L'Uomo qualunque
L'Uomo qualunque (German meaning "Jedermann") was an Italian magazine. With the Fronte dell'Uomo Qualunque (UQ, "Jedermann-Front") a short-lived political movement or party emerged in which many supporters and followers of the fascist regime found a new political home immediately after the Second World War .
magazine
The first issue of the magazine appeared in Rome on December 27, 1944 . The editor and most important author was Guglielmo Giannini , who emerged as a writer, journalist and screenwriter in the 1920s and 1930s. L'Uomo qualunque polemicized with a mixture of aggressive vulgar language, political commentary and political satire against “ideologies” and “those up there”, but especially against liberal, socialist and communist anti-fascists; the magazine's motto was Abbasso tutti! ("Down with everyone!").
Giannini avoided pro-fascist statements and specifically ridiculed Mussolini as buffone di Predappio (“fool from Predappio”), but turned against the “presumptuousness” of the liberation committees and the persecution of the “small fascists” as part of the epurazione ; among the anti-fascists the “little man” is just as free of rights as among the fascists. The magazine was an immediate success, its circulation increased from an initial 25,000 to over 800,000 in August 1945.
Political party
From the UQ groups, which emerged more or less spontaneously in autumn 1945 , especially in central and southern Italy, where the shipowner Achille Lauro and the clergy supported the movement, among others , a political party developed, which held its first congress in Rome in February 1946 held. Giannini was her fondatore ("founder"). His contributions and speeches were now given an openly conservative and monarchist tinge and adopted phrases from the former fascist propaganda. In the run-up to the referendum on the form of government on June 2, 1946, the UQ took part in the campaign to maintain the monarchy. In the constituent assembly election on the same day, the party received 1.2 million votes (5.27%). In November 1946, it did particularly well in the municipal elections in the south, for example in Palermo (the strongest party here), Bari , Catania , Salerno , Messina and Lecce .
The rapid decline of the UQ began when, after initial hesitation, the Church decided to commit itself entirely to the Democrazia Cristiana in 1947 and the DC began to attack the UQ. In addition, the MSI , an openly neo-fascist party, was formed in December 1946 and addressed the same electorate. In the parliamentary election on April 18, 1948 , the UQ joined the liberal party, which had moved to the right, as Blocco Nazionale , which received only 3.8% of the vote. Soon after, the organization fell apart.
The term qualunquismo has become a generic term for “apolitical”, right-wing protest movements in Italy, comparable to Poujadism in France.
literature
- Sandra Setta: L'Uomo qualunque 1944–1948 . Bari 1975.
Individual evidence
- ^ Giovanni Tiso: The Common Man's Front . In: Overland , July 10, 2013.
- ↑ Gianpietro Mazzoleni: Mediatization and Political Populism. In: Frank Esser, Jesper Strömbäck: Mediatization of Politics. Understanding the Transformation of Western Democracies. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke (Hampshire) 2014, 42–56, here pp. 44–45.