Rituals of Colonial Memory: Crafting Imperial Nostalgia in Republican Italy

Abstract

The latest historiographical trends are revealing how the end of colonialism has influenced the political and social configuration of former metropolitan centres. In particular, the return of former colonial settlers has raised a series of issues that have resonated in European political debates and societies. In Italy, these processes were shaped by a peculiar decolonization process, coinciding with the equally tortuous transition from fascism to the Republic. Drawing on recent historiography on the return of colonial settlers, and expanding the chronological span and methodological scope of previous works through original archival sources, my intervention aims to reconstruct how imperial nostalgia became a political resource exploited by both repatriate associations and conservative political factions. Although similar to contemporaneous cases, in Italy colonial commemorative practices had peculiarities linked to the role of Catholicism and to the fact that far right and even neo-fascist movements exploited the demands of repatriates for their own political benefit. This article thus broadens the historiographical understanding concerning the decline of Italy's empire and deepens the analysis of its lasting impacts on the politics and society of Republican Italy.