Giovanni Amendola

Giovanni Amendola (born April 15, 1882 in Naples , Italy , † April 7, 1926 in Cannes , France ) was an Italian journalist and politician . In the first years of Italian fascism , he was one of the country's most prominent liberal anti-fascists . Amendola died in 1926 as a result of a fascist assassination attempt.

Live and act

Giovanni Amendola was born in Naples to Pietro Amendola and Adelaide Bianchi. He was the oldest of six children and was named after his uncle Giovanni Battista Amendola (1848-1887), who had made a name for himself as a sculptor outside of Italy. Amendola's father Pietro came from Sarno (Campania) in the province of Salerno , where the Amendolas had been based for decades. He had only a very modest education. In 1867 he had taken part in Garibaldi's campaign to Rome as a soldier and was wounded at Monterotondo . He later took part in the fight against brigands in southern Italy as a carabiniere and then moved with his family to Rome, where he found a poorly paid job as a small museum employee.

Amendola grew up in very poor circumstances. In Rome he attended the Istituto Tecnico Superiore after primary school and the Istituto Tecnico , which he left in 1899 with an excellent certificate. At the age of fifteen he became involved in politics for the first time and joined the socialist youth movement. When in 1898 the members of his group continued to hold meetings against the official dissolution order and were arrested, he spent a few days in detention because he had refused to dispense with his socialist convictions in writing. In 1899, Amendola began studying mathematics at the University of Rome . His real inclination, however, was the humanities, especially philosophy. In his free time he was intensively involved in reading philosophical classics, especially Kant and Schopenhauer . He also learned French, English and German, as well as Latin and Greek. He later continued his philosophy studies in Berlin and then at the University of Leipzig , where he attended the lectures of the philosopher Wilhelm Wundt for three months at the end of 1906 . Amendola broke off his studies in Leipzig because he got a post as secretary in the Ministry of Education ( Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione ), which he took up in 1907.

As a young man, Amendola belonged for several years to the circle of the Theosophical Society in Rome, where the Blavatsky student Isabel Cooper-Oakley played a leading role. During this time he mainly dealt with Eastern philosophy and theosophical writings. He met Annie Besant and gave lectures on behalf of the Society in many cities on the aims of the Theosophists. In 1905 Amendola left the Theosophical Society with a group of friends. In autumn 1909 he took over the management of the Biblioteca Filosofica in Florence , which had emerged from the city's former theosophical library. The library was a central meeting point and forum for the city's intellectuals at the beginning of the 20th century. It not only offered books and magazines, but also organized series of lectures, readings and discussions on topics of philosophy and religion and published its own newsletter ( Bollettino ). Amendola's friends Giovanni Papini , Franz Brentano and Giovanni Gentile , to name but a few, were among the numerous intellectuals who lectured and participated in discussions in the library. Amendola presented there u. a. his work Maine de Biran (1911). Along with Papini, Guido Ferrando, Roberto Assagioli , Mario Calderoni, Piero Marrucchi and others, he also belonged to a philosophy circle ( Circolo di filosofia ) that met regularly in the library.

From 1909 to 1912 lived Amendola in Florence, where he worked for Giuseppe Prezzolinis magazine La Voce wrote. He had previously written several articles for Giovanni Papini's Leonardo . With Papini he was also the founder and author of the monthly L'Anima in 1911 , which was discontinued after twelve issues. In his work for these cultural magazines Amendola dealt primarily with topics of philosophy. In the summer of 1912 he turned to political journalism and went to Rome as a correspondent for the Bolognese daily Il Resto del Carlino . In the following year he also became a private lecturer in philosophy at the University of Pisa , but did not continue his academic career after a brief teaching activity. Shortly before the outbreak of war, Luigi Albertini brought him to Corriere della Sera in Milan , for which he worked until the end of 1920, initially as a political correspondent and later as head of the Roman editorial team of the paper.

During the First World War , Amendola supported the Italian interventionists, who spoke out against the neutrality of Italy and demanded that the country participate in the war. After Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente in May 1915, Amendola took part in the war as an artillery officer. He achieved the rank of captain and received an award for bravery. In 1917 he retired from military service in order to devote himself to his journalistic work again.

