BENTIVOGLIO GIULIA

Progetto BIRD 2020 - THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION: IMAGES AND PERCEPTIONS OF ITALY’S TRANSITION (1989-1994) - The early 1990s opened a new era for Italy. The changing global scenario affected both the domestic and the international scene: with the end of the bipolar order, Italy was no longer the southern-eastern boundary of the free world. In the meantime, a revolution took place in the Italian political system: the Italian case is extreme in this sense as it is the only country in Western Europe where old parties have been completely eradicated. Thus, Italy experienced the collapse of its political system, in a way that was singularly more like the countries of the former communist bloc rather than to its partners in Western Europe. The end of the Cold War and the radical transformation of the Italian political system born in the aftermath of the Second World War cannot be considered as separate events. On the contrary, they are inextricably linked: it is difficult to understand the disappearance of the so-called “First Republic” without taking into account the massive changes that characterised the European continent between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although Italy’s transition in the 1990s is a highly investigated topic, existing studies focus on the transformation of the political system, while the international dimension is usually limited to a blurry background. Moreover, Italy’s international role in the early 1990s has not been examined in depth by Italian or foreign historiography. This research project fills this gap by studying the role that Italy played in the global scenario and how such a role was perceived by her major partners, bringing into the picture both sides of the national and international scenes. With the availability of freshly released primary sources from the main European archives, this project aims at reconstructing Italy’s image as a global actor in the early 1990s. This project will take into consideration not only the political and diplomatic contexts but also the economic and cultural dimensions, studying relations and perceptions of Italy’s major Western allies (United States, Britain, France, Germany), as well as some Southern-European countries (Spain and Greece) and the Soviet/Russian perspective. The project will focus on three major turning points: 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall and the starting-point of this investigation since with the end of communism Italy too experienced the collapse of a wall – not physical, but psychological –, which for fifty years had divided the country and dictated its political agenda; 1992, with the crisis which marked a clear watershed in the country’s history, its institutions and the powers of the States; 1994, when Silvio Berlusconi’s entry into the political scene signalled a profound break in terms of political practices, attitudes and even languages. For each of these three moments, the project will analyse the perceptions and reactions of Italy’s partners. The Italian case is peculiar and quite challenging to understand for external viewers. While foreign observers often resorted to exceptionalism in their analyses of Italy’s crisis, the country was also described as a laboratory for the ills of the West: could this be applied even in a post-Cold War scenario? Moreover, if Italy was a “Cold War Republic” and the close connections between the international and domestic spheres in Italy made it an incredibly significant case-study of how and why the Cold War lasted so long in Europe, what happened when the Cold War ended? Could this be the reason why Italy was affected – allegedly – more than her European partners by the end of the bipolar world, sharing similarities with the Eastern European countries? Furthermore, was the Italian crisis of the early 1990s perceived by contemporaries as a revolution? To what extent did it affect Italy’s international stance? The project aims to find an answer to these questions and shed light on these unexplored topics. (16/11/2020 - )20201116

Progetto “Inter-European Circulation of Knowledge during the Cold War” della serie «Proyectos de I+D+i» del Ministero de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades spagnolo. - This project focuses on a number of facets of the complex history of the intra-European production of knowledge during the Cold War. It deals with the material and immaterial circulation of knowledge between Eastern and Western Europe, and inside Western Europe and Eastern Europe. (12/06/2020 - )20200612