A diary from 1922, the story of Francesco Bogliari

1922, the year of the advent of fascism. It is a diary, “bare, bare, essential news. Only facts, without comments” of what happened in those days, which were decisive for the history of our country. This is 1922. The diary of the year that forever changed the history of Italy ‘by Francesco Bogliari (Mind Edizioni, 368 pages, € 18.00, out on 25 November). “The advent of fascism in 1922 is one of the themes most dealt with by historiography, both scientific and popular as well as propaganda – the author of the book tells Adnkronos.” It therefore took a good dose of recklessness on my part to look for a new approach, a different method to deal with a subject so widely examined starting from the 30s-40s (Tasca and Salvemini) “, adds Bogliari, for 40 years at the top of Italian publishing, first as a manager of large groups (Sole 24 Ore, Mondadori, Rizzoli) and director of newspapers, then as an entrepreneur (the Media & Co group, including the Mind, Metamorfosi and Ink brands). Bogliari tells day by day what happened in Italy, providing the contemporary vision of the various levels: parliamentary politics, political violence, religion, black and white news, sport, culture, together with small curious news, always t revoked by historians but capable of restoring the spirit of the times to the reader. “The methodological key of this diary are the facts, only facts, without comments – the author emphasizes – a bare, bare, essential chronicle, reconstructed through the newspapers of the time (primarily Corriere della Sera and Il Messaggero). An enormous work of selection, disassembly and reassembly of the news from which the story of what happened in that year comes out, according to the point of view of contemporaries, not of us posterity who know how it ended “. Bogliari had two great masters : first Giorgio Candeloro in Pisa for the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, then Valerio Castronovo in Turin for the economic history. During the pandemic he decided to carve out some time from his job as a publisher to return to doing research, given his historical background, and between spring 2020 and summer 2021 this book matured. “This is a popular book – he explained again the author – and as such it is intended more for the general public than for professionals. But even the latter may be intrigued by the fact that two competing football championships were played that year (one won by Pro Vercelli and the other from Novese), that in September the Monza racetrack was inaugurated with the first Italian motoring Grand Prix, and that in December, two weeks after Arturo Toscanini refused to play the fascist hymn Giovinezza alla Scala, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome (the current Opera House) the German conductor Otto Klemperer played it on the opening night of the opera season “. “History is not made only of politics, of which I also decline all aspects in the book – he concludes – but also of the daily life of people, made up of sports, cultural events, religious ceremonies, dances and parties, and at the same time of road accidents, thefts (sensational that of Franca Florio’s jewels stolen in Viareggio and found in Germany), murders, suicides, etc. “.