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150 years (2)

GIUSEPPE GOVONE

general

This is the equestrian monument to General Joseph Govone [1825, Isola d'Asti / 1872, Alba] which is beautiful (?) shows itself in Piazza Savona to Alba.

And 'one of many examples that characterize the monumentomania or statuomania of which are affected the Italian ruling classes [and French]. The original of this bronze monument was inaugurated November 10, 1929 in the middle of fascism to reaffirm the masculinity and heroism of the general and, of course, fascism itself. Ten years after World War II decreed the first "burial" of the monument, which in fact was sent to foundry obtaining guns. I was not happy the author, sculptor Arturo Stagliano [on him see: A. Panzetta, Arturo Stagliano 1867-1936. sculptures and drawings, Renaissance, Rivoli, 1999], for "luck" his death in '36.

But the statue of Govone resurrected in 2000 when the City decides to use the plaster cast kept in storage for municipal and resubmit it, and recast the statue. The monument was inaugurated in 2006. The virility and heroism are no longer on the agenda. So why propose it again? To show a "glory local "? to indicate, for example to the younger generation? Why an equestrian monument in a square is a good figure?

Joseph Govone is a A complex set of military, secret agent, minister of war of a united, husband of tender letters to his wife that ends with " My dear friend, my advice, my love " and "war criminal" as Some historians have called, of suicide, at age 47, no longer holds the weight of life. ; Fortunately we now have an excellent historical reconstruction due to Marco Scardigli , The desk of the general. The epic novel of the Risorgimento general Govone , UTET Library, Turin, 2006, preceded by a historical novel Giorgio Boatto i, Sky Our , Baldini & Castoldi, Milano, 1997.

In a conference dedicated to Govone held ten years ago Isola d'Asti, the birthplace of General, I gave the report which I reproduce below:

Briganti and Generali. A hint of "internal orientalism"

"Do withdraw the guns from the Grand Gard and Nigra do not forget that the Neapolitans are Orientals do not understand that the strength "(1) Nino Bixio wrote in a letter to Cavour of 6 January 1861. This expression gave life to a discursive practice in which were submitted and deposited in the following decades, images and representations of the South as something else. Basing, unknowingly, a internal orientalism that characterized the subsequent history of Italy.

" That perception has been expressed in various ways [...]: the Oriental is irrational, decayed (or worse, degenerate) child and "different", as well as the European is rational, virtuous, mature, "normal". To mitigate the severity of this view came almost always a statement that the East lives in a different world than the western, but organized and with its own internal coherence, a world with its geographical and political boundaries, cultural and epistemological. However, what gives transparency and intelligibility to the world is not the result of a self-awareness East, but a complex series of cognitive and transformative identity with which the West from the East "says Edward Said (2 ) in a text that has changed the profile of historical studies. In more than twenty years, Said's thesis have fertilized a discussion and production of speech that almost has no equal, although in Italy if they have heard only a vague reflection (3).

The device identified by Said can be usefully applied to the system of knowledge put to work when the Italian nation has not only courted but actually built . A body of theoretical and imaginative, but also a framework that encourages acts of government and administration, often, indeed, determines them.

" art of government that was well worth it The distinctive of this wonderfully vague and restless people, but languishing in his own restlessness, led by its nature Eastern not sure that an indefinite of all, especially to worship rest, to seek compensation for his sufferings in the pleasures of quiet domestic " [emphasis mine] wrote the Journal Turin of 6 January 1861 (4), speaking of the Neapolitans and their relationship with the government Bourbon.

" But, my friend, that these countries have never, Molise and Terra di Lavoro! What barbarism! Other than Italy! This is Africa: the Bedouins, a finding of Caffoni these are cream of civic virtues " still writes to Cavour Luigi Carlo Farini in 1860, while he was head of administration of the South during the early control of Piedmont (5) . The successful trial of South Africa = , which fertilize the popular imagination in the decades that followed, is proposed by A. White of St. Jorio z " Here we are among a population that, while in Italy and Italian born, seems to belong to the primitive tribes of Africa " (6) and the Piedmont newspaper," wrote Nigra from Naples to Cavour: 'I Nigra, and hence I have sent among blacks. Better, a thousand times better than the blacks of South '" (7)

An Africa unknown, but because of this effective model of negative reference. As a member of the committee of inquiry into the robbery, Nino Bixio wrote to his wife from San Severo in Puglia " ... before these countries reach the state of civilization in which we are only, need years and years long [...] This is a country short that we should destroy or at least send them to depopulate Africa and to be civil " (8).

