Autore
Fincardi, Marco

Titolo
Riti di epurazione. Carpi (1920-1921)
Periodico
Memoria e ricerca
Anno: 2025 - Volume: 80 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 463 - Pagina finale: 484

Some aggressive languages or festive rituals adopted by fascist squads in the Po Valley area completely go beyond the patriotic-military political expressiveness with a funereal background typical of that paramilitary movement born as a challenge to the weakening of the bourgeois classes and the crisis of the liberal state after the first world war. The adoption of gestural languages and rituals of goliardic and carnival derivation have the clear intention of attenuating the bloody character of the squad actions and of instilling in opponents both the fear of violence and humiliation. There is a recovery of folklore with a conservative or anti-bolshevik function, with an exhibited patriotism played in this case in a local key, rather than national, to attract the sympathies and support of the city bourgeoisie. The territorial dominance of workers’ organizations is represented by them as a grotesque world in reverse and the adoption of carnival-like expressive forms is used to make the attacks appear as symbolic acts of a comic re-establishment of the customary order, as at the end of every carnival. The symbolism of those punitive acts, only in rare cases sanctioned by the police forces, is aimed at attracting the sympathies of the bourgeois classes who have lost representation in the municipalities and the parliament, but also the privileged control of the places of urban and rural sociability. When at the beginning of 1921 the squadrismo prevented the workers’ movement from making any attempt to celebrate May Day, as well as to organize conviviality and dances, the "squadristi" adopted their own street ceremonies with a goliardic background, advertised as acts of public reconciliation, which in reality they can mask the violent ouster of local administrations and terrorist methods to gain control of a territory.



SICI: 1127-0195(2025)80:3<463:RDEC(>2.0.ZU;2-X
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.14647/118660
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.14647/118660

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