Towards the end of the war, Amendola was very committed to cooperation between Italy and the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary, who were striving for independence . After the 14-point program of American President Wilson in January 1918, he spoke out in favor of an expansion of the program and called for the destruction of the Danube monarchy as one of the Allied war goals. He advocated the right of Austria-Hungary to self-determination and advocated an independent Czechoslovakia , an independent Poland and an independent Yugoslavia . From April 8 to 11, 1918, with the support of the Italian government under Prime Minister Orlando, the Congress of the Peoples Oppressed by Austria-Hungary took place in Rome , in which Amendola and the Corriere della Sera had played a major role. Amendola was part of the Italian organizing committee and was one of the delegates along with over thirty Italian MPs, senators and publicists. For this congress, representatives of the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Romanians and Southern Slavs (Croats, Slovenes and Serbs) in exile, including some of the most important leaders of the independence movements such as Edvard Beneš , Milan Štefánik and Ante Trumbić, gathered alongside the Italians . The Congress passed a joint final declaration, the so-called Pact of Rome ( Patto di Roma ), in which the right of every people to their own nation-state was affirmed. The Italian and Yugoslav delegations reached a special agreement on a friendly solution to the pending territorial disputes in the Adriatic region on the basis of the right of peoples to self-determination and the principle of nationality.

After the victory of the Allies, the peace negotiations in Paris led to a deep split in supporters of war because of Italy's territorial claims . Amendola and democratic interventionists were nationalists and fascists as "waiver politicians" ( renunciatori defamed) because they were ready for territorial gains to compromise. It was mainly about Dalmatia and Fiume (today Rijeka ), which the Foreign Minister Sonnino had also claimed, contrary to the London Treaty (1915) . Italy failed with these demands due to President Wilson's resistance.

In November 1919 Amendola was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies . He ran on a liberal democratic list in the province of Salerno, where he was re-elected in 1921 and 1924. Until the fascists under Benito Mussolini came to power in October 1922 , Amendola belonged to several governments: In Nitti's second cabinet (May / June 1920) he was Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Finance for a few weeks. From February to October 1922 he took over the post of Colonial Minister in the last two liberal governments under Luigi Facta .

On the eve of the March on Rome, Mussolini attacked Amendola, Interior Minister Paolino Taddei and Justice Minister Giulio Alessio as the main opponents of fascism in the government. All three were staunch advocates of army intervention against the fascists. The decree finally passed by the Cabinet Facta on the imposition of the state of siege, however, was not signed by King Vittorio Emanuele III , he made Mussolini Prime Minister.

In January 1922, Amendola was one of the founders of the Roman daily newspaper Il Mondo with Andrea Torre and Giovanni Ciraolo .

In his article Maggioranza e minoranza (Eng. Majority and Minority), which dealt with the abuse of regional electoral procedures by the fascists and appeared in Il Mondo on May 12, 1923 , Giovanni Amendola first described fascism as "sistema totalitario", the strive for "absolute and uncontrolled rule". He is therefore considered to be the founder of the totalitarian theory .

After the assassination of the socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti by squadrists , Amendola became a leading politician of the opposition Aventinians .

In 1925, at the suggestion of Amendola , the philosopher Benedetto Croce wrote the Manifesto of the Antifascist Intellectuals (Italian Manifesto degli intellettuali antifascisti ), which was published on May 1, 1925 in Il Mondo . In addition to Amendola, the more than one hundred signatories included well-known names such as the writers Sibilla Aleramo , Eugenio Montale and Matilde Serao as well as the economist and later Italian President Luigi Einaudi . The manifesto was a counter-speech to Giovanni Gentile's manifesto of the fascist intellectuals to the intellectuals of all nations (Italian: Manifesto degli intellettuali italiani fascisti agli intellettuali di tutte le nazioni ), which had been published on April 21, 1925 in almost all Italian newspapers. This fascist manifesto was publicly supported by around 250 Italian intellectuals. a. the writer Curzio Malaparte , the playwright Luigi Pirandello and the futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti belonged.

Like many opposition politicians and journalists, Amendola was subjected to a systematic campaign of intimidation with death threats and violent attacks by the fascists. The first time he was ambushed and beaten up by squadrists in Rome on December 26, 1923 . The fatal assassination attempt took place on July 21, 1925 near Montecatini Terme . Among those behind this attack was the member of parliament Carlo Scorza , fascist leader ( Ras ) of the province of Lucca and in 1943 the last secretary of the fascist party (PNF) . In Montecatini, Amendola was besieged and threatened by several hundred black shirts in his hotel for hours . With the promise to get him to safety, Scorza lured Amendola into an ambush, where he was badly mistreated by a fascist group of thugs. After months of illness and an unsuccessful operation in Paris , Amendola died a few weeks after Piero Gobetti of the long-term effects of this attack.

