Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini (Genoa, June 22, 1805-Pisa, March 10, 1872), nicknamed The Soul of Italy, He was an Italian politician, journalist and activist who campaigned for Italian national integration. He played a leading role in the process of formation and unification of modern independent Italy from the numerous states (many dominated by foreign powers) that existed until the 19th century. He also helped define the European movement for popular democracy in a republican state. In this sense he wrote Italy republican and unitary (1831) and A free nation (1851).

Biography

His beginnings

He was born in Genoa, while it was part of the Republic of Liguria, under the government of the French Empire. His father was Giacomo Mazzini, a doctor and professor of anatomy, a native of Chiavari and an active figure in politics who adhered to a Jacobin ideology; and his mother, María Drago, a woman of great beauty, of lively intelligence and Jansenist fervor. From a very young age, Mazzini displayed excellent qualities as a student, as well as an early interest in politics and literature; thus, in 1820 —with only 14 years old—, he was admitted to the University of Genoa, where he graduated in Law in 1826, to initially practice as a "lawyer for indigents". On April 6, 1827 he obtained a degree in utroque jure .

Mazzini aspired to become a historical novelist or playwright, at the same time he wrote his first essay Dell'amor patrio di Dante (On Dante's Patriotic Love), published in 1837. Between 1828 and 1829 he collaborated with the Genoese newspaper L'Indicatore Genovese, which was soon closed down by the Piedmontese authorities. He then he became one of the main authors of the L & # 39; Indicatore Livornese , published in Livorno by Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, until this newspaper was also aborted.

In 1831 he moved to Tuscany, where he became a member of the Carbonari, a secret association for political purposes. His revolutionary activity soon caused him problems with the Justice. On October 31 of that year he was arrested in Genoa and interned in Savona. During his time in prison, he developed the principles of a new patriotic movement, whose goal was to replace the failed Carbonari. Although he was released at the beginning of 1832, he chose exile, instead of remaining confined in the small house where the Police forced him to live, and he went to Geneva, Switzerland.

Failed insurrections

Giuseppe Mazzini.

In 1832 he went to Marseilles, where he became a popular figure among the other Italian exiles. He lived in the apartment of Giuditta Bellerio Sidoli, a beautiful widow from Modena who would become his lover. In Marseilles he organized a new secret political society to promote unification: the Young Italy ( Giovine Italia ). Mazzini believed that a popular uprising would create a unified Italy and trigger a revolutionary movement throughout Europe. The society's motto was "God and the People", and its basic principle was the union of the various states and kingdoms of the peninsula into a single republic as the only means to achieve Italian freedom. The new nation was to be "a single Republic, independent and free."

The political activism espoused by Mazzini had some success in Tuscany, Abruzzi, Sicily, Piedmont, and his native Liguria, especially among some Army officers. By 1833, Young Italy had about 60,000 adherents, with branches in Genoa and other cities.^{[citation needed]} That year, Mazzini launched his first attempted insurrection, which covers from Chambéry (at that time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), Alessandria, Turin and Genoa. However, the Savoy government discovered the plot before it began and numerous revolutionaries (including Vincenzo Gioberti) were arrested. The repression was brutal:^{[citation needed]} twelve participants were executed, while Jacopo Ruffini, Mazzini's best friend and director of the Genoa section of Young Italy, was committed suicide Mazzini was tried in absentia and sentenced to death.

Despite this failure (for whose victims Mazzini was tormented with doubts),^{[citation needed]} Mazzini organized another uprising the following year. A group of exiles was to enter Piedmont from Switzerland and spread the revolution from there, while Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had recently joined Young Italy, would do the same in Genoa. However, this new attempt was easily put down by the Piedmontese troops.

In the Spring of 1834, while at Berne, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe. Its basic and equally grandiose idea was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that in the no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely federal Europe with some kind of elected assembly to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...]

Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his vision of a league or society of independent nations would be realised in his own lifetime. In practice, Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations would be an indispensable preliminary.

In the spring of 1834, while in Bern, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany founded a new association with the great name of Young Europe. Its basic and equally great idea was that, as well as the French Revolution of 1789 had expanded the concept of individual freedom, there would now be a need for another revolution to achieve national freedom; and its vision went even further, because it had the hope that in the future without a doubt distant free nations would associate themselves forming some form of a kind of federal Europe to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was none other than to modify the order of Europe that had been agreed in 1815 by the Vienna Congress, which had restored an oppressive hegemony of a few powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...]

Mazzini hoped, although without too much conviction, that during her life she could see her vision of an independent association concrete. In practice, the Young Europe had neither money nor popular support to guarantee it more than a brief existence. Even so, he always remained faithful to an ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations was an indispensable preliminary step.

