August 5th, 1938: Publication of the first issue of the periodical La Difesa della Razza (The defence of the Race)

From August 5^th, 1938, a new periodical “La difesa della Razza” started being published and spread all over Italy, at the same time as the promulgation of the Racial Laws. The fortnightly magazine was meant to communicate and promote the racist and anti-semite ideas of the Fascist Regime. It was directed to the collective; all the state schools were obliged to subscribe it.

The first issue’s cover enlightens the main current idea of the time. There are three pictures on a flight of stairs. A black woman’s photo stands on the lowest step. A statue representing a Jew is in the middle: he is recognizable through the stereotype of the hooked nose. Finally, a Greek-Roman style statue stands high up the others: it represents the Italic race and embodies the beauty and perfection criteria attributed to it. A sword separates the Italic race from the inferior ones: it is actually a “gladio” referring to the ancient Roman Empire, deeply admired by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Regime. Moreover, a sentence taken from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (Paradise XVI/66) appears on the cover. Its meaning was misinterpreted in order to adapt it to the racist ideals: «Sempre la confusion delle persone principio fu del mal delle cittade» (Ever the intermingling of persons was the beginning of harm to the city. Translation by Charles Eliot Norton).

Telesio Interlandi, the Director of the magazine, was strictly connected to Mussolini and continued publishing until 1943; later he joined the Italian Social Republic –RSI or Republic of Salò. At the end of the war in 1946, he was given Togliatti’s general amnesty.

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