Notes · ItalianUK · A-Levels

Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri: dictatorship, war and the making of the Republic

This topic carries the whole of Tema 4, Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri, with all three of its sub-themes: l'ascesa di Mussolini al potere, exemplified in the specification as la nascita del Partito Fascista; il Fascismo durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, exemplified as il governo di Mussolini e la dittatura and la vita sotto Mussolini durante la seconda guerra mondiale; and dalla dittatura alla democrazia, exemplified as la caduta di Mussolini, la liberazione and le 6 nazioni. Tema 4 is set in the context of Italy only. It occupies a topic named for political life because the platform's topic ids are fixed and carry no history slot; the material itself is history, and it is treated here as history is properly treated — factually, with dates, with the disagreements among historians named as disagreements, and without euphemism about the regime's racial laws, its violence or its war. It is also, and this is the point of its inclusion in a language qualification, the origin of the Italian Republic, its Constitution, its national holidays and a great deal of its political vocabulary.

5 sections~38 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Advanced 5

T·0666 / 13

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to spoken Italian on twentieth-century Italian historyAO2 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to written Italian including historical and documentary sourcesAO3 · Manipulate Italian accurately, using past tenses, the passive and reported speech to narrate and explainAO4 · Show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically to, the Fascist period and the founding of the Italian Republic

Operators:narraredatarespiegareanalizzarevalutareconfrontaretradurre

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is an accurate narrative with secure dates: how Mussolini came to power, what the dictatorship did, how it fell, and how the Republic was founded — told in correct Italian past tenses with the key institutional vocabulary.

higher level

The full A-Level expects explanation and evaluation. Why did a parliamentary state hand power to a movement that had not won an election? Why did the regime retain support for two decades? Why is the period between 1943 and 1945 called a civil war by historians as well as a war of liberation? Answers must handle historiographical disagreement in Italian without evasion, use dates as evidence, and distinguish what is established from what is debated.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri: dictatorship, war and the making of the Republic

L'ascesa di Mussolini al potere: 1919 to 1925#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9IN0 Tema 4 - Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri: l'ascesa di Mussolini al potere; la nascita del Partito FascistaDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Dal fascismo alla Repubblica: 1919-1957

Fig. 1The chronology is the topic's backbone. Note the two clusters: 1922 to 1925, when a government became a regime, and 1943 to 1948, when a regime became a republic. Everything else in this topic hangs on those two.

The sequence must be secure before anything else, because every argument in this topic depends on it. In March 1919 Mussolini founded i Fasci italiani di combattimento in Milan, a small movement that performed badly at the elections of that November. The context was il biennio rosso, the two years of strikes, land occupations and factory occupations in 1919 and 1920, and the widespread sense of vittoria mutilata, the belief that Italy had been cheated of territorial gains at the peace conference despite having fought on the winning side. Through 1920 and 1921 le squadre d'azione — the squadristi, in their black shirts — attacked socialist party offices, trade-union halls and peasant leagues, with the violence concentrated in the Po valley and Tuscany, and with a striking degree of tolerance from local authorities. In November 1921 the movement became a party, il Partito Nazionale Fascista. In October 1922 came la marcia su Roma; the government asked the King to proclaim a state of siege, Vittorio Emanuele III refused to sign, and on 29 and 30 October he appointed Mussolini head of government. Mussolini came to power constitutionally, at the head of a coalition, after a threat of force that was never tested — and that combination is the historically interesting fact.

Power was then consolidated in three steps. In 1923 la legge Acerbo changed the electoral system so that the list with the largest share of votes, above a threshold, would receive two thirds of the seats; the elections of April 1924, held in a climate of intimidation, produced a large fascist majority. In June 1924 the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, who had denounced the conduct of those elections in parliament, was abducted and murdered; his body was found in August. The opposition deputies withdrew from parliament in protest, in what is called l'Aventino or la secessione aventiniana, a gesture that removed them from the chamber without removing the government. On 3 January 1925 Mussolini addressed the Chamber and assumed political responsibility for what had happened, and the speech is conventionally taken as the moment the regime ceased to be a government and became a dictatorship. Le leggi fascistissime of 1925 and 1926 followed: opposition parties dissolved, the free press suppressed, elected mayors replaced by appointed podestà, a special tribunal for political offences established.

