Laboratoire Italien (Sep 2023)
L’illusion charismatique. Mussolini dans les revues culturelles françaises de l’entre-deux-guerres
Abstract
“The revolution of a planet can only be seen from another” said the famous writer and biographer Emil Ludwig, who conversed with Mussolini in the famous Colloqui. By this, he meant that geographical distance made it easier to understand a phenomenon. In the case of interwar France and fascism, nothing is less certain. This paper aims to answer this question by shifting or clarifying the focus of analysis: by choosing a coherent corpus that facilitates methodological reflection: the French cultural journals, which were different from the press, more prone to the vertigo of the moment, and offered polished approaches, often from illustrious writers who took the time for deeper analysis. We also examine the figure of Mussolini, who took on three roles, three “characters”: the man, the leader – with the question of charisma and political seduction – and the very face of fascism, its quintessence, with whom he seemed to merge, source of much debate.This article discusses the effects of sources and editorial strategies in cultural journals. More than ever before, the Janus figure, so conventional and recurrent when it came to Mussolini, was unavoidable.
