A deportation during the fascist "Ventennio". The Ethiopian high dignitaries confined in Mercogliano (1937-1940)

Journal title ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA
Author/s Erminio Fonzo
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/301
Language Italian Pages 30 P. 183-212 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/IC301-oa1
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

View article Download Open Access article

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

At the end of the 1930s, about one hundred Ethiopian citizens were confined in the town of Mercogliano (Avellino). The confined persons were members of the country’s ruling class and were part of a wider group of aristocrats deported in Italy after the attempt against Rodolfo Graziani (19 February 1937). The Ethiopians, hosted in two religious institutes, were subjected to a regime that was not too hard under the material point of view, but traumatic in psychological terms, because nearly all of them had sworn allegiance to Italy and expected to have a political role in the new colonial Ethiopia. The deportees were repatriated between the second half of 1938 and the beginning of 1940. For most of them, the experience of deportation represented a rupture in their relationship with Italy and proved to be counterproductive for the fascist regime.

  1. Akyeampong, Emmanuel K. et al. (a cura di) (2012), Dictionary of African Biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  2. Barra, Francesco (1996), Il regime fascista, in Storia illustrata e dell’Irpinia, Sellino, Pratola Serra (Avellino).
  3. Barra, Francesco (2004), Strutture produttive e lotta politica in Irpinia tra fascismo, guerra e liberazione (1922-1944), in Id. (a cura di), L’Irpinia nella seconda guerra mondiale, Centro Dorso, Avellino.
  4. Borruso, Paolo (2003), L’Africa al confino. La deportazione etiopica in Italia, Lacaita, Manduria.
  5. Borruso, Paolo (2020), Debre Libanos 1937. Il più grave crimine di guerra dell’Italia, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
  6. Campbell, Ian (2018), Il massacro di Addis Abeba. Una vergogna italiana, Rizzoli, Milano.
  7. Capogreco, Carlo Spartaco (2004), I campi del duce. L’internamento civile nell'Italia fascista (1940-1943), Einaudi, Torino.
  8. Cogliano, Annibale (2015), La transizione dal fascismo alla Costituente in Irpinia, “Meridione. Nord e Sud del mondo”, XV, 2-3, pp. 5-43.
  9. Del Boca, Angelo (2001), Gli Italiani in Africa orientale, II, La conquista dell’impero, Mondadori, Milano.
  10. Del Boca, Angelo (2014), Gli italiani in Africa orientale, III, La caduta dell’impero, Mondadori, Milano.
  11. Di Nardo, Francesco (2014), L’internamento civile a Mercogliano (1937-1945). Documenti e ricordi, Terebinto, Avellino.
  12. Dominioni, Matteo (2008), Lo sfascio dell’impero. Gli italiani in Etiopia 1936-1941, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
  13. Ferraro, Giuseppe (2013), Una liberazione «diversa» e le lettere «amhariche» degli anni di confino dei deportati etiopi, “Rivista Calabrese di Storia del ‘900”, II, pp. 227-250;
  14. Ferraro, Giuseppe (2016), From the mountains of Africa to Italy. The experience of Ethiopian deportees confined in Longobucco (Calabria) in the period 1937-1943, “Annales d’Ethiopie”, XXXI, pp. 293-319.
  15. Ferraro, Giuseppe (2016), I deportati dall’impero. Gli etiopi confinati in Italia durante il regime fascista, “Nuova rivista storica”, C, 1, pp. 243-265;
  16. Garretson, Peter P. (2012), A Victorian gentleman & Ethiopian nationalist: the life & times of Hakim Wärqenäh, dr. Charles Martin, James Currey, Oxford.
  17. Labanca, Nicola (2002), Oltremare. Storia dell’espansione coloniale italiana, il Mulino, Bologna.
  18. Labanca, Nicola (2015). La guerra d’Etiopia 1935-1941, il Mulino, Bologna.
  19. Lipari, Anselmo (2003), Guglielmina Salcuni. Madre maestra, edizioni dei Padri Benedettini di Montevergine, Mercogliano.
  20. Molvaer, Reidulf K. (1997), Siniddu Gebru. Pioneer Woman Writer, Feminist, Patriot, Educator, and Politician, “Northeast African Studies”, IV, 3, pp. 61-75,
  21. Nasibù, Martha (2012), Memorie di una principessa etiope, Neri Pozza, Vicenza.
  22. Renzulli, Aldo (2013), La libertà negata. L’internamento civile nell’Irpinia fascista (1927-1943), I, Mephite, Atripalda (Avellino).
  23. Rochat Giorgio (1975), L’attentato a Graziani e la repressione italiana in Etiopia nel 1936-37, “Italia contemporanea”, 118, pp. 3-38.
  24. Rochat, Giorgio (2008), Le guerre italiane 1935-1943. Dall’impero di Etiopia alla disfatta, Torino, Einaudi.
  25. Sbacchi, Alberto (1977), Italy and the treatment of Ethiopian aristocracy, 1937-1940, “The International Journal of African Historical Studies”, X, 2, pp. 209-241.
  26. Zewde, Bahru (1993), The Ethiopian Intelligentsia and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-1941, “The International Journal of African Historical Studies”, XXVI, 2, pp. 271-295.
  27. Zewde, Bahru (2002), Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century, James Currey, Oxford.

Erminio Fonzo, Una deportazione durante il Ventennio fascista. Gli alti dignitari etiopi confinati a Mercogliano (1937-1940) in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 301/2023, pp 183-212, DOI: 10.3280/IC301-oa1