Giuseppe Mazzini

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Giuseppe Mazzini
Signature Giuseppe Mazzini.PNG
Floor panel with quote from Giuseppe Mazzini; Berlin-Kreuzberg , "Path of Visionaries"

Giuseppe Mazzini (born June 22, 1805 in Genoa , † March 10, 1872 in Pisa ) was an Italian freedom fighter of the Risorgimento .

Life

Mazzini's political goal was the right of the European peoples to self-determination and in particular the independence and unification of the Italian states, which were then divided into the Spanish-Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies , the Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto , the Papal Papal State and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont . Mazzini strove for the Italian unification in a republic that he considered possible only through the revolutionary uprising of the people and the expulsion of the foreign occupying powers.

Mazzini attended the Lyceum in Genoa . In the spring of 1827, shortly before the end of his law studies at the University of Genoa , Mazzini was accepted into the Genoese lodge of the Carboneria . A year later he published his first patriotic article in the then rather apolitical newspaper Indicatore Genovese . The paper quickly became a mouthpiece for the Italian national movement and was banned in 1829. The Indicatore Livornese was then founded , in which he published his concept of a national Italian republic.

Denounced by a friend he introduced to the Carboneria, Mazzini was arrested in November 1830 and imprisoned for three months in the fortress of Savona . After his release, he decided to leave Italy. He went into exile in Switzerland . After two failed coup attempts in Genoa and Savoy , which he directed from Geneva , Mazzini was sentenced to death in absentia in Sardinia.

From Geneva he turned to Lyon and finally settled in Marseille on March 29, 1831 . Here he conceived a new movement in 1831, called Giovine Italia ( Young Italy ). Their newspaper of the same name, in which Mazzini called for an all-Italian republican uprising, was illegally distributed in all Italian principalities. Mazzini also called on King Karl Albert (Sardinia-Piedmont) to liberate Italy. At the beginning of the 1830s, the popular revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi also joined Mazzini's group.

On April 15, 1834, Mazzini concluded the so-called "Fraternization Act" with August Breidenstein and his brother Friedrich Breidenstein in Bern . Breidenstein's Young Germany joined the Young Italy and Young Poland connections initiated by Mazzini . Under the motto Freedom - Equality - Humanity , the secret society Young Europe was created , which sought a democratic Europe of peoples instead of the Europe of princes and kings .

From April 26, 1835 he found refuge with the Girard family in the Bachtelenbad in Grenchen . Here he edited the magazine La jeune Suisse / Die Junge Schweiz . When the pressure from abroad and the Swiss Confederation grew stronger, the voters of Grenchen accepted him on June 12, 1836 as citizens. However, this undertaking was reversed by the Solothurn government. Since the admission took place without prior approval from the Grand Council, the Small Council had to revoke the municipal resolution on July 9th. In August 1836, France demanded the expulsion of Mazzini and all those involved in the Savoy assassination attempt and threatened to close the border hermetically if Switzerland did not respond to the demand. After the introduction of a new foreign agreement by the Diet on August 11, 1836, Mazzini left Grenchen on January 1, 1837 and went to London . There he organized the Italian workers and agitated against foreign rule in Italy. His supporters formed in the Partito d'Azione (German: Party of Action).

In the revolution of 1848/49 (see also Risorgimento ) Mazzini failed with his ideas in Milan . A little later he went to Rome , where the revolutionary unrest had come to a head since mid-1848. After the assassination of the papal prime minister Pellegrino Rossi by revolutionary rebels on November 15, 1848, Pope Pius IX saw himself . on 23/24 On November he had to flee Rome and settled in Gaeta on the coast of Naples-Sicily. On February 9, 1849 Mazzini called the Republic of the Papal States , and as one who was in a leading position triumvirs 1849 together with Carlo Armellini and the Masonic Aurelio Saffi on the short-lived Roman Republic involved. After the violent crackdown by the French military on July 3, 1849, he went to London again. In exile he dealt with the theory of the liberation and unification of other European states and founded the Comitato europeo with Kossuth , Ledru-Rollin and Ruge , which aimed to establish a European republic.

At the beginning of the Sardinian War in May 1859, Mazzini opposed the alliance between Sardinia and France because King Victor Emmanuel II had promised France to cede Savoy and Nice for his support .

In May 1860, Mazzini supported Giuseppe Garibaldi's expedition to liberate Sicily with the so-called “ Train of a Thousand ” and suggested that he also liberate Rome and Venice .

However, he rejected the unification of Italy led by the Prime Minister of Sardinia-Piedmont Camillo Cavour after 1859, which was based on the cooperation of the Piedmontese royal family, the national movement and the alliance with France. He wanted to solve the national question in a democratic way from below. Ultimately, the unification of Italy under Sardinian-Piedmontese leadership, from above, so to speak, prevailed in 1861 as a constitutional monarchy with severely restricted census suffrage and was completed in 1870 with the taking of the Papal States.

In 1870 Mazzini returned to Pisa . Although ultimately unsuccessful in his time in terms of his political (democratic) goals, Mazzini's ideas and activities, with which he was able to mobilize relatively large parts of the petty bourgeoisie , the artisans and workers as a revolutionary force, contributed significantly to the unification of the Italian nation . With his concept of a “Europe of the Nations”, which at the time was still an enthusiastic utopia , Mazzini can be regarded as an early pioneer of the modern European Union .

Mazzini was a freemason and former grand master of the Grande Oriente d'Italia . When he died in 1872, Masonic flags were carried through the streets for the first time at his funeral in Rome. In July 1949, the Italian government invited members of the Grande Oriente d'Italia to take part in the parade and dedicate a statue to Mazzini in Rome. About three thousand Italian Freemasons were present. The erection of the statue was delayed by Mussolini's reign until after the death of Ettore Ferrari , who designed it and who was the former Grand Master of the "Greater Orient of Italy".

In Genoa, in the immediate vicinity of Piazza Corvetto , a square of the same name (Piazzale Giuseppe Mazzini) with a statue is dedicated to Mazzini.

plant

Mazzini monument in Colonnata
  • Giovine Italia manifesto. Marseille 1831 ff. (Further published as a magazine)
  • The Pope and the Italian Question. 1846, it. 1847
  • Fonts. Translated and introduced by L. Assnig. Hamburg 1868
  • Scritti editi e inediti. Rome 1908
  • Political Writings. Translated and introduced by S. Flesch. Leipzig 1911
  • Scritti politici. Edited by T. Grandi / A. Comba. Turin: Unione Tipografico 1972

literature

Web links

Commons : Giuseppe Mazzini  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Giuseppe Mazzini  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fraternization Acts (Young Germany) (PDF) Fraternization Acts (Young Germany)
  2. ^ Adolf Furrer: Giuseppe Mazzini in the Bachtelenbad in Grenchen . In: Yearbook for Solothurn History . tape 26 , 1953, pp. 223-227 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-323800 .
  3. ↑ Urs Zurschmiede: Bachtelen-Bad. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 28, 2013 , accessed June 5, 2019 .
  4. ^ A b Christian Schütt (Ed.): Chronicle of Switzerland . Chronik-Verlag / Ex Libris Verlag, Dortmund / Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-611-00031-0 , p. 379 .
  5. ↑ a b William R. Denslow, Harry S. Truman: 10,000 Famous Freemasons from K to Z, Part Two . Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1-4179-7579-2 .
  6. ^ Robert A. Minder: Freemason Politicians Lexicon . studienverlag.at, ISBN 3-7065-1909-7 .
personal data
SURNAME Mazzini, Giuseppe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Strozzi, Filippo (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian freedom fighter
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Genoa
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1872
Place of death Pisa