The Tamaro, Mazzolini, Massi and Papo funds concern the eastern Italian border

 

Last December 15th the Ugo Spirito and Renzo De Felice Foundation, with the contribution of the General Directorate of Libraries and Cultural Institutes of the MIBACT, held the conference “Italian political cultures in the archives of the Ugo Spirito and Renzo De Felice Foundation” at its headquarters in Piazza delle Muse in Rome. Donations, acquisitions and book material available to the institute allowed the speakers to range over the Catholic right, nationalism, liberalism, monarchist politics, irredentism, neo-fascism and national trade unionism: while waiting for the proceedings of the day to be published in the Annals of the Foundation, there are reports that have demonstrated particular relevance to the history of the eastern border.

First of all, the one held by the Vice President of the Gianni Scipione Rossi Foundation, focused on Attilio Tamaro, historian, journalist and Julian diplomat who embodied, developed and studied the irredentism of before the Great War and of which the foundation possesses numerous papers and correspondence. Among other things, he is responsible for the lemma “Irredentism” in the Italian Encyclopedia of 1933, seen as a continuation of the Risorgimento, although the activists present in the irredentist lands included local figures and movements even prior to the Third War of Independence. A volunteer of the Royal Army in 1915 and then responsible for propaganda among the allies of the Entente with reference to the Italian claims against Austria-Hungary, at the end of the conflict Tamaro was disappointed not to have been appointed director of the Trieste newspaper The small and had to settle for being the editor-in-chief for The National Idea, a newspaper of the Italian Nationalist Association which however never reached the level of the main newspapers. Having entered the ranks of diplomacy with the “twenty-eight” batch, he was in charge of Hamburg, Helsinki and Bern; expelled from the National Fascist Party, he did not join the Social Republic despite the pressure received and in the post-war period he collaborated under a pseudonym with Ideal Revolt.

He also came from Trieste Ernesto Massi, father of Italian geopolitics and object of study by Andrea Perrone, collaborator of the Spirito-De Felice Foundation and author of a report that first of all highlighted his wide-ranging education, the result of a synthesis of different cultures and languages, also due to the fact that he attended elementary school in Graz and that his father was Croatian (the original surname Maček was Italianized with the Royal Decree of 1927). Active in the university group of the FUCI of Trieste, Massi would later found with his colleague Giorgio Roletto the magazine geopolitics, whose scientific line was greatly influenced by the direct relationship established with Karl Haushofer, who had already started the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik. On the political side, Massi is one of the founding fathers of the National Left, which he presents as a continuation of the historical Left of the Risorgimento and to which he provides a rich and varied pantheon, which includes, among others, Mazzini and his idea of ​​nation, Gentile even though he represented the historical pre-fascist Right, Olivetti with corporatism, Imbriani and the Association in Pro dell'Italia Irredenta and Romolo Murri, since Catholicism in politics was essential for the formation of the ethical state of Hegelian origin.

Finally, the secretary of the Scientific Committee of the February 10 Committee, Lorenzo Salimbeni, reported on the background Luigi Papo, a great activist of the associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles, to whom we owe above all the meticulous drafting of theRoll of Honor. Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia in the Last War: among the 20.000 names collected here are also those of hundreds of Italians who were victims of the Foibe massacres and deportations perpetrated by Tito's partisan forces. Coming from an irredentist family, Papo was an exponent of the so-called "border fascism", especially during the RSI, as commander of the third company of the 2nd "Istria" Territorial Defense Militia Regiment, but his Roll of Honour does not lack, albeit incompletely, the victims of the violent Nazi anti-partisan repression carried out in these areas, with references also to the killings that occurred at the Risiera di San Sabba. Founder in 1948 of the Center for the Protection of the Interests of the Adriatic Exiles, later the Center for Adriatic Studies, which in 1964 would merge with the National Association Irredenta, of which it would constitute a sort of scientific committee, Papo entrusted the Spirito Foundation with a rich collection of letters held with political representatives and exiles, as well as documents and newspaper clippings concerning Julian-Dalmatian locations and people connected to the events of the foibe and the exodus.

Source:  February 10th Committee