{"id":24280,"date":"2020-12-23T22:35:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T22:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=24280"},"modified":"2020-12-23T22:36:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T22:36:16","slug":"essay-how-a-charismatic-populist-destroyed-christmas-one-hundred-years-ago-italian-nationalists-went-to-war-with-their-own-country-bringing-the-border-city-of-fiume-a-christmas-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=24280","title":{"rendered":"Essay \u2013 How a Charismatic Populist Destroyed Christmas: One Hundred Years Ago, Italian Nationalists Went to War With Their Own Country, Bringing the Border City of Fiume a \u2018Christmas of Blood\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By<\/em> Dominique Kirchner Reill <\/strong>| December\u00a014,\u00a02020 | Z\u00f3calo Public Square<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1920, in a small town outside Turin, Italy, 17-year-old Luigi De Michelis was everything his middle-class parents could have asked for. His teachers liked him, which was important to his father, a teacher. His priest liked him, which was important to his mother, who wrote Catholic children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But soon Luigi started following the news a little too avidly. Then he started going to meetings on the sly. Suddenly the De Michelis\u2019 good boy was more interested in the man the newspapers called \u201cComandante\u201d than in the approval of family and teachers. Before his parents realized what was happening, Luigi ran away from home, without finishing high school, to join the movement that had won his heart and mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late in 1920, Luigi sent a letter home to prepare his parents for the imminent reckoning, an armed clash between Italian nationalists (of which Luigi was one) and the Kingdom of Italy\u2019s army, a battle which would come to be called \u201cThe Christmas of Blood.\u201d Luigi warned: \u201cSoon there will be battle, maybe soon I shall be no more. Console yourselves in thinking that I died for the purest of Causes \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does populist, political charisma change the world and how can we hold it in check? The story of how the De Michelis family lost hold of a child\u2014the history surrounding \u201cthe Christmas of Blood\u201d\u2014offers enduring answers to those questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charismatic, populist politicians can have the pull of a cult. The Comandante to whom Luigi was in thrall was not Mussolini, but his precursor, Gabriele D\u2019Annunzio, who was the most famous living Italian in 1920. By the end of World War I, D\u2019Annunzio had created a craze around his own personality in ways only a much-loved celebrity can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How a Charismatic Populist Destroyed Christmas<\/a><\/blockquote>