ITALIANI E TEDESCHI ALLA CONQUISTA CULTURALE DEL 'GRANDE NORD' (1922-1945)

The interest on fascism in Scandinavia and Finland is due to the importance that Nazism gave to the ‘nordic race’, its mythology and its cultural heritage. Fascism did not become very popular in the Nordic countries and it did not achieve power anywhere (the only exception was the case of Vidkun Quisling). This study, focused on Italian and German cultural propaganda in the Nordic countries, could show us that fascism was a global and transnational doctrine with diverse reformulations or ramifications. Therefore, this research could also be useful to the analysis of Mussolini’s struggle against Nazi political and cultural influence in the Nordic area. Organisations and associations like the Società Dante Alighieri (Dante Alighieri Society) and the Nordische Gesellschaft (Nordic Society), embodied the cultural comparison between the trope of Rome and the Germanic Weltanschauung. Moreover, the matter of race broke the network of the European right-wing groups and brought the failure of the ‘Fascist International’ dream. Consequently, the contradiction between the Latin and the Nordic interpretations of the world, made the Italo-German alliance fragile and inefficient.