—Mack Smith (1994, pp. 11-12).

On May 28, 1834, Mazzini was arrested in Solothurn and exiled from Switzerland. He went to Paris, where he was arrested again on July 5; he was released after promising that he would move to England. Along with a few Italian friends, he moved to London in January 1837, living in extremely poor conditions.

Exile in London

Photograph by Mazzini, by Domenico Lama.

On April 30, 1837, Mazzini reformed the Giovine Italia in London, and on November 10 he began publishing the Apostolato Popolare (Popular Apostolate). A succession of failed attempts to promote revolts and uprisings in Sicily, Abruzzi, Tuscany, and Lombardy-Venice discouraged Mazzini for a period that lasted until 1840. Sidoli also abandoned him, returning to Italy with his children. His mother's support motivated Mazzini to found several organizations whose objectives were the unification or liberation of other nations, like Giovine Italia: Young Germany, Young Poland or Young Switzerland, which were under the scheme of Young Europe. Also in 1841 he founded an Italian school for poor people in London. From London, he sent a large number of letters to his agents in Europe and South America, and established friendly ties with Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. The Young Europe movement would also inspire a group of young Turkish military cadets and students, who later called themselves the "Young Turks."

In 1843 he organized another revolt in Bologna, which attracted the attention of two young officers of the Austrian Navy: Attilio and Emilio Bandiera. With Mazzini's support, they landed near Cosenza, in the Kingdom of Naples, but were arrested and executed. Mazzini accused the British Government of having passed information about this expedition to the Neapolitans, and the British Parliament investigated the matter. When, finally, Home Secretary James Graham admitted that his private correspondence had been opened, and that the Foreign Office (directly Foreign Secretary George Hamilton-Gordon) had informed the Austrians of its contents (via Baron Philipp von Neumann) and the Government in Naples, Mazzini gained popularity and support from British Liberals, who angrily protested this government violation of their private correspondence.

In 1847 he moved back to London, from where he sent a lengthy “open letter” to Pope Pius IX. His apparently liberal reforms had given him the status of a possible champion of the unification of Italy; however, the pope did not answer him. He also founded the People's International League. In March 1848, Mazzini was in Paris, from where he launched a new political association: the Associazione Nazionale Italiana.

Mazzini believed that Italian unification could only be achieved through a popular uprising. He continued to embody this purpose in his works and tried to achieve it through exile and adversity with uncompromising steadfastness. However, his importance was more ideological than practical: after the failure of the revolutions of 1848-49, during which Mazzini became the leader of the short-lived Roman Republic, Italian nationalists began to look to the King of Piedmont and his Prime Minister, the Count of Cavour, as the directors of the unifying movement. General Giuseppe Garibaldi, a young follower of Mazzini, also played a crucial role in the path towards the Italian state, but this kingdom was far from being the republic Mazzini yearned for.

The revolts of 1848-49

On April 7, 1848, Mazzini arrived in Milan, where the population had risen up against the Austrian garrison and established a provisional government. The first Italian war of independence, started by the Piedmontese king Carlos Alberto seeking to benefit from favorable circumstances in Milan, ended in resounding failure. Mazzini, who had never been popular in the city because he was proposing that Lombardy become a republic instead of joining Piedmont, left Milan. He joined Garibaldi's irregular forces in Bergamo and went to Switzerland with him.

On February 9, 1849, the Republic was proclaimed in Rome, while Pope Pius IX had already been forced to take refuge in Gaeta last November. The same day of the event, Mazzini arrived in Rome. On March 29, he was designated triumvir of the new republic, soon becoming the leader of the Government and showing good administrative skills in terms of social reforms. However, when the French troops summoned by the Pope made it clear that the resistance of the Republican troops, commanded by Garibaldi, was in vain, Mazzini had to flee to Marseilles in July 1849, from where he smuggled into Switzerland.

New exiles

The failure of the revolts of 1848-1849 showed the disorganization and disunity among the Italian liberals, since in such an environment it was highly improbable to firmly establish a political regime like the one sought by Mazzini: based on liberalism and the republicanism. On the contrary, from his exile in Great Britain, Mazzini was able to observe how the Italian unification project was assumed as its own by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, whose monarch, Victor Emmanuel II, took charge of his father's liberal ideas. Carlos Alberto, who had to abdicate and go into exile due to pressure from Austria.

Starting in 1852, Victor Emmanuel II began to promote movements in favor of Italian unification, following a policy designed by his prime minister, the Count of Cavour, who sought the support of some great European power for this cause, due to to the disproportion of forces between Austria and Piedmont-Sardinia. However, Mazzini distrusted Cavour, since he favored the creation of a unified Italian state under a constitutional monarchy and completely rejected the liberal-republican project, so longed for by Mazzini.

