La propaganda italiana in Gran Bretagna durante la prima guerra mondiale tra nazionalismo e politica delle nazionalità (1917-1918)

Abstract

During the First World War, as the conflict degenerated into mass slaughter, belligerent governments were driven to manipulate domestic and foreign public opinion in order to maintain morale at home and to win allies abroad. The Italian Government lagged behind its Allies in the field of Propaganda, especially in developing instruments designed to project abroad its image. Italian propaganda addressing the home front and the war front has been extensively studied, but only a single study has been published about the Italian propaganda abroad. Drawing upon research in official Italian government’s records ― including new declassified material from the Historical-Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ― this paper describes the activity carried out in Great Britain by the Italian Foreign Action Bureau which had been established in the late 1917 by the Italian Government. In exploring contents, and techniques used by the bureau a strong commitment to depict Italy as a modern country emerges. The paper examines a wide variety of propaganda programs, focusing, in particular, on cultural propaganda including exhibits and editorial initiatives. This new approach to the study of the Italian propaganda details the first steps of what later would be called “cultural diplomacy”. However, the main problems beyond the lack of economic resources were unclear guidelines concerning the most important political and diplomatic aims of Italy