A few days before Montecatini, the opposition members of the Aventine had protested against Emilio De Bono's acquittal with a manifesto . De Bono, police chief at the time of the Matteotti murder , had been acquitted of allegations of involvement in the crime in proceedings before the Italian Senate as the Supreme Court ( Alta Corte di Giustizia ). According to Amendola's son Giorgio, the fatal assassination attempt on his father was in retaliation for this protest by the Aventine.

According to the will of the family and his friends, Amendola was only to return to Italy after the end of fascism. In 1928 he was given his own grave in Cannes, with the inscription "Giovanni Amendola lives and waits here" . In April 1950 his remains were transferred to Italy and buried in the Poggioreale cemetery in Naples.

The perpetrators of the Montecatini attack were arrested in 1944 and sentenced to long prison terms in 1947 in a trial before the jury ( Corte di Assise ) in Pistoia . Two years later, her sentences were reduced on appeal before the Perugia jury . As a result, the crime fell under an amnesty and the perpetrators were released after five years in prison. The courts confirmed what the treating French doctors had found in a 1926 report: Amendola's death was a direct result of the mistreatment in the summer of 1925. This corrected the allegation launched by the fascists that Amendola had died of an incurable disease.

Immediately after Mussolini's arrest, the first piazza in Salerno was named after Amendola in August 1943 ; today numerous streets and squares in Italian cities bear his name. The Social Insurance Institute of Italian Journalists ( Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza dei Giornalisti Italiani "Giovanni Amendola", INPGI ) is named after him. A monument to Amendola was erected in Salerno in 1953. Another memorial is located at the site of the 1925 attack.

family

Amendola was married to the Lithuanian- born Russian intellectual Eva Kühn (1880–1961) since 1906 . The couple met in 1903 in the Roman branch of the Theosophical Society. His wife became known as a literary translator and belonged to the circle of Futurists around Filippo Tommaso Marinetti . In recognition of Amendola's services, the Italian Chamber of Deputies awarded his widow a pension by separate law in 1950. The couple had four children: Giorgio, Ada, Antonio and Pietro. The eldest son Giorgio Amendola (1907–1980) became a resistance fighter against Italian fascism and National Socialism . In the post-war period he was a leading politician in the Italian Communist Party . Amendola's youngest son Pietro (1918–2007) also joined the anti-fascist resistance and from 1948 sat for two decades as a member of the Italian Parliament for the Communists.

Texts by Giovanni Amendola (online)

Excerpts from the book La Nuova Democrazia. Discorsi Politici (1919-1925) . Riccardo Ricciardi Publishing House, 1976

• Per una nuova democrazia July 10, 1925 (ital.)
• Il Manifesto dell'Unione Nazionale November 1924 (ital.)

Works

• La volontà è il bene. Libreria Editrice Romana, Rome 1911 (philosophical writing)
• Maine de Biran . Quattrini, Florence 1911 (philosophical writing)
• La Categoria. Appunti critici sullo svolgimento della dottrina delle Categorie da Kant a noi, Bologna 1913 (philosophical writing, submitted on the occasion of taking on a private lectureship in philosophy at the University of Pisa )
• Il Patto di Roma . Scritti di Giovanni Amendola, Giuseppe A. Borgese , Ugo Ojetti, Andrea Torre. With a foreword by Francesco Ruffini. Quaderni della "Voce", Rome 1919 (about the "Congress of the Oppressed Peoples in Austria-Hungary" of April 1918 in Rome, co-organized by Amendola)
• Una battaglia liberale. Discorsi politici (1919-1923). Piero Gobetti Editore, Turin 1924 (selection of speeches 1919–1923)
• La democrazia dopo il VI aprile MCMXXIV. Corbaccio, Milan 1924; Reprint: Arnaldo Forni Editore, Bologna 1976 (Amendola's texts on the parliamentary elections on April 6, 1924, including his speech in the Camera dei deputati of June 6, 1924)
• Giulio Alessio, Giovanni Amendola, Roberto Bencivenga et al .: Per una nuova democrazia. Relazioni e discorsi al I ° Congresso dell'Unione Nazionale. Rome 1925; Reprint: Arnaldo Forni Editore, Bologna 1976, vol. 52 of the series "Archivio Storico del Movimento Liberale Italiano" ( contains, in addition to Amendola's foreword, his programmatic speech on the "Unione Nazionale" given at the 1925 Congress )
• La democrazia italiana contro il fascismo (1922-1924). Ricciardi, Milan-Naples 1960 (selection of articles from "Il Mondo")
• La crisi dello stato liberale. Scritti politici dalla guerra di Libia all'opposizione al fascismo. ed. and with an introduction by Elio D 'Auria, Newton Compton Editori, Rome 1974 (selection of 125 articles from the newspapers "Il Resto del Carlino" and "Corriere della Sera", a few from "Il Mondo")
• Discorsi politici (1919-1925). ed. by Sabato Visco, with a foreword by S. Pertini, Camera dei deputati, Rome 1968