The historiographical question — why did it happen — is contested, and naming the competing explanations rather than choosing one blindly is exactly what the AO4 grid means by critical analysis. Four explanations circulate. The institutional one: a parliamentary system with weak governments and a King who declined to use his powers against the movement. The social one: the fear of revolution among landowners, industrialists and much of the middle class after the biennio rosso, which made fascist violence appear to some as order rather than disorder. The cultural one: the legacy of the war, the cult of the veteran and a nationalism inflamed by the peace settlement. The economic one: post-war inflation, demobilisation and unemployment. Say in Italian that they combine: nessuna di queste spiegazioni basta da sola; è la loro combinazione a rendere possibile ciò che accadde. Note è ... a rendere, the cleft with a plus infinitive, and accadde, a passato remoto, which is the standard narrative tense of Italian historical writing and which the specification's grammar list marks as receptive knowledge.

The Italian you need here is the language of historical narration, and it is worth building deliberately. Dates: nel 1922, nell'ottobre del 1922, il 28 ottobre, negli anni Venti, all'inizio del secolo, alla vigilia della guerra. Sequence: dapprima, in seguito, di lì a poco, nel giro di pochi anni, a partire dal 1925. Verbs of political process: salire al potere, assumere il potere, instaurare un regime, sciogliere i partiti, sopprimere la libertà di stampa, mettere fuori legge, perseguitare. Institutions: il Re, il capo del governo, la Camera dei deputati, il Senato, il Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, il podestà. And the tenses: use il passato remoto to recognise historical narrative in reading passages, il passato prossimo and l'imperfetto to write it yourself — Italian schoolbooks use the remoto, but nothing in this qualification requires you to produce it.

Worked example

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English of a historical passage

Translate into English. Nell'ottobre del 1922 le colonne fasciste si diressero verso Roma. Il governo chiese al Re di proclamare lo stato d'assedio, ma Vittorio Emanuele III si rifiutò di firmare il decreto e affidò a Mussolini l'incarico di formare un nuovo governo. Il passaggio dei poteri avvenne dunque nelle forme previste dallo Statuto, il che non toglie che fosse stato preceduto da anni di violenza squadrista.

Le colonne fasciste si diressero verso Roma
The fascist columns headed for Rome. Si diressero is the passato remoto of dirigersi, to head or make one's way; the reflexive is obligatory in this sense and English simply uses headed. Verso is towards, and English idiom here prefers headed for. Do not translate colonne as columns in the architectural sense; in a military context they are marching columns.
Il governo chiese al Re di proclamare lo stato d'assedio
The government asked the King to proclaim a state of siege. Chiedere a qualcuno di fare qualcosa is the fixed pattern: the person asked is an indirect object with a, and the action is di plus infinitive. Getting this wrong — chiese il Re — is a common error in the other direction, but reading it correctly here means recognising that al Re is the person and not the thing requested. Lo stato d'assedio is the technical term; martial law is a reasonable English rendering but state of siege is more exact.
si rifiutò di firmare il decreto e affidò a Mussolini l'incarico di formare un nuovo governo
Refused to sign the decree and entrusted Mussolini with the task of forming a new government. Rifiutarsi di plus infinitive is to refuse to do; rifiutare without the reflexive takes a direct object and means to reject something. Affidare a qualcuno l'incarico di is the exact constitutional formula for inviting someone to form a government, and it is still used in Italian today — worth recognising in any modern political text.
Il passaggio dei poteri avvenne dunque nelle forme previste dallo Statuto
The transfer of power therefore took place in the forms laid down by the Statuto. Avvenire is to occur or take place, here in the passato remoto. Previste dallo Statuto is a passive participle with da for the agent: laid down or provided for by the Statute. Lo Statuto is the Statuto Albertino, the constitution then in force, and it is a proper noun; translating it as the statute in lower case loses the reference.
il che non toglie che fosse stato preceduto da anni di violenza squadrista
Which does not alter the fact that it had been preceded by years of squadrista violence. Il che refers back to the whole preceding clause. Non toglie che is an idiom meaning it does not alter the fact that, and it takes the congiuntivo — here the trapassato fosse stato preceduto, itself a passive. Squadrista is an adjective from le squadre d'azione and is best kept in Italian with a gloss, or rendered as paramilitary; blackshirt violence is an acceptable and clear alternative.

Result: In October 1922 the fascist columns headed for Rome. The government asked the King to proclaim a state of siege, but Vittorio Emanuele III refused to sign the decree and entrusted Mussolini with the task of forming a new government. The transfer of power therefore took place in the forms laid down by the Statuto, which does not alter the fact that it had been preceded by years of paramilitary violence.

