L'autunno dell'Italia liberale: una discussione su guerra civile, origini del fascismo e storiografia "nazionale"

L'articolo ripercorre la parabola storiografica di Roberto Vivarelli e l'articolazione della sua interpretazione sul fascismo, dedicando la seconda parte ad una discussione critica su nuovi possibili approcci europei comparati alle origini del fascismo. Starting from the critical review of the third volume of Roberto Vivarelli’s Origini del fascismo, this essay outlines the intellectual itinerary and the historiographical contribution of the controversial historian. Vivarelli, who always proclaimed his faith in the ideals of «democratic interventionism» and in the 1990s revealed and reclaimed his youthful engagement with the Fascist Republic of Salò, devoted all of his academic life to understading the origins of Fascism. His research focused on controversial points such as the ideological legacy of Great War, the role of revolutionary socialism in the crisis of liberal state, the «civil war» between socialists and fascists. After discussing analitycally all of these points, this essay critically assesses the limits of the prevailing nation-centered approach to the Italian involvement in the Great War and to Fascism. An overview of recent international historiography on the connections between Great War, Russian Revolutions and their aftermath shows how the current interpretations of the Italian first post-war period, observed through a broader European lens, need to be profoundly revised.