La Nazione irrisolta. La questione nazionale e l'eredità di Renzo De Felice

Abstract

This essay analyses how the category of nation is articulated in Renzo De Felice’s historiography, focusing on his biography of Mussolini and on the unresolved relationship between fascism, national integration and the crisis of Italian political culture. It reconstructs De Felice’s anti-teleological method, his interpretation of fascism as both a response to and a failure of the national question, and the centrality he assigns to 8 September 1943 and the “death of the fatherland”. The essay then compares this legacy with the work of Elena Aga Rossi and Emilio Gentile, highlighting continuities and divergences on Resistance, totalitarianism and national identity.