Young Italy Flashcards
What would children have to recite before a school day?
‘In the name of God and Italy I swear to carry out the orders of M and to serve will all my strength and if necessary, my blood, the cause of the PNF’ (recited before school)
List the characteristics that M wanted?
‘Fascist man’
Military toughness, discipline
Nationalistic, national hierachy, we are better than them, vitriolic – everyone is out to get us but we are better
Obedience and loyalty to the regime
Gratitude to the state, patriotism, devotion to the cause. Overly simplistic and fascistic version of history. Focused on the history, successes and challenges of fascism
Racist, racial hierarchy
Prepared for war
Going to school in military regalia
Starace said that the ideal young fascist tempers all enthusiasm with iron discipline, despises fear, loves the hard life, and serves the cause of fascism with faith, happiness and passion
What were the motivations behind M concentrating on the youth?
M’s dream of millions of aggressive, athletic, disciplined fascists spreading Italian power overseas led to his interest in education and the youth
M was aware that a loyal youth could help preserve the regime both in the present and the future
What was given to all students to centralise education?
Gave one standardised textbook to all students
What did M need to ensure that schools did to increase his influence on the youth?
Promoted fascism
Give a quote from M that shows what he thought schools should focus on?
‘There is no need to swamp the children’s minds with past and present learning. What is really necessary is that the schools should develop the character of Italians’
Give a quote from M where he talks about how schools must promote fascism
‘The whole school must educate the youth to understand fascism, to renew themselves in fascism, and to live with the historic atmosphere created by the Fascist Revolution
What did the school reforms of 1923 demonstrate?
The 1923 school reforms designed by the philosopher Giovani Gentile reflected the dependence M had on conservative support to prop up his coalition government at the time
What were these 1923 reforms?
The reforms focused on more rigorous examinations in the most prominent secondary schools attended by only a minority of the better-off Italian children
How did these 1923 reforms upset the radical fascists?
Radical fascists were dismayed as it took M a further two years to come up with a distinctly fascist education policy
List the things the regime did to compel teacher loyalty?
teachers of all suspect political views could be dismissed from 1925 and from 1929 all had to take an oath of loyalty to the regime. In 1931, a Fascist Teachers Assoication was set up to regulate the profession, and membership was compulsory in 1937
How was the cult of personality promoted in schools?
Teachers were ordered to stress M’s genius and were provided with sycophantic biographies to use. M’s portrait had to be hung up alongside the King.
How was absolute faith in the regime encouraged?
The Italian youth was expected to have absolute, unquestioning faith – with a compulsory textbook for 8 year olds stating that three main duties for fascist children were obedience, obedience and obedience
What did teachers say about M?
Teachers taught that M had apparently been sent by providence (God) to restore Italian greatness and that students must take pride in the Italian nation
How did fascists begin changing the books available in schools?
Insufficiently patriotic books were banned. This amounted to 101 out of the 317 history texts in schools in 1926. By 1936, a single official text was compulsory. These fascist accounts rewrote history, saying that it was Italian intervention in WWI that had saved the allies from defeat. These texts stressed that under M Italy would be restored to her rightful place
What were young people meant to identify themselves with?
Young people were to identify themselves with Italy, M and fascism, with three being seen as inseparable
What did young people have to do to rebuild Italy?
Work collectively
Give a quote from M where he talks about the similarities between the Italian and Russian education systems?
‘Here in Italy we educate them in accordance with the ideal of the nation, whereas in Russia children are brought up within the ideals of a class, The ultimate aim is still identical. Both in Italy and Russia the individual is subordinate to the state’
Who did M appoint as education minister?
M appointed the renowned intellectual Gentile as Education Minister, partly to reassure the elite
What kind of schools did Gentile favour as education minister?
As Education Minister, Gentile focused on grammar schools, which concentrated on Latin, philosophy and the humanities. If was the type of school favoured by the middle classes as it could lead to a professional career
How can Gentile be seen as elitist in the way that he viewed schools?
Gentile was not interested in technical and vocational schools and was interested in ‘fewer but better’ schools, content to see the weaker ones collapse.