Typical mistakes

Saying that Mussolini won an election in 1922. He was appointed head of government by the King in October 1922; the fascist electoral majority came in 1924, under the Acerbo law.
Dating the dictatorship to 1922. The conventional date is 3 January 1925, with the leggi fascistissime of 1925 and 1926.
Confusing i Fasci italiani di combattimento (1919) with il Partito Nazionale Fascista (1921).
Writing il fascismo prese il potere con un colpo di stato. The march on Rome was a threat of force; the transfer of power was formally constitutional, and that is the point.

Active revision

Racconta in italiano, in circa 160 parole e senza elenchi, come Mussolini arrivò al potere fra il 1919 e il 1925, usando almeno sei date precise e almeno due connettivi di sequenza.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Italian (9IN0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Il governo di Mussolini e la dittatura: how the regime worked and how people lived#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9IN0 Tema 4 - il Fascismo durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale: il governo di Mussolini e la dittaturaDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The regime rested on four supports, and organising an answer around them is more analytical than narrating twenty years. First, the suppression of alternatives: from 1926 opposition parties were dissolved, the free press was closed or brought under control, elected local government was replaced by the appointed podestà, and a special tribunal, il Tribunale speciale per la difesa dello Stato, tried political offences; opponents were imprisoned or sent to il confino, internal exile in remote villages and islands. Second, the organisation of consent: mass organisations enrolled the population by age and function — l'Opera Nazionale Balilla and later la Gioventù Italiana del Littorio for the young, il Dopolavoro for workers' leisure — and the school curriculum, the newsreels of the Istituto LUCE and the press directives shaped what could be said. Third, accommodation with existing powers: the Patti Lateranensi of 1929 settled the state's long conflict with the Papacy, recognising the Vatican City State and giving the Church a strong position in Italian life, and the monarchy remained. Fourth, economic direction: the corporate state, protectionism, the battaglia del grano and the drive for autarchia, self-sufficiency.

Life under the regime was not uniform and saying so accurately is what separates knowledge from cliché. Some measures were genuinely popular, including land reclamation, public works and the settlement of the Lateran question; others were resented, including price controls and the demands of the mass organisations. Consent and coercion coexisted, and Italian historians have argued at length about the balance between them — Renzo De Felice's work on consenso provoked one of the fiercest historiographical controversies of post-war Italy precisely because it raised the question of how far the regime was supported rather than merely endured. Handle that in Italian by attributing: gli storici discutono da decenni su quanto il regime godesse di consenso reale, e la questione resta aperta. Note godere di, to enjoy in the sense of possessing, and godesse, congiuntivo imperfetto after su quanto in an indirect question.

The regime's racial legislation must be stated plainly and without softening, because it is the central moral fact of this sub-theme. In 1938 the Italian state enacted le leggi razziali: Jewish Italians were expelled from state schools and universities as teachers and as pupils, excluded from the civil service, the armed forces and many professions, forbidden to marry non-Jews, and stripped of rights they had held as citizens since the nineteenth century. These were Italian laws, made by an Italian government, and the widely repeated idea that they were imposed by Germany is not supported by the evidence. After 1943, in the territory of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana and under German occupation, thousands of Italian Jews were arrested — with participation by Italian police and officials — and deported to Nazi extermination camps, and the great majority did not return. Italy also fought colonial wars whose conduct was brutal: the reconquest of Libya and the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and 1936 involved mass internment and the use of chemical weapons. State all of this in Italian without euphemism: le leggi razziali del 1938 furono leggi italiane, e privarono i cittadini ebrei dei loro diritti prima ancora dell'occupazione tedesca.

Two further caveats keep this section honest. The first concerns the myth Italians call italiani brava gente, the comfortable belief that Italians were essentially decent and that the crimes belonged to their allies; historians have subjected it to sustained criticism, and a candidate who mentions the myth and its critique is doing something genuinely advanced. The second concerns memory: Italy has never had a process comparable to German denazification, the amnesty promulgated in 1946 released many convicted of fascist crimes, and the resulting incompleteness — what Italians call la mancata defascistizzazione — is one reason the period remains politically live. None of this requires a candidate to editorialise. It requires precision, dates and the willingness to say what is established, what is debated and what is myth.

