Ernesto Bonaiuti and the Alleanza democratica per il risorgimento italiano (1945-1946)

In this essay the author aims to analyse the political project proposed by Ernesto Buonaiuti after the Second World War. The Democratic Alliance for the Italian Risorgimento, founded in 1945, tried to retrieve Mazzini’s political program and aimed at the birth of a republican Italy, which should have had a central role in building a united and Christian Europe. The project of Democratic Alliance for the Italian Risorgimento foresaw also the overcoming of the Cold War’s bipolar confrontation and an utopian cooperation between Western and Eastern countries: the Soviet Union itself had to be part, with full rights, in the process of European political integration. Through the periodicals Il Risveglio and, later on, 1945, Buonaiuti sought collaborations with all of the parties willing to share the main points of his plan, from the Christian Democracy to the Italian Communist Party. However, the dialogue with De Gasperi and Togliatti appeared unable to offer concrete results. The only political force which established a constructive relationship with Democratic Alliance was the Italian Republican Party, which shared Mazzini’s message, the constant references to the completion of Italian Risorgimento and the yearning for a united Europe.

Keywords: Ernesto Buonaiuti, Democratic Alliance for the Italian Risorgimento, Giuseppe Mazzini, Holy See, Europeanism, Italian Republican Party

Silvio Berardi, Ernesto Buonaiuti e l’Alleanza democratica per il risorgimento italiano (1945-1946) in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 2/2017, pp 179-192, DOI: 10.3280/MON2017-002007