Italian "Without a Homeland". The Denationalization of the Anti-Fascist Exiles: Fascist Ideology and International Politics (1925-1932)

The essay focuses on the ideological genesis and on the application of the socalled «legge sui fuorusciti» and the consequent loss of citizenship for 17 antifascist exiles in 1926. The Citizenship Act n. 108, issued on January 31th 1926, was a weapon to weaken the protagonists of the relevant democratic campaign against the violence of the regime, begun with Matteotti’s murder. The denationalization was the coherent expression of the cultural and ideological stance of fascism, aiming to subordinate the citizenship to the adherence to the regime and to consider as alien people («senza patria») the opponents to it. This peculiar nationality jurisprudence caused palpable inconsistencies with the project, pursued by international organizations, to erase stateless condition and to establish common rules and regulations governing the relation between the State and the citizen. The harsh controversy in the League of Nations was produced by the application of this legal sanction and by the Italian antifascist remarks and the French radical-socialist support to them; the debate reflected the incompatible difference between the fascist and the democratic nationality conception and it became a testing ground for Mussolini’s will to assert the rights of his own revolution in the international politics.

Keywords: Antifascism, exile, nationality laws, Fascist ideology, League of Nations

Longhi Enrico Serventi, Gli italiani «senza patria». La denazionalizzazione degli esuli antifascisti: ideologia del fascismo e politica internazionale (1925-1932) in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 1/2012, pp 5-34, DOI: 10.3280/MON2012-001001