194. The First Fascist

概览

This episode examines Gabriele D’Annunzio as a celebrated Italian writer whose literary fame, erotic celebrity, appetite for violence, and theatrical politics made him a crucial precursor to fascism.

The hosts and guest Lucy Hughes-Hallett argue that D’Annunzio was not simply a writer who later entered politics. From early in life he treated fame, journalism, style, sexuality, war, and public performance as connected forms of power.

The discussion moves from his childhood in newly unified Italy to his rise as a poet and celebrity, his interventionist speeches in 1915, his wartime exploits as an aviator, and his 1919 occupation of Fiume. The episode ends by weighing whether he was himself a fascist, or whether fascism was built out of D’Annunzian ideas, rituals, and political theatre.

分段落总结

[00:50] D’Annunzio as the “First Fascist”

[事实] The episode opens by describing Gabriele D’Annunzio as a poet, playwright, novelist, dandy, and political actor at the centre of major events in early twentieth-century Italy.

[事实] The hosts note his 1915 speeches urging Italy into the First World War, his 1918 air raid over Vienna, and his 1919 creation of a city-state in Fiume.

[事实] Mussolini later called D’Annunzio the “John the Baptist of fascism.”

[推测] The episode frames D’Annunzio as important because he joined literary celebrity, nationalism, violence, and mass political performance before Mussolini did.

[03:44] Why He Is Less Known in the Anglophone World

[事实] Lucy Hughes-Hallett describes D’Annunzio as “a poet, a seducer and a preacher of war,” echoing the subtitle of her biography The Pike.

[事实] She says D’Annunzio considered himself the greatest Italian poet since Dante, and that figures including James Joyce, Henry James, and others admired his writing.

[事实] His sexually explicit novels were heavily censored in English translation, and Hughes-Hallett says his poetry does not translate well.

[推测] His literary reputation travelled poorly in English partly because translation and censorship weakened the work available to non-Italian readers.

[08:36] A Child of the Risorgimento

[事实] D’Annunzio was born in 1863, shortly after Italian unification began, and grew up in the shadow of the Risorgimento.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says he believed the Risorgimento had “made Italy” and that the next task was to “make Italians.”

[事实] She describes him as seeing a role for himself as the poet who could help give the new nation a culture and identity.

[推测] His later nationalism drew strength from the unfinished emotional and cultural work of turning a newly unified state into a shared national community.

[11:02] Precocious Talent and Early Publicity

[事实] At boarding school, D’Annunzio was described as frighteningly clever and already fluent in multiple languages.

[事实] He published his first volume of verse at sixteen and sought front-page celebrity rather than only literary-page praise.

[事实] Before his second book appeared, he falsely reported his own tragic death in a riding accident, then later denied it while benefiting from the publicity.

[推测] This episode presents him as someone who understood media manipulation very early and treated fame as a deliberate craft.

[13:39] Sex, Celebrity, and Abuse of Women

[事实] The discussion states that D’Annunzio had an endless stream of mistresses and lovers and kept notes about his sexual life.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says he behaved deplorably to women and that there is no way to defend it.

[事实] The transcript mentions notebook references to forcing himself on or raping working-class women, while also noting uncertainty over how often this occurred.

[推测] The episode suggests that his erotic self-mythology was part of a wider obsession with domination, performance, and personal power.

[15:32] Eleonora Duse and Intellectual Partnerships

[事实] D’Annunzio had a relationship with Eleonora Duse, described as the most famous actress of her day in Italy.

[事实] Duse performed his plays internationally and expanded his reach by taking his work to places including Russia, America, and England.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says many of his significant lovers were women of great talent or high social standing.

[推测] Although he treated women badly, his attraction to talented and prominent women also helped connect his literary ambition to wider celebrity networks.

[17:04] Antennae for Modernity

[事实] The hosts emphasize D’Annunzio’s early alertness to Nietzsche, pagan ritual, futurism, motor cars, telephones, airplanes, modern weapons, and speed.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett explains that her book is called The Pike because D’Annunzio could snap up trends before others around him noticed them.