Worked example

Paper 2 Section A: translation into Italian of a historical passage

Translate into Italian. In 1938 the regime approved the racial laws, which excluded Jewish citizens from schools and from public employment. Many families were forced to leave the country, while others remained, hoping that the situation would change. Historians agree that these laws were Italian and that they preceded the German occupation.

In 1938 the regime approved the racial laws
Nel 1938 il regime approvò le leggi razziali. Nel plus the year: Italian never says in 1938 without the article. Approvò is a passato remoto and is the natural tense for a dated historical event in written Italian; ha approvato would also be understood but reads as journalism rather than history. Note the adjective follows: leggi razziali.
which excluded Jewish citizens from schools and from public employment
che esclusero i cittadini ebrei dalle scuole e dagli impieghi pubblici. Escludere qualcuno da qualcosa: the preposition is da, contracting to dalle and dagli. Ebreo is both noun and adjective and agrees: i cittadini ebrei, le famiglie ebree. L'impiego pubblico is public-sector employment; il servizio pubblico would mean a public service.
Many families were forced to leave the country
Molte famiglie furono costrette a lasciare il paese. The English passive becomes essere plus participle, and because the auxiliary is essere the participle agrees: costrette, feminine plural, matching famiglie. Costringere governs a plus infinitive. Furono is the passato remoto of essere; if you prefer the passato prossimo, sono state costrette is equally correct and safer to produce.
while others remained, hoping that the situation would change
mentre altre rimasero, sperando che la situazione cambiasse. Altre agrees with the understood famiglie. Sperare che always takes the congiuntivo, and because the main verb is in the past the subordinate takes the congiuntivo imperfetto: cambiasse. This is the sequence of tenses the specification's grammar list refers to, and it is one of the most reliable places to earn a range mark. Sperando is a gerund and is invariable.
Historians agree that these laws were Italian and that they preceded the German occupation
Gli storici concordano sul fatto che queste leggi fossero italiane e che precedettero l'occupazione tedesca. Concordare sul fatto che takes the congiuntivo, hence fossero. The second clause states an undisputed dated fact, so the indicative precedettero is appropriate and the shift between the two moods is deliberate and defensible — one reports a judgement, the other a chronology. Precedere takes a direct object with no preposition.

Result: Nel 1938 il regime approvò le leggi razziali, che esclusero i cittadini ebrei dalle scuole e dagli impieghi pubblici. Molte famiglie furono costrette a lasciare il paese, mentre altre rimasero, sperando che la situazione cambiasse. Gli storici concordano sul fatto che queste leggi fossero italiane e che precedettero l'occupazione tedesca.

Typical mistakes

Writing that the racial laws were imposed by Germany. They were enacted by the Italian state in 1938, before the German occupation.
Describing the regime as universally supported or universally hated. Historians debate the balance, and saying so is the accurate position.
Confusing il confino (internal exile) with l'esilio (exile abroad) or with il carcere (prison).
Using il regime and il governo interchangeably. Il governo was a government from 1922; il regime is what it became after 1925.

Active revision

Scrivi in italiano circa 170 parole su «Come si reggeva il regime fascista?», organizzando la risposta per pilastri e non per date, e attribuendo esplicitamente almeno una posizione storiografica.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

La guerra, la caduta e la Resistenza: 1940 to 1945#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9IN0 Tema 4 - il Fascismo durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale: la vita sotto Mussolini durante la seconda guerra mondiale; la caduta di Mussolini; la liberazioneDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Italy entered the Second World War on 10 June 1940, on Germany's side, after the Patto d'Acciaio of 1939 had formalised the alliance. The war went badly from the start: campaigns in Greece and North Africa required German intervention, the Italian expeditionary force sent to the Soviet Union suffered catastrophic losses in the retreat of 1942 and 1943, and Italian cities were bombed. Daily life was shaped by la tessera annonaria, the ration card, by il coprifuoco, by evacuation — lo sfollamento — and by il mercato nero. Support for the regime drained away as the war worsened; strikes broke out in the northern factories in March 1943, the first mass strikes in a European country under fascist rule, and Allied forces landed in Sicily in July 1943. The narrative point worth making is that the regime did not fall because of an external defeat alone but because the war destroyed the consent it had been built on: la guerra tolse al regime ciò su cui si reggeva.

