IMMAGINI D’INFANZIA NEL FASCISMO TRA CINEMA E LIBRI DI TESTO

Abstract

The article examines the figuration of childhood through a het-erogeneous set of texts and images from the fascist period. The corpus analyzed, which includes documentaries, films, school books, exercise books and children's periodicals, consti-tutes a significant source of rhetorical strategies of representa-tion of the fascistization of children. These images, even in their multiple aspects, appear as a privileged observatory to capture in the icon of the ‘naturally fascist’ child the target of choice for the ideological diffusion and consolidation of the regime's he-gemony. Physical courage, muscular strength, love of military life, spirit of sacrifice, discipline, but also the distinction be-tween female and male childhoods, show an active and deep in-volvement of the new generations in the value system on which the dictatorship was based. To conquer the imagination of chil-dren, the first condition to guarantee the integral character of control and its projection into the future, childhood was cleverly depicted not only as a biological and sociological category, but also as a political and functional category for the nationalization of the people.