[事实] He admired modern weaponry and later became an aviator, though he did not pilot his own aircraft.

[推测] D’Annunzio’s importance lies partly in his ability to convert emerging cultural and technological trends into political style.

[20:03] Elitism and Hatred of Parliamentary Democracy

[事实] D’Annunzio attacked parliamentary democracy as vulgar, depraved, and like a sewer.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says he was an elitist who believed some people were genuinely better than others and should rule.

[事实] He briefly served in parliament, first sitting with right-wing nationalists, militarists, and monarchists, then crossing to sit with the socialists because he thought they had more energy.

[推测] His politics were less about consistent doctrine than about vitality, hierarchy, spectacle, and contempt for liberal compromise.

[23:08] Energy, Virility, and Style

[事实] The discussion links D’Annunzio’s politics to swagger, spectacle, virility, and theatrical dazzle.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says he was an extreme version of a broader late nineteenth-century preoccupation with manliness.

[事实] The episode notes the paradox that he loved stylish clothes and beautiful presentation while obsessing over masculine force.

[推测] His public image blended dandyism and militarism in a way that later fascist aesthetics would echo.

[25:01] From Literature to Political Fire

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says that as D’Annunzio took a more active interest in politics, the quality of his literary output declined and became more polemical.

[事实] He came to feel that being only a writer was not enough and wanted to “set nations ablaze.”

[事实] He used the language of sacrifice and “Holocaust” in an older sense of total sacrificial consumption.

[推测] The episode portrays his political turn as an expansion of literary ambition into mass mobilization and violence.

[26:41] War as National Purification

[事实] When war broke out in 1914, D’Annunzio was in Paris and was excited by it.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says he and other Italian nationalists believed Italy needed a war, regardless of enemy or cause, as a “baptism of blood.”

[事实] He wrote bellicose newspaper pieces urging Italy to enter the war on the side of France.

[推测] His rhetoric treated war not as policy but as a purifying national ritual.

[29:30] The 1915 Intervention Speeches

[事实] After returning to Italy in May 1915, D’Annunzio delivered a series of speeches urging intervention in the war.

[事实] The episode quotes his twisted reworking of the Sermon on the Mount, praising glory, wounds, blood, daring, and victory.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says he was far from alone in using rhetoric about blood as purification and national energy.

[推测] His speeches mattered because they gave emotional and theatrical form to pro-war feeling already present in Italy and Europe.

[32:23] How Much He Influenced Italy’s Entry into War

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says D’Annunzio’s real influence was less decisive than it appeared.

[事实] Italy had already secretly negotiated the Treaty of London before D’Annunzio’s return, with Britain and France promising territory along the Dalmatian coast.

[事实] His role was to sway public opinion and intimidate the anti-war party enough for the government’s position to pass.

[推测] D’Annunzio imagined himself bending history to his will, but he was also serving a political process already underway.

[36:41] Wartime Service and Personal Courage

[事实] Italy’s war against Austria is described as extremely brutal, especially along the mountain front.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says D’Annunzio was unquestionably brave and repeatedly risked his life despite being in his fifties.

[事实] He served in submarines, naval campaigns, and aircraft, and he lost sight in one eye after an aviation accident.

[推测] His wartime courage strengthened his later authority among soldiers and nationalists who admired action over conventional politics.

[39:45] The Flight over Vienna

[事实] D’Annunzio flew over Trieste and later Vienna, dropping pamphlets rather than bombs.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says the Vienna flight was risky because it was unclear whether the aircraft could complete the round trip without refuelling.

[事实] The action had a major effect on Italian morale after the defeat at Caporetto.

[推测] The raid perfectly matched D’Annunzio’s belief that words could be weaponized like martial action.

[41:15] Fiume and the “Mutilated Victory”

[事实] Fiume, now Rijeka in Croatia, was described as a strategically important port with a significant Italian population.

[事实] D’Annunzio believed Fiume and other Dalmatian territories should become part of a “greater Italy.”

[事实] The postwar settlement became tangled with Wilsonian self-determination and the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

[推测] The Fiume crisis grew from the gap between Italian nationalist expectations and the diplomatic realities after the First World War.