Translations

• George Berkeley : Saggio di una nuova teoria della visione. Translated from English and given an introduction by Giovanni Amendola, Carabba, Lanciano 1920. (New edition 1974, ISBN 88-88340-04-1 )
• John Ruskin : Le fonti della ricchezza (Unto this last). Translated from English and provided with a foreword by Giovanni Amendola, Voghera, Rome 1908.

Correspondence

• Carteggio Croce - Amendola, ed. by Roberto Pertici, Istituto italiano per gli studi storici, Naples 1982, ISBN 88-15-01597-3 .

The five-volume complete edition of Amendola's correspondence is edited by Elio D'Auria:

• Carteggio 1897-1909. Laterza, Bari-Rom 1986 ISBN 88-420-2704-9 .
• Carteggio 1910-1912. Laterza, Bari-Rom 1987 ISBN 88-420-2927-0 .
• Carteggio 1913-1918. Lacaita, Manduria-Rom 1999 ISBN 88-87280-03-7 .
• Carteggio 1919-1922. Lacaita, Manduria-Rom 2003 ISBN 88-88546-16-2 .
• Carteggio 1923-1924. Lacaita, Manduria-Rom 2006 ISBN 88-89506-48-2 .

literature

• Giorgio Amendola: Una scelta di vita. Rizzoli Editore, Milan 1976 ISBN 88-17-12610-1 (autobiography of the eldest Amendola son, basic biographical literature).
• Eva Kühn-Amendola: Vita con Giovanni Amendola. Epistolario 1903-1926. Parenti, Florence 1960 (memories of Amendola's wife with extensive correspondence, basic biographical literature).
• Jens Petersen : The emergence of the term totalitarianism in Italy , German first published in 1978, reprinted in: Eckhard Jesse (Ed.): Totalitarismus im 20. Jahrhundert. A balance sheet of international research. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1999, ISBN 3-7890-5954-4 , pp. 95–117 (fundamental to the coining of the term “totalitarian” by Amendola).
• Antonio Sarubbi: Il Mondo di Amendola e Cianca e il crollo delle istituzioni liberali (1922–1926) , Franco Angeli, Milan 1986; extended new edition: Milan 1998, ISBN 978-88-464-0514-2 (to Amendola's newspaper "Il Mondo")
• Soprintendenza Archivistica per la Campania: Atti del Convegno “Giovanni Amendola. Una vita per la democrazia ”. Edited by Maria Rosaria De Divitiis. Arte Tipografica, Naples 1999 (contains more than 30 texts mainly by historians on Amendola).

Filmography

• Il Duce and his fascists, in color. Part 1: The seizure of power , 50 min., Part 2: In power , 52 min., Documentary, Great Britain, director: Chris Oxley, production: arte , first broadcast: February 14 and 21, 2007, table of contents, part 1 and part 2 from arte, review in the Tagesspiegel

The courage and bravery of Amendola and his fate play a not insignificant role in the documentary.

