Donati - A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950

A POLITICAL HISTORY of NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP and IDENTITY IN ITALY, 18611950

Sabina Donati

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA

Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

2013 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

All rights reserved.

Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Maison de lHistoire, Universit de Genve.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donati, Sabina, author.

A political history of national citizenship and identity in Italy, 1861-1950 / Sabina Donati.

pages cm

Based on the authors thesis (doctoral)Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8047-8451-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. CitizenshipItalyHistory19th century. 2. CitizenshipItalyHistory20th century. 3. National characteristics, ItalianHistory19th century. 4. National characteristics, ItalianHistory20th century. 5. ItalyPolitics and government19th century. 6. ItalyPolitics and government20th century. I. Title.

JN5591.D63 2013

323.60945'09041dc23

2012039000

ISBN 978-0-8047-8733-8 (electronic)

Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/12 Sabon

A mamma e pap

ed ai miei fratelli

Do you see how great a responsibility the orator has in

historical writing? [...] For who does not know historys

first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything

but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to

tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of

partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?

Videtisne, quantum munus sit oratoris historia? [...] Nam

quis nescit, primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi

dicere audeat? Deinde ne quid veri non audeat? Ne qua

suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo? Ne qua simultatis?

Cicero, De Oratore, trans. E. W. Sutton, vol. 1

(London: Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1959).

Now say,

would it be worse for man on earth if he were not a citizen?

Yes, I replied, and here I ask for no proof.

Or d: sarebbe il peggio

per lomo in terra, se non fosse cive?

S, rispuosio; e qui ragion non cheggio.

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy,

trans. C. S. Singleton, vol. 3

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

Contents

Acknowledgments

This is a book about Italy, its citizens, foreigners and Others. It is a book on italianit and national membership that I have been fortunate to write as an Italian woman, born and bred in Italy, but also as a foreigner and resident alien abroad, having been living outside the Italian peninsula for more than twenty years. The gestation of this volume has therefore been shaped by a personal mix of academic experiences, migratory life and italianit at home and abroad.

The research, writing and publication of this work would not have been possible without the generous financial support of several institutions, providing me with academic subsidies, research grants and fellowships. I am most grateful to the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique for its aid to publication as well as for a chercheurs dbutants grant that allowed me to spend one full year in the Italian historical archives. I also wish to express my thanks to the Maison de lHistoire of the Universit de Genve for its funding toward production and publication costs; and to acknowledge my appreciation to the Tokyo Foundation and to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, for their annual fellowships and grants.

As a long and rewarding journey this project has benefited from the insightful advice, thought-provoking comments and continuous encouragement of many people. My greatest debts of gratitude go to Andre Liebich (Graduate Institute), whose profound knowledge and generously sharp insights provoked me to reflect on many interrelated historical aspects of citizenship and national identity from the very early stages of this work; I cannot find words to thank him for his devoted intellectual presence. I am also most thankful to Peter Sahlins (University of California, Berkeley) for his useful critiques and remarks on how to rethink the citizenship-nationhood nexus and for sharing his expertise on legal-jurisprudential histories of citizenship; as well as to Bruno Arcidiacono (Graduate Institute) for his early advice to incorporate European comparisons into my research. The work has also grown along the way and progressed a great deal thanks to the intellectual contribution of three perceptive reviewers, whose powerful mix of effective criticism and keen revision suggestion has been extremely beneficial.

Aron Rodrigue (Stanford Humanities Center) and Davide Rodogno (Graduate Institute) have been very special sources of help and advice for me, particularly in the most demanding phases of the publication process. At Stanford University Press I wish to express my gratitude to Norris Pope for his kindness and expert guidance, Thomas Finnegan for his precious copy editing and the entire Press for the magic of turning a blossom into a flower, a final manuscript into a book.

Among my colleagues at Webster University Geneva I would like to thank all faculty and staff, and express my gratefulness to the Department of International Relations and to Alexandre Vautravers.

All the archival and documentary research was carried out in Italy, where I spent twelve months collecting invaluable historical material on the various citizenship issues recounted in this volume. Unique and most gratifying, this research in the peninsula was then coupled with further collection of sources that I was privileged to carry out for a number of years in the inspiring settings of Swiss libraries. In Rome I wish to thank Leopoldo Nuti for his warm welcome at the Universit di Roma Tre. The staffs of the Italian libraries and of the depository archival institutions have also afforded me with inestimable assistance, for which I am truly indebted. Special words of appreciation go to the personnel of the Biblioteca e Archivio della Camera dei Deputati, for assisting me in the collection of Italian parliamentary debates; to Eugenio Pauselli and his friendly colleagues at the Biblioteca del Ministero dellInterno, for their help in finding ministerial and judiciary material on naturalization files; to Alessandro Gionfrida and Giovanni Sargeri at the Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dellEsercito, for all the information and assistance in finding the sources pertaining to Italys colonized and occupied territories; to Maria Pina Di Simone and the staff of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, for their gentleness in answering all my numerous questions; to Stefania Ruggeri at the Archivio Storico Diplomatico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, for her gracious help. Special thanks go as well to the librarians of the Graduate Institute, to those of the Bibliothque de Genve, and to the staff of the Dpt des Bibliothques Universitaires, for their patience and rapidity in finding all the books that I needed.

I cannot name all the kind friends and peers who throughout the years have supplied me with not only intellectual but also emotional support, often despite our long-distance friendships. I want to thank wholeheartedly those I was fortunate to meet: in England, when doing my undergraduate studies at the University of London Queen Mary and Westfield College; in France, while joining the Erasmus exchange program at the Universit Franois Rabelais of Tours; in Switzerland, when doing my postgraduate degree and Ph.D. studies at the Graduate Institute; in Italy, while carrying out the research for this project and, before then, when living there with my family.