The fall came from inside the system. On 25 July 1943 the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo passed a motion, moved by Dino Grandi, inviting the King to resume command; the King dismissed Mussolini and had him arrested, appointing Marshal Pietro Badoglio in his place. Crowds pulled down fascist symbols. The new government continued the war publicly while negotiating in secret, and on 8 September 1943 the armistice with the Allies was announced. What followed is the darkest and most consequential moment of modern Italian history: the King and the government fled Rome for Brindisi, the army was left without orders and largely dissolved, German forces occupied the centre and north of the country, hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers were disarmed and deported to Germany as internees, and Mussolini, freed by German commandos, was installed at the head of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, the German-backed state in the north usually called la Repubblica di Salò.

Between September 1943 and April 1945 Italy was two countries and, in the north, a war within a war. La Resistenza was the armed opposition to the German occupation and to the RSI: i partigiani, organised in brigades of different political affiliations and coordinated by il Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, fought a partisan war while the Allies advanced slowly up the peninsula. Reprisals against civilians were systematic and are documented as massacres, at the Fosse Ardeatine in Rome, at Marzabotto and at Sant'Anna di Stazzema among many others. Italians fought Italians, which is why Claudio Pavone's influential study established the term guerra civile alongside guerra di liberazione in Italian historical writing — not to diminish the Resistance but to describe what was happening. On 25 April 1945 the CLN in the north called the general insurrection; the date is now la Festa della Liberazione. Mussolini was captured and shot on 28 April; his body and those of others were displayed in Piazzale Loreto in Milan the following day.

Two things should be said carefully. First, the Resistance was politically plural — communist, socialist, Catholic, liberal, monarchist and independent formations fought in it, and women participated in very large numbers as combatants, couriers and organisers, which is a point too often left out. Second, the Resistance is the founding legitimacy of the Republic: its parties wrote the Constitution, and its date is a national holiday, which is precisely why its interpretation remains politically contested in Italy rather than settled. For an exam answer, this means describing rather than celebrating, and being able to say so in Italian: la Resistenza è insieme un fatto storico e un fondamento politico della Repubblica, e per questo la sua memoria è ancora oggetto di discussione.

Worked example

Building a narrative paragraph in Italian with controlled tenses

Narrate the events of 1943 in Italian in a way that uses the tense system deliberately: perfect for events, imperfect for circumstances, pluperfect for what came before, and at least one passive.

Set the circumstances in the imperfetto
Nell'estate del 1943 la situazione militare era ormai compromessa: gli Alleati erano sbarcati in Sicilia, le città venivano bombardate e il paese non aveva più risorse per continuare la guerra. Era, aveva are imperfetti for state; erano sbarcati is a trapassato prossimo for an event prior to the moment described; venivano bombardate is a venire passive in the imperfetto, describing a repeated process. Three tenses in one sentence, each doing a distinct job.
Give the first event in the perfect
Il 25 luglio il Gran Consiglio del Fascismo ha votato un ordine del giorno che invitava il Re a riprendere il comando, e il Re ha destituito e fatto arrestare Mussolini. Ha votato and ha destituito are passato prossimo for single completed events; invitava stays imperfetto because it describes the content of the motion rather than an event. Fatto arrestare is the causative fare plus infinitive that the grammar list names explicitly: had him arrested.
Mark the second event and its consequence
L'8 settembre è stato annunciato l'armistizio con gli Alleati. L'esercito, rimasto senza ordini, si è dissolto, mentre le truppe tedesche occupavano il centro e il nord del paese. È stato annunciato is an essere passive in the perfect. Rimasto senza ordini is a reduced participial clause. Occupavano is imperfetto for the ongoing background against which the main event stands out — the classic mentre pattern.
Introduce the third development
Poche settimane dopo Mussolini, liberato dai tedeschi, è stato messo a capo della Repubblica Sociale Italiana, uno stato che dipendeva interamente dall'occupazione tedesca. Liberato dai tedeschi is a past participle used adjectivally with da for the agent; è stato messo a capo is another passive, and the relative clause with dipendeva supplies the analytical judgement without editorialising.
Close with the consequence, and name it
Da quel momento l'Italia è stata divisa in due, e nel nord è cominciata una guerra che gli storici definiscono insieme di liberazione e civile. Definire qualcosa insieme X e Y attributes the term to historians rather than asserting it. Read the paragraph back and check the tense pattern: circumstances imperfect, events perfect, priors pluperfect, three passives of two different kinds.

