Ministry of Popular Culture (Italy)
The Ministry of Popular Culture ( it. Ministero della Cultura Popolare , short “Minculpop”) took over the content control of the press, literature, the visual arts, the film, the theater, the music and the radio in the Kingdom of Italy in the time of fascism as well as the promotion of tourism . In the short-lived Italian Social Republic , an organization of the same name exercised control over culture and the mass media .
history
After the march on Rome and the takeover of government, Benito Mussolini set up the Ufficio Stampa della presidenza del Consiglio (press office of the head of government) at the end of 1922 . In 1933 his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano took over the management of this office as press spokesman. Impressed by Joseph Goebbels' new Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , Ciano had his press office upgraded to the State Secretariat for Press and Propaganda in September 1934, and then to the Ministry of Press and Propaganda in June 1935. Under Ciano's successor Dino Alfieri , it was expanded and renamed the Ministry of Popular Culture on May 22, 1937. From 1939 to 1943 Alessandro Pavolini headed the ministry. After the Fascist government was ousted in July 1943, the ministry in the Allied-controlled Kingdom of Italy continued to exist until it was definitively dissolved on April 22, 1944. In the Italian Social Republic established under German control in northern Italy, a ministry of the same name existed from September 23, 1943 to April 25, 1945 under the leadership of Ferdinando Mezzasoma .
organization
In 1936 the ministry was divided into the following general directorates (departments):
- General Directorate for the Italian Press
- General Directorate for the Foreign Press
- General Directorate for Propaganda
- General Directorate for Film (with Cinecittà and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia )
- General Directorate for Tourism (with subordinate tourist offices)
- General Directorate for Theater
- General Directorate for the Istituto Luce (cinema)
- General Directorate for the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico
- General Directorate for the State Disco (records)
- General Management for the Hotel Credit Committee
literature
- Gianfranco Arcangeli: La cattura della ragione. Aspetti della propaganda fascista. Nuova Spada Editrice, Rome 1979.
- Guido Bonsaver: Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2007.
- Arrigo Petacco : Pavolini: l'ultima raffica di Salò . Mondadori, Milan 1982.