A South abbruttito, corrupt, "African", that is the worst and lowest "different" that the European consciousness had produced and developed since the classical arrangement undertaken by universal human Hegel in the Philosophy of History.

While it is unified, conquering it, you discover Italy. A story line that takes shape in the words and historical reconstructions, producing an object that is not the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but the South. A real territory and at the same imaginary time. " The inhabitant of the Orient was primarily an Oriental, and only secondarily a human being " (9). On this basis, it also installs in Italy a cartographic imagination that more South "goes down" over the North "is about":

" L in our annexation with Naples and with those provinces plague-stricken and broken by despotism more absurd is already a bold experience! we do, but at least with our strength, our courage with the largest, with our superior intelligence and moral superiority, with our experience and our character, we can hope to tame " wrote Diomede Pantaleon ia Cavour November 6, 1860 (10). The contrast between South" barbaric "and North" civilized and civilizing "is not limited to a spatial metaphor, but as a device requires knowledge and action. " In any case the merger with the Neapolitans scares me, is like going to bed with a smallpox" replies Massimo d'Azeglio (11) .

participate in this projection are also reports "apolitical", so to can be said of players from the bottom of the Italian unification. Antonio Quaglia Piedmont is a target that keeps a diary of his participation as a mere military in the fight against banditry. "The People Napolitano is a People piutosto villas, you idiot, he is ignorant, but left the Noble Lord, but on the lower classes do not have to Nula bono, are cruel, stupid, and ignorant, and villas, is immoral, and like so much. Do not just say the Naples, but of the whole kingdom Napolitano " (12).

The Italians North, but not only them, they discover that Italy has its own Balkans, an open air museum in which to test their knowledge also (13). "Archaic" and "primitiveness" of South stimulate a debate on "two races" inhabited Italy, the "substrate ethnic" that characterizes them. In the decades since this look to Italy for training evolve into a real racial theory developed by the positivist school (14). " ... could be determined for a general principle, that popular poetry is the spontaneous creation of the race that sings, responds to the poetic feeling and beauty of this race and its ethnic character is a special of the same. Applying this Italy principle, as we found in the two parts of the peninsula, the substrate of different races, different dialects and two trunks, so we have to find you and you are perfectly matching, two species of popular poetry clearly separated, not only to external characters we have already mentioned, but also for the internal fonts, or for the content. In fact, the poetic content of the strambotti as starlings, which are the less popular poetry of Italy, it is also different from that of songs, which are the heritage of Upper poetic, as the external form of each is far from that of other " (15). The words of Costantino Nigra , Which in 1861 was secretary of the Prince of Carignano in Naples, add, linguist and "folklore", the 1888 edition of the popular songs of the Piedmont collected starting from 1854. The connotation Italy "inferior" and "superiority" not only expresses a given geographical representation but sets out a moral civilization.

robbers

Louis Alonzo, said Chiavone
against whom he fought Govone

complex mixture that models the idea of \u200b\u200bnation is not produced exclusively with symbols, figures and words traced by a tradition which varied and diverse, the elite classes at least, were largely socialized (16 ). The idea of \u200b\u200b" Italian nation" is also built " against" someone, which is the negation of living and therefore should be reported to the model in the pipeline. If the South is "small-pox, a scourge, the North is and how you undertake your doctor. The North, the "true nation," proposes itself as the corrective to tame a recalcitrant South. The "controItalia" takes on the historical figure of "banditry ", while the new Italian army to assume the task of moralizing the people, to embody the new national spirit and to disseminate it. "The bandits [...] is the struggle between barbarism and civilization are the robbery and murder that levono the banner of rebellion against society " (17)

Performing sepoys, 1858

The enemy is a monster, unknown and infamous: "[The thieves] are broken at every lust and lewdness, ready for any crime: they drink blood, eat human flesh " (18). To return to humanity these foreign affairs, degenerate and irreducible, you will need all the paraphernalia colonial available: state of siege, martial law, special courts, the death penalty, mass shootings, bombing raids, reprisals, scorched earth.

There were also models the attempt. In Turin, he suggested to an anonymous the rebellious Southern the example offered by the extermination of the British colonial troops - the native sepoys shot in their thousands-perpetrated after the great uprising of 1857 " (19). The parallel was not weird. The great mutiny of 1857 had in common with the" banditry "southern addition to the expected law enforcement aspects, some causes (20). A Member of the House, Marzio Francesco Proto Duke of Maddaloni in a parliamentary interpellation of November 20, 1861 had protested against the policy of extermination by stating " the government of Piedmont wants to treat the southern provinces as the Cortes or a Pizarro in Peru were and Mexico, as the Florentines Pisano in the countryside, as the Genoese in Corsica, as the English in the kingdom of Bengal " (21).