Procrastination and last years

The last moments of Giuseppe Mazzini (1873), by Silvestro Lega, Rhode Island Museum of Art, Providence, USA. U.S.

Relegated by Cavour's projects and with few republicanist supporters inside Italy, Mazzini was active in conspiracies from abroad, but two rebellions inspired by him in Mantua (1852) and Milan (1853) failed. Mazzini condemned Piedmont-Sardinia's intervention in the Crimean War in 1854, and managed to return to Italy in 1856, establishing his headquarters in Genoa. From there he promoted Count Carlo Pisacane's republicanist rebellion in Calabria in July 1857, but this too failed utterly. Immediately persecuted by the Piedmontese police after the defeat of Pisacane, Mazzini had to go into exile again, fleeing this time to Great Britain.

Mazzini had already lost much of his former role in Italian unification by then, while the leadership of this movement had been assumed by Cavour, who placed King Victor Emmanuel II as its "natural leader". Despite this, Mazzini returned to Italy in 1860 to assist Garibaldi during his Expedition of the Thousand, but his support was rebuffed by Garibaldi's lieutenant, Giorgio Pallavicino. Although Mazzini managed to join Garibaldi in his war expedition against Rome in 1862, he understood that his republican ideals would have no place in the new political situation: the Kingdom of Italy had been officially proclaimed in Turin already in March 1861, and, although Cavour had died in June of that same year, Garibaldi had become a loyal supporter of the Piedmontese monarchy. The same Partito d'Azione created by Mazzini had already suffered the desertion of numerous followers, and the remnants had fully adhered to Victor Emmanuel II since 1864, judging the monarchy as the ideal form of government to carry out unification.

Unsatisfied with the direction it was taking, Mazzini rejected the parliamentary seat that the House of Savoy offered him in 1867. Arrested in 1870 by the police on charges of inciting a revolt in Sicily, he was released by amnesty in the month October, when the entry of the Piedmontese forces into Rome was celebrated. Disappointed, Mazzini voluntarily left for London, although he returned to Italy because of his ill health in February 1872. He died just a month later in the city of Pisa, from a lung infection.

Don't say “I”, say “we”

Giuseppe Mazzini called the people to unite around the idea of the nation state.^{[citation needed]} In his work The duties of man: faith and future , asked the people to put their duty to their own country above individual interests. Mazzini's nationalism arose as a result of a criticism of the political changes that had arisen in Europe in the previous century. The idea that supported these uprisings will be that of freedom, which should be obtained through individual rights. The working masses expected rights to bring material well-being.^{[citation needed]}

Mazzini believed that greater freedom had not meant an improvement in the conditions of workers; Despite the expansion of wealth and trade, economic development had only benefited a privileged few. For him, the mere aspiration to individual rights posed two problems. First, freedom was an "illusion and bitter irony" for the majority, who were not in a position to exercise it; For example, the right to education was a simple dream for those who did not have resources or time to study. And, second, the fight for material interests causes people to trample on each other, thus weakening the common ties of the human race.^{[citation needed]}

Giuseppe Mazzini assures that rights come after the highest duty we have towards humanity. This duty requires people to collaborate on common goals, but it would be difficult for one person to act alone in order to serve humanity as a whole. Instead, according to Mazzini, God has created different countries and separated humanity into branches. A country is the "workshop" through which the person can serve the human race. It is the duty towards the country and, therefore, thinking no longer in terms of "I", but of "we" that will connect people in that greater collective that is humanity. For him, a country is much more than a group of people in a geographical area: it is a fraternal association of people. His ideas inspired the revolutionary uprisings of 1848 in Europe, coinciding with the process of unification of Italy as a State and, later, already in the century. xx, led the nationalists to their anti-colonialist struggle.

Criticism

In an interview that the journalist R. Landor did to Karl Marx for the New York World on July 18, 1871, when asked if Mazzini belonged to the International Association and its ideology, Marx denied emphatically; In his view, Mazzini's ideas did not represent "anything other than the old idea of a middle-class republic" ("nothing better than the old idea of a middle-class republic" - that is: 'bourgeois'—). Especially after the 1848 revolutions, Marx believed that Mazzini's view of the middle class was reactionary and that the proletariat had nothing to do with it. In another interview, Marx referred to Mazzini as "that recalcitrant idiot". .

Miguel de Unamuno, in his book How a novel is made, refers to Mazzini saying: «Mazzini's poetry was history, his history, that of Italy, which was his mother and his daughter".