Web links

• Amendola's last photograph after the Montecatini assassination attempt (taken in Paris in 1925)
• Photographs from the Amendola archive (compiled for the exhibition accompanying the Amendola conference Giovanni Amendola. Una vita per la democrazia on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of his death in Naples and Salerno in October 1996, accompanying text in Italian)
• Newspaper article about Giovanni Amendola in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In some sources Salerno and Rome are also given as the place of birth. However, Amendola's birth certificate and his baptismal certificate name Naples. Both documents were published during an Amendola meeting in 1996. A facsimile of Giovanni Battista Ernesto Amendola's baptismal certificate can be found in: Soprintendenza Archivistica per la Campania : Atti del Convegno Giovanni Amendola. Una vita per la democrazia , ed. by Maria Rosaria De Divitiis, Arte Tipografica, Naples 1999
2. ^ Giorgio Amendola: Una scelta di vita , Milan 1976, pp. 10-12.
3. ^ Eva Kühn-Amendola: Vita con Giovanni Amendola , Florence 1960, pp. 14-15.
4. ↑ On Amendola and the Theosophical Society, cf. Clementina Gily Reda: L'esperienza teosofica di Giovanni Amendola , in: Atti del Convegno Giovanni Amendola. Una vita per la democrazia , Naples 1999, pp. 251-265; also online as a PDF document in the Giornale di Filosofia Italiana (No. 9 and 11/2008), Part 1: Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 193 kB) and Part 2: [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 97 kB).   
5. ↑ In detail on the activities of the library: Liliana Albertazzi: Immanent Realism. An Introduction to Brentano , Springer, 2006, pp. 29-31.
6. ↑ The journals L'Anima , Leonardo and La Voce were partially digitally recorded in the Catalogo Informatico Riviste Culturali Europee (CIRCE) of the University of Trento. Amendola's magazine L'Anima and its 11 articles from this sheet can already be read in full on the CIRCE homepage: [2] .
7. ↑ The Italian delegation included well-known representatives of all interventionist factions from the far left to the far right, including Mussolini and leading nationalists such as Luigi Federzoni . They too voted in favor of the final declaration and the Italian-Yugoslav agreement negotiated with the Yugoslavs.
8. ^ Amendola on the reorientation of Italian politics aimed at with the Rome Pact in a campaign speech from May 1919: Giovanni Amendola: Il Patto di Roma e la "polemica" . (Discorso tenuto da Giovanni Amendola, il 18 maggio 1919, agli elettori del Collegio di Mercato S. Severino ), Tipografia Fischetti, Sarno 1919. Online in the Internet archive: [3]
9. ↑ Mussolini's speech of October 24, 1922 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples , cited above. among others in: Antonio Sarubbi: Il Mondo di Amendola e Cianca e il crollo delle istituzioni liberali 1922–1926 , Franco Angeli, Milan 1986, p. 85. One day after Mussolini's speech, Sarubbi adds, armed squadrists devastated the editorial rooms of Amendola's newspaper Il Mondo in Naples.
10. ↑ cit. based on Jens Petersen, The History of Totalitarism in Italy, in: Hans Maier (Ed.), Totalitarismus und Politische Religionen , Paderborn 1996, pp. 15–35, here p. 20.
11. ↑ Giorgio Amendola, Una scelta di vita , Milan 1976, pp. 127-129.
12. ^ Gobetti died three days after Amendola's last operation in the same Paris clinic where Amendola was treated. The year before, Gobetti had published an article in his magazine in which he defended Amendola, who was exposed to criticism from all sides after the failure of the Aventine : Piero Gobetti: Amendola , in La Rivoluzione Liberale of May 31, 1925; online: [4]
13. ^ Giorgio Amendola: Una scelta di vita , Milan 1976, p. 127.
14. ↑ The stone slab with Roberto Bracco's words "Qui vive Giovanni Amendola aspettando" can be found today at Amendola's final resting place in Naples.
15. ↑ The former PNF secretary Carlo Scorza, who was also accused , managed to escape to Argentina after the end of the war. The Pistoia jury sentenced Scorza in absentia to 30 years in prison, but he was later also given amnesty. He returned to Italy in the 1960s, where he died in 1988 at the age of 91.
16. ↑ Judgments of the jury courts of Pistoia and Perugia reported in: Giorgio Amendola, Una scelta di vita , Milan 1976, p. 129.
17. ^ Inauguration of the monument to Giovanni Amendola in Salerno on October 18, 1953 (photograph from the commemorative exhibition Giovanni Amendola e la Città di Salerno from May 2009): [5]
18. ↑ Memorial stone for Giovanni Amendola near Montecatini, erected in 1965 by the municipalities of Montecatini Terme , Pieve a Nievole and Monsummano Terme , (photograph of the monument and text of the inscription): Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
19. ↑ Cover ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
20. ↑ Piero Gobetti reprinted Amendola's preface to this volume of speeches in his weekly La Rivoluzione Liberale (No. 11/1924). The text can be found in the digital archive of the magazine: Giovanni Amendola, Una battaglia liberale. Rome March 2nd 1924
21. ↑ Reference on the pages of the Camera dei Deputati ( Memento of the original of November 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.