Model of Masculinity Under Fascist Italy - Earlier Movements and Influences

Earlier Movements and Influences

Following the birth of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the state was still culturally fragmented. Following World War I, there was an uprising of civil religion in Italy as a "state of collective euphoria" roused the republic. In addition, a process of nationalization of the masses was in desperate need within a country that lacked a national identity.

In 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti founded the Futurist Movement, which advocated values such as instinct, strength, courage, sport, war, youth, dynamism and speed as exemplified by modern machines. Amid the introduction of this revolutionary, non-conformist ideology, it did not agree with the political philosophies of fascism, which was also just beginning to bud at that time. Futurism was thereby abandoned after 1920, and political regions became increasingly fervent as Mussolini came into power shortly thereafter

Mussolini, after having been elected to power in 1922, created a myth of himself, craftily adapting the image of the Superman of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to the Italian forma mentis, which was grounded in the following credo: absolutely hegemony over life and death and good and evil.

Mussolini underlined how Nietzsche had advocated an imminent return to the ideal, stating that 'a new kind of "free spirit" will come, strengthened by the war ... spirits equipped with a kind of sublime perversity ... new, free spirits, who will triumph over God and over Nothing!". Accordingly, war was regarded as the training ground of virility: a place to cultivate, embrace, and exercise masculinity to its fullest extent in the name of serving for one's nation with others as a collective entity. Novelist Mario Carli provides a first-hand account of what was expected of Italian soldiers in this era:

"ar is something sublime because it forces every man to face the dilemma of choosing between heroism and cowardice, between the ideal and the stomach, between the spiritual instinct to project life beyond the material, and the pure and simple instinct of animal conversation. It is the brutal discriminator that distinguishes man from man, character from character, constitution from constitution: on the one side the cowardly, the soft, the hysterical, the effeminate, the cry-babies, the mommy's boys; on the other the strong, the aware, the idealists, the mystics of danger, those who triumph over fear and those who are courageous by nature, the hot-blooded heroes and the heroes of the will."

The wartime climate provided an opportune environment for Mussolini to reinforce the values which he extolled as central to his purported hegemonic masculinity. In addition, the wartime front provided a public stage for effective public actions. Mussolini openly boasted about conducting his efforts to introduce himself as a New Italian for the New Italy that was to come.