We were referring instead to the entire history of ancient Rome, and why that passage was correct.
Credits pictures:,,,,, in the public domain;

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