[45:02] The March into Fiume

[事实] A group in Fiume invited D’Annunzio to lead them, and he set off with about 200 mutineers from the Italian army.

[事实] Although Allied-commanded Italian troops had orders to stop him, many laid down their weapons or joined him.

[事实] He arrived in Fiume sick and feverish but with his force expanded to more than 2,000 people.

[推测] His reputation was strong enough to turn an unauthorized military adventure into a dramatic political event.

[48:19] Fiume as Revolutionary Stage

[事实] D’Annunzio declared Fiume an ideal state of poetry, beauty, freedom, and love.

[事实] The city attracted Italian nationalists, free-love radicals, anti-money sectarians, Bolsheviks, and other political adventurers.

[事实] Lenin reportedly admired what D’Annunzio was doing and called him the only true revolutionary in Europe.

[推测] Fiume was politically unstable because it combined nationalism, aesthetic utopianism, and revolutionary experimentation without durable governance.

[49:58] Balcony Politics and Fascist Ritual

[事实] In Fiume, D’Annunzio called himself the Commandant and addressed crowds from the balcony of the former Habsburg Governor’s Palace.

[事实] His speeches became dialogues with the crowd, using call-and-response rhythms and slogans.

[事实] He reviewed his legion, embraced black-uniformed ex-arditi, used processions, songs, and the straight-armed salute later associated with fascism.

[推测] Fiume functioned as a laboratory for fascist political theatre, even before Mussolini consolidated fascism as a regime.

[52:59] Violence, Hunger, and Ethnic Bullying

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says Fiume was divided between a prosperous Italian merchant class and a Slavic working class.

[事实] During D’Annunzio’s fifteen months there, the city was partially blockaded by the Italian government and became hungry.

[事实] Riots became ethnically divided, and the Slavic population was barred from getting food.

[推测] The episode treats Fiume’s ugly ending as evidence that romantic political idealism can quickly become coercive and ethnically violent.

[54:18] D’Annunzio, Mussolini, and Fascism

[事实] D’Annunzio did not publicly endorse fascism in a sustained way, though he briefly appeared with fascists in Milan in 1919.

[事实] Mussolini knew D’Annunzio had a larger public following and feared he might re-enter politics.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says D’Annunzio was not a fascist, but “fascism was definitely D’Annunzio.”

[推测] The distinction offered is that D’Annunzio supplied style, rituals, myths, and emotional grammar, while Mussolini built the political machine.

[56:42] Could He Have Led Fascism Instead?

[事实] The episode says some people wanted D’Annunzio to step forward as a national dictator after the war.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says this could easily have happened, but she believes he was not truly interested in governing.

[事实] She argues he loved the arrival, drama, singing, theatre, and excitement, but not the practical work of taxes or administration.

[推测] D’Annunzio may have been too theatrical and dilettante-like to sustain the disciplined political rule that Mussolini pursued.

[58:18] His Memory in Italy

[事实] D’Annunzio died in 1938 and later became a difficult figure for postwar Italy to handle after fascism’s defeat.

[事实] Hughes-Hallett says his early poems remain part of Italian literary education.

[事实] His house on Lake Garda is described as a place of pilgrimage for parts of the extreme right.

[推测] Italy’s memory of D’Annunzio remains divided between literary admiration, historical embarrassment, and political unease.

播客点评/总结

This episode is valuable because it shows fascism not only as a party programme or dictatorship, but as a culture of spectacle, violence, youth, masculinity, media manipulation, and anti-democratic emotion.

Its strongest feature is the way Hughes-Hallett connects D’Annunzio’s literary brilliance with his political danger. The discussion avoids making him a simple villain by acknowledging his talent and courage, while also making clear his cruelty, vanity, and appetite for bloodshed.

[推测] A limitation is that the format leaves less room for deep analysis of Italian social groups, class conflict, and postwar economics beyond their connection to D’Annunzio. Listeners wanting a full political history of Italian fascism would need more context.

[推测] The episode is especially suited to listeners interested in the origins of fascist style, the politics of celebrity, literary modernism, and the way cultural performance can become political power.