The battle for influence: Commemoration of transnational martyrs in the Italian diaspora of the U.S. under fascism

Abstract

This article analyses the role commemoration of Fascist and anti-fascist martyrs played in the battle for political influence in the Italian diaspora of the United States during Mussolini’s early rule. It is structured around two case studies: the socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, killed in Rome in 1924, and Giuseppe Carisi and Michele Ambrosoli, two Blackshirts killed in the Bronx on their way to the Memorial Day parade of 1927 in New York. Through an examination of sites of memory and commemoration ceremonies held in both Italy and the U.S., it adds a transnational element to the study of the role of secular martyrdom in the construction of collective identity, concluding that the transnational exchange evident in commemoration of both case studies added to the propagandistic power of the martyrological narrative by drawing meaning from geographical distance from Italy.