A space alien, the South, it becomes very soon in a colonial space and is treated as such. Choreography imaginary about the "we" and "they" are never mere mental work. They exercise of power and hegemony, as Said reiterated about Orientalism (22).

Govone

General Govone , "the infamous General Govone " as apostrophizes British historian Dickie (23), while driving the raids campaign and writes a Sicilian villages memory on the causes of banditry, submitted to the Commission Brigantaggio April 2, 1863 (24).

E 'an overview of non-trivial cases in which a fine mix with general sociological evaluations.

" Hunger and Poverty is (sic) the first of the plagues afflicting the working class in Naples. The hunger of injustice suffered by the proletariat as well ... If hunger is not the proletarian screen against the tyranny, nothing is to marvel that is directed against society and declares that the war to search for that equation in the power that is denied. In this condition of the proletariat should be given to Naples, to me it seems after a long examination, the root cause of the revolution banditry ... [refers to the unification of Italy] the powerful new liberal and they said they called Bourbon others. Among the first I knew the honest liberal, but still many people that the flag is just circumstance and motive is hatred, envy, and sometimes a process for pending interests with those who christened Bourbon is coming to them ... But the so-called liberal The victorious party in short (here speaks only of the owners who are in cause), if you understand the part that is worthy of the name, also included, as is natural, all the ambitious, the clever, and even old flatterers of the tyranny of the Bourbons who knew and were able to transition to the winning party ... The captain of the guard national and trade unions, against whom he sold the practice especially of the robbers, at the same time belonging to the so-called liberals, mostly belong to the class of country gentlemen, and among these are the current rulers. The proletariat does not have to be pleased with them, as I said before, and the revenge of the robber against the same applies much more to their status as landlords and the injustices, old and new, instead of their color political. One clue that tells me that in this review is that while the robbers are relentless about these gentlemen, they are not so much against the soldier (minus the event of combat), which I think should be taken if the main target policy was the main engine ... So I express the opinion that the cause of brigandage in the state is the country's social and conditions of the proletariat, they certainly do not intend to completely exclude many other causes that help, such as politics, the tradition, the call the stragglers and those of others that will "

Historiography on brigandage, for nothing more impressive has been satisfied to outline the causes and contributing factors of the same (25). Quite rightly, the general Govone is placed in a position of radical sociology with strong veins classist. The realism of the army of Savoy has in him an effective champion. Govoni The look is a look superior, who is the bearer of a national right, and a reason of state, which explains everything and make up. Are called "bandits" events very different from each other, they are unified in a label that makes them a recognizable and identifiable object of knowledge to reason and act.

Without this work of generalization, the " banditry" is interpreted as the main symptom of the South, its natural social and political expression. The South is naturally robber as the robber is of course South. In the new "national right", the South and "banditry", they become interchangeable. You can climb from one to another, as in a chemical process. The non-story of the South can only result in a desperate revolt of the proletariat (or primitive beings, for other observers) that can not be shaped by an army that, in the name of Italy, brings his troops History , progress and civilization.

This powerful imaginative construction, we have called "internal orientalism " will bring up a story of identity and conflict, the "southern question" and "northern issues," we have not yet resolved.

notes

(1) Correspondence Cavour, Cavour-Nigra The correspondence from 1858 to 1864 , Bologna 1929, IV, p.301, quoted in Moe, 1992, 57

(2) Edward Said, 1991, pp. 41-42

(3) The bibliography activated by Orientalism is endless. They include in part the point Andrew J. Rotter, KEFleming, Kathleen Biddick, 2000. Applied to the relationship North / South in Italy, see Jane Schneider, 1997, in particular the introduction by the curator;

(4) Quote from Petraccone, 2000, p. 24

(5) Correspondence Cavour, The liberation of the south and the formation of the Kingdom ' Italy, Bologna, 1949-54, III, p.. 208, quoted by Moe, 1992, p. 64;

(6) Saint Jorioz A. White, The robbery at the border Papal 1860-63, Milan, 1864, p. 12, quoted by Dickie, 1991, p. 61;

(7) in Buffalo "The Piedmont. Collection of everyday things to laugh and to cry about things," January 9, 1861, quoted by Petraccone, 2000, p.24

