La questione etrusca nell'Italia fascista

Both classicists and historians of Fascism have discussed at length how, in Fascist Italy, the nationalist myth of ancient Rome was used as a totalitarian ideology in order to legitimise racist and imperialist politics. Integrating their analysis with the history of political uses of Etruscan identity under Fascism can prove useful to enlighten the history of Italian nationalism and racism. In fact, the Etruscans were historically associated with a regional identity, and memorialised as enemies of Rome. Since the modern age, uncertainties about their ethnic origins and the interpretation of their language prompted an international debate between different racial theories. In Fascist Italy, the Etruscans were widely considered as autochthonous people, ethnically and culturally similar to the Italic and Roman people. They were also depicted as the direct racial forefathers of modern Italians and Tuscans. The regionalist, nationalist and racist enhancement of the Etruscan civilisation under Fascism clearly emerged in modern art, literature, and certainly from historiography, archaeology and anthropology. Nonetheless, as the Fascist regime aligned itself with Nazi Germany, the representation of the Etruscans as the ancestors of the Italian and Tuscan race had to face new racial theories. A complex debate between Italian and German racists concerned the Etruscans as a potentially alien body within the Italian race. After the fall of the Fascist regime and the end of the war, Italian scholars avoided to admit their political responsibilities, and pursued their nationalist approach.