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Hungarian prisoners of war in L'Aquila (1915-1919)
183-197Views:314The aim of this paper is to present the life of Hungarian prisoners of war in the internment camps of L’Aquila, a city situated in the central part of Italy, during and after the Great War. The POWs were first detained in the caserma Castello (Castle barracks), which is a 16th-century fortress where units of the Italian Army were stationing as well at that time. This made it possible for the POWs to lead a relatively idyllic life, whose various aspects are examined in the paper, such as nutrition, accommodation, clothing, correspondence, religious life, daily routine and employment. The sources used include archival documents, two memoirs of ex-POWs and newspaper articles. The comfortable life of the POWs was dimmed by the lack of their families and the Homeland, the idleness and certain infectious diseases. From the summer of 1916, the prisoners were employed in agricultural and industrial works outside the prison camp and were hence transferred from the fortress to barracks and unused churches. It is unknown when the last Hungarian POW left L’Aquila, and yet one of them is proven to have been there still in July 1919.
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Hungarian POWs in Padula during the First World War
Views:298The prisoner of war camp of Padula, Italy, operated during World War One in a large Carthusian Monastery and barracks, has been the topic of several Italian, Czech and Slovakian studies, as it was one of the greatest Italian camps and served as the centre for the creation of the Czechoslovak Legion. However, thousands of its detainees were Hungarian, whose life has barely been discussed. This paper aims to present the life of Hungarian POWs held in Padula. With the help of sources pertaining to them, such as letters and memoirs, it is possible to deeply examine four aspects: religion, health, complaints and employment. Another aim of the study is to make a list of the Hungarian prisoners.
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The Last Mother: From Enrico Pau’s L’accabadora (2015) to Valeria Golino’s Miele (2013)
85-95Views:275L'accabadora, is a Sardinian term deriving from the Spanish word 'acabar' which means to finish or complete. It refers to a female figure in Sardinian popular tradition, 'the last mother', an angel of mercy who assists the terminally ill in leaving the world. In this paper I explore variations of this female figure in two contemporary films. Enrico Pau's film L'accabadora set in pre- and World War II Sardinia, revolves around a protagonist (Annetta) who is a direct descendant of this Sardinian tradition. The second film, Valerio Golino's Miele, proposes what might be considered a contemporary variant of the Sardinian folk figure. While the tabu subject of euthanasia certainly forms the backdrop to the films, what is foregrounded is the isolation and alienation of the female protagonists who carry out care-giving roles tied to death. Torn between the conviction that the tasks they perform as “last mothers” console or provide final moments of serenity to the dying and an intangible discomfort with their execution of the task, they remain seemingly haunted by their roles, exhibiting an unease that arises from societal discomfort with administering death and a profession that requires that they direct their care to the dying rather than to the living. The representation of the films’ protagonists, their framing and the construction of the journeys they undertake, turn both films into narratives of self-discovery, motivated by encounters with others and otherness, and visually configured by the physical mobility across transformed geo-political landscapes that is central to the films.
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Friulians in the Hungarian industry: a focus on the city of Debrecen
124-145Views:228Emigration played a significant role in the history of the north Italian Friuli for centuries. Since the Middle Age, Friulian emigration was characterized mainly by the movement of itinerant vendors (the so-called cramârs) to the German territories. However, the most noteworthy Friulian migration movement dates back to the fifty years preceding the First World War, when the growing labor market caused by the European industrial development required workers in enormous quantities. During these decades, the AustroHungarian Empire became the main destination of the movement, but the primacy of Austria was surpassed by Hungary in the years between 1892 and 1894. The mass migration in the area (occurring until the outbreak of the First World War) caused lasting changes in the Hungarian industry. The historical sources demonstrate that the presence of the Friulians was significant especially in some sectors, such as construction industry and meat processing. The Friulian companies active in the meat industry during this period had a profound effect on the diffusion and success of a new product: the salami. It should be emphasized that alongside Budapest and Szeged, home of the famous Pick salami, Debrecen also had a pivotal role in this process with its two factories of the Boschetti and Vidoni family and their migrant workers.
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Apollinaire and Ungaretti: towards the "fall" of modernity
96-118Views:225The relationship of esteem and affinity between Apollinaire and Ungaretti involves both biographical and literary levels. While critics have plentifully probed the direct biographical relationships – starting with the encounter of the poets in 1913 – and followed the progress of their friendship during the years of the First World War, the indirect contacts, i.e. those prior to Ungaretti’s arrival in Paris in 1912, would still seem unexplored. Moreover, over the years, various thematic connections have also been proposed; however, certain other thematic and textual tangencies could still reserve new and profitable insights into their hermeneutic key to modernity.
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Populism: A Controversial Historiographical Category
80-94Views:330The note stems from the need to carry out a survey on recent international literature dedicated to populism, starting above all from the considerations contained in The Populist Temptation by Eichengreen, and in From Fascism to Populism in History by Finchelstein, as well as the results from the Oxford Handbook of Populism, edited by Rovira Kaltwasser, Taggart, Ochoa Espejo and Ostiguy. The contrasting reflections recorded around a phenomenon so debated allow to delineate the elements, that justify the introduction of a historiographical category in its own right and to project some definitions on the entire history of the Italian political system. The intention of this overview is to construct a catalog of the various interpretations of populism that have emerged in recent years. It is noteworthy that in the years following World War II until the present day, publications on populism have been produced in a discontinuous fashion, thus rendering the subject even more elusive and unclassifiable.