What did Gentile set up to centralise the education system?
He set up a standardised system of examinations that applied to both private and state schools
What issue did Gentile largely ignore?
He largely ignored the illiteracy rate, which stood at around 30% in 1921
How did the fascists increase their intervention in education in the 1930s?
In the 1930s, the government increasingly laid down what was to be taught, especially in private schools. Hence the standardised textbook, the Libro Unico, was introduced for each school year. M said that this was in order to mould in children ‘a real awareness of their duties as fascist citizens’
What was the culmination of fascist education policy?
These changes culminated in Bottai’s 1939 school charter
What were Bottai’s goals as education minister?
Bottai wanted to establish an organic union of party and school with fascist teaching in fascist schools to create the fascist man. He wanted to break down class barriers in education and focus on science and technology. Special schools would be created for the children of peasants to incorporate the urban population, and manual work became part of the cirriculum at all levels
List the failures of the fascist interference in education
No major changes to the structure of schools were made in the 1920s
Attendence in schools dropped by 100,000 during the first four years of the regime
Gentile’s approach angered many fascists and his system was dismantled after he was removed from his post in 1924
It took until the 1930s for a serious attempt at fascistising the education system to take place
Bottai’s radical ideas alarmed many conservative members of the middle classes. His experiment was also disrupted by the outbreak of WWII
Government control over what occurred in educational institutions declined the higher up you went. For instance, in universities, it was more a case of adding courses, like in military training and fascist culture, and taking opportunities to highlight Italian and fascist achievements, rather than a wholesale reorganisation of the curriculum
The same trend can be seen with control over teachers. Control was more extensive over elementary teachers, as they were younger and easier to replace. Despite the fact that all teachers were required to take a loyalty oath from 1929, secondary and university teachers were not committed fascists. The mass acceptance of the oath of loyalty actually prevented the purge that was necessary for the regime to achieve its aims
The limited extent facsism was able to control higher education seems strange for a movement claiming to be totalitarian
List the motivations behind the fascist youth movement?
The regime was not just concerned with happened at school – they also wanted to control young people’s leisure time
Fascist propagandist Mario Missiroli talked about the aims, organisations and activities of the ONB: Said that the objective was the physical and moral education of the youth of the country carried out by continuous activity inside and outside of the schools intended to transform the Italian nation ‘body and soul’. The ONB performs its functions through the Balilla (boys from 8-14) and the Avanguardisti (boys 14-18) institutions. As for girls, the Piccole Italiane corresponds to the Balilla and the Giovani Italiance to the Avanguardisti
The Littoriali Games were designed to increase support from university students in order to create a new fascist elite
What was set up to organise the youth movements in 1926?
ONB
How was ONB membership extended in the 1930s?
By the 1930s, membership had become compulsory in state schools for all children 8 and above
What did ONB activities focus on?
ONB activities focused largely on military training and fascist ideology, but also included sport and fitness training
What kind of things did the ONB put on offer?
Regular parades and annual summer camps
What kind of activities did the ONB offer to girls?
Girls were also given some sport and ideological training, but activities such as sewing, singing and childcare indicated the traditional role fascism expected women to fulfil
What was the youth organisation at uni level called?
The GUF
What did the GUF do?
promoted fascist ideas, and further sporting and military training
What was the Littoriali Games?
A popular development was the Littoriali Games, which enabled uni students to compete against each other, initially in sports, but then from 1934, in cultural activities such as music and art
How did the amount of activities youth groups offered increase over time?
Youth groups set up a range of activities, on Saturdays and the evenings, which increasingly cut across school provision
What happened to the ONB in 1929?
It was overtaken by the education ministry
What did the regime begin to intensify in the 1930s?
Indoctrination
What happened to the ONB in 1937?
In 1937 the ONB was incorporated into a new party organisation, GIL. The law establishing this proclaimed it was the ‘unitary and totalitarian organisation of the youth of the regime, instituted in the very heart of the party’
How many ONB members were there by 1937?
7 million
Give an example of a youth activity that proved popular
The Littoriali Games
