Imperial Remnants of a Contested Alpine Border Region: Encountering Bolzano’s Ambiguous Monuments

Abstract

Italian cities are full of public inscriptions and monuments that praise not only fascism but also its brutal expansionist wars. This situation is especially true in Bolzano, the capital of a formerly contested border region in the north of the country, where such symbols were crucial to claim political and cultural domination over conquered territories – not only in the Mediterranean and Africa, but also within Italy’s own national borders. This essay examines monuments, street names and other material legacies of fascist imperialism in Bolzano and reflects on the meaning given to them by the fascist regime at the time of their erection. It reveals why these symbols were placed at specific points in the city as imperial landmarks and questions the regime’s representative intentions behind it. This essay intends to provide a historical starting point for an overall examination of imperial monuments in Bolzano and, based on this, to enable research on their reception history in further studies. To this end, it examines articles from fascist South Tyrolean newspapers reporting on the inauguration ceremonies of the monuments. In addition, fascist laws and city government protocols provide information about the political ethos under which the regime erected them. Finally, the imperial remnant’s symbolic content will be analysed and compared with the research literature on Italian colonialism and its wars of aggression.