Monday, January 04, 2010

Are all antifascists communists?
Lauro de Bosis (1901-1931) Olympic champion (1929)for poetry and aristocratic antifascist



It has become commonplace to classify individuals who stand up against fascism and fascist tendencies as belonging to the political left. Most often, persons who express antifascist opinions are labeled as communists, a wording preferred by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in his invectives against his multiple political adversaries.
A more closer look into the political history of fasciscm allows us to more clearly distinguish the wide arrange of motives of those who did not accept the totalitarianism connected with Mussolini's regime and the political movement on which it's power was based.

Lauro de Bosis, an extremely talented and prolific "homme de lettres", winner of an Olympic gold medal for poetry for his lyric play "ICARO" in the 1929 Olympic games, was also president of the Italy-America Society of New York.
He died on October 3, 1931, after having dropped antifascist pamphlets in a privately and secretely planned solitary mission over the city of Rome, when his plane crashed into the Tyrrenian sea. It has never been clear whether the plane crash was the result of Italian anti-aircraft fire or due to lack of fuel for a safe landing on Corsica. His death was not only an act of personal revolt against a regime he deeply resented, but can simultaneously be seen as an echo of the destiny of the antique hero "Icaro" of his play written in 1927.

Iris Origo, the famous Anglo-Italian biographer of San Bernardino di Siena and of Francesco Datini,author of a short biography of Pope Pius II (Enea Piccolomini) and of a personal journal of the hostilities between German an Allied troops in Tuscany(War in Val d'Orca)during World War II, has given a vivid portrait of Lauro de Bosis in her book "A Need to Testify" (Harcourt Brave Jovanovich 1984, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 83-48453, ISBN 0-15-164989-8).

She cites from his pamphlets: "...It is only our inertia that makes possible the existence of the present regime. Woe to Italy if we let anti-fascism oppisition be monopolized by the Red! The problem of fascism must be solved by those who stand for ordered government..."

There is no doubt that de Bosis" political position was strongly influenced both by the aristocratic and monarchistic tradition of the family of his father and the democratic tradition of the New England family of his mother.

For those interested in Lauro de Bosis' life and unable to get a copy of Iris Origo's biographical sketch of 1984, we recommend the following title:
MUDGE, Jean: The Poet and the Dictator: Lauro de Bosis Resists Fascism in Italy and America. Praeger, 2002. ISBN-10: 0275969649 ISBN-13: 978-0275969646

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