Il Primato dell’Europa nel fascismo degli anni Trenta e Quaranta

The "Primato" of Europe in the fascism of the Thirties and Forties

Abstract

Unlike what is commonly believed, fascism was not a political phenomenon ended in a closed nationalism and limited to a purely imperialist dimension. The debate on European unity, almost unanimously considered a product of the same European history and civilization, was very intense and thorough, especially in the Thirties and Forties. Conferences and books analyzed all the elements that still precluded a continental unification and, among these, was identified a conception enclosed within national borders, both politically and culturally. With his public speeches and his magazines, Giuseppe Bottai was among those who, after an initial uncertainty, supported the “eurofascist” perspective. In particular, the analysis of Primato allows to limit a perspective otherwise difficult to circumscribe, and to focus the debate on European unity, at the time when the Second World War dramatically demonstrated the collision between the continents.