(8) Nino Bixio Letters, edited by Emilia Morelli, vol.II, Rome, 1939-1954, p. 57, letter dated February 18, 1863, quoted by Petraccone, 2000, p. 62

(9) Said, 1991, p.244

(10) Correspondence Cavour, The Roman question the years 1860-61, I, Rome , 1929, p. 70, quoted by Moe, 1992, p. 67;

(11) Massimo d'Azeglio and Diomede Pantaleoni. Unpublished correspondence , Torino, 1888, p.441, quoted by Moe, 1992, p.68;

for a complete reconstruction of the "North" Poetics of Space top against bottom, see AA.VV, 1983; especially rich in materials of anthropological mold: James W Fernandez, 1997;

(12) Giorgio Di Francesco, 1997 , p. 60

(13) Vincent Teti, 1993, widely reported this outcome and

critical, minority, and that it was addressed;

(14) The reports at issue between "Orientalism" and "Balkans" have been admirably developed and discussed by Todorova, 1997;

(15) Costantino Nigra , 1974, I, p. XLIV

(16) V. Banti, 2000

(17) Giuseppe Massari, the report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into brigandage read in the room May 3, 1833 , cit. by Dickie, 1991, p.58;

(18) Giuseppe Massari, Report of the Committee of Inquiry, the secret committee April 3, 1863 , quoted by De Jaco, 1969, p.57;

(19) Anonymous on brigandage: notes of an Italian officer , in "Contemporary Review", 1862, XXIX, Torino, cited by Martucci, 1999, p.294 ;

(20) V. Stokes, 1986, p. 28, the origin of the revolt was "the the resentment of the farmers for the loss of control over land to the benefit of 'new men' and castes of moneylenders citizens."

(21) Cited by Martucci, 1999, p. 295;

(22) " believe that the Orient was created-or, as I like to say, 'orientalizzato'- for the sake of exercising the imagination, it would be very naive or tendentious. The relationship between East and West is a question of power and domination, of varying and complex forms of hegemony ... " Said, 1991, p. 8;

(23) Dickie, 1991, p. 62;

(24) Govone, 1929, p.359-377;

(25) ; point Adorni F, 1997, pp. 283-319;

bibliography

AA.VV, 1983, L 'Europe divided: the formation of the stereotype in the Northern Italian culture between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries , in The Vieusseux. Journal of Science, letters and arts, XIX, April-June

Daniela Adorni, 1997 Brigandage in History of Italy - Annals, 12, Crime , Torino

Banti, Alberto M., 2000, The nation del Risorgimento, Torino

Dickie, John, 1991, A word to war: the Italian army and the 'robbery' (1860-1870) "in , Past and Present , aX, n.26

De Jaco, Aldo (Editor) 1969 Brigandage South. Chronicle unprecedented unification of Italy , Rome;

Di Francesco, Giorgio, 1997, "the people, the larger part is Camus." Diary of military costume, 1860/1870, Antonio Quaglia, Piedmont sharpshooter, Turin

Fernandez, James W., 1997, The North South Axis in European Popular Cosmology and the Dynamic of the Categorical , in American Anthropologist, n. 99;

Govone, Hubert, 1929, General Joseph Govone. Fragments of memories , Turin

Martucci, Roberto, 1999, The invention of a united Italy, 1855-1864 , Milan

Moe Nelson, 1992, "Other than Italy." The Southern Piedmont (1860-61) , in Meridiana, n. 15;

Nigra, Costantino, 1974, Folk songs of Piedmont , foreword by G. Cocchiara, Torino;

Petraccone, Claudia, 2000, The two civilizations. Northern and southern Italy in the history of , Bari

Rotter, Andrew J. and Fleming, KE, Biddick, Kathleen, 2000, Orientalism Twenty Years On , in American Historical Review, October, 2000;

Said, Edward W., 1991, Orientalism , Torino, trad. of Orientalism , New York, 1978;

Schneider, Jane (Editor), 1997, Italy 's Southern Question:' Orientalism 'in One Country , Oxford ;

Stokes, Eric, 1986, The Peasant Armed . The Indian Rebellion of 1857, Oxford;

Teti, Vincenzo, 1993, The accursed race. Origins of injury antimeridionale , Rome;

Todorova, Maria, 1997, Imagining the Balkans , Oxford.


Needless to say, the period of this report to present studies on the "bandits" were enriched. The fundamental work has been translated Todorova [evil] in Italian, Lecce, Argo, 2002.