Result: Nell'estate del 1943 la situazione militare era ormai compromessa: gli Alleati erano sbarcati in Sicilia, le città venivano bombardate e il paese non aveva più risorse per continuare la guerra. Il 25 luglio il Gran Consiglio del Fascismo ha votato un ordine del giorno che invitava il Re a riprendere il comando, e il Re ha destituito e fatto arrestare Mussolini. L'8 settembre è stato annunciato l'armistizio con gli Alleati; l'esercito, rimasto senza ordini, si è dissolto, mentre le truppe tedesche occupavano il centro e il nord del paese. Poche settimane dopo Mussolini, liberato dai tedeschi, è stato messo a capo della Repubblica Sociale Italiana, uno stato che dipendeva interamente dall'occupazione tedesca. Da quel momento l'Italia è stata divisa in due, e nel nord è cominciata una guerra che gli storici definiscono insieme di liberazione e civile.

Typical mistakes

Saying that Italy changed sides on 25 July 1943. The armistice was announced on 8 September; 25 July was Mussolini's dismissal.
Describing the RSI as an independent Italian state. It existed under German occupation and depended on it.
Treating the Resistance as a single organisation. It was a coalition of politically distinct formations coordinated by the CLN.
Writing la liberazione avvenne il 25 aprile 1945 in tutta Italia. The south was liberated much earlier; 25 April is the date of the northern insurrection and is the national commemoration.

Active revision

Racconta in italiano, in circa 170 parole, che cosa accadde in Italia fra il 25 luglio 1943 e il 25 aprile 1945, distinguendo con precisione le tre date del 1943 e usando almeno un passivo.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Dalla dittatura alla democrazia: the Republic, the Constitution and le 6 nazioni#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9IN0 Tema 4 - dalla dittatura alla democrazia: la caduta di Mussolini; la liberazione; le 6 nazioniDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The Republic was made by a vote, and the vote is worth knowing in detail because it is the founding fact of the state Italians live in. On 2 June 1946 Italians voted in a referendum on the form of the state — monarchy or republic — and simultaneously elected l'Assemblea Costituente, the constituent assembly. The Republic won; the House of Savoy went into exile. Two features of that day matter. It was the first national election in which Italian women voted, following the extension of the franchise the previous year. And the result divided the country geographically: the republican vote was concentrated in the north and centre, the monarchist vote in the south, which is a further instance of the divario you met in Tema 3 and a legitimate cross-theme connection. The date is now la Festa della Repubblica, and 2 June is a public holiday.

The Constitution was written by the elected assembly, approved in December 1947 and came into force on 1 January 1948. It is worth knowing three things about it. First, its authorship: it was drafted by the parties that had made up the Resistance — Christian Democrats, Communists, Socialists, Liberals, Actionists and others — which is why Italians call it una Costituzione nata dalla Resistenza and why arguments about the Resistance are also arguments about the Constitution. Second, its content, which reacts point by point to what preceded it: Article 1 founds the Republic on labour and locates sovereignty in the people; Article 3 establishes equality before the law and obliges the Republic to remove the obstacles to it; Article 11 renounces war as an instrument of offence against the freedom of other peoples; Article 21 guarantees freedom of expression and forbids censorship. Third, the transitional and final provision XII, which forbids the reorganisation, in any form, of the dissolved Fascist party — a clause that is regularly invoked in Italian public argument.

The phrase le 6 nazioni in the specification refers to European integration, and it belongs here because integration is the other half of the answer to dictatorship and war. The Treaties of Rome, signed in Rome on 25 March 1957, established the European Economic Community and Euratom among six founding states: Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Italy was a founder, not a latecomer, and the choice was deliberate: a country that had fought and lost a war of aggression anchored itself in a structure that made another one materially harder. The Italian political figure most associated with that choice is Alcide De Gasperi, prime minister through the immediate post-war years. The vocabulary: l'integrazione europea, i trattati, i paesi fondatori, la CEE, il mercato comune, and, for the phrasing of the argument, l'Europa è stata per l'Italia anche una scelta di politica interna, perché ancorava la giovane Repubblica a un sistema di democrazie.

Two features of the transition are commonly missed and are worth having, because they let you answer the harder version of the question. The first is that Italy's break with the past was legally decisive and administratively incomplete: the monarchy was abolished and the Fascist party banned, but the amnesty of 1946 released many people convicted of fascist crimes, and much of the state apparatus — magistrates, police, civil servants, university teachers — continued in place. Italians call the result la mancata defascistizzazione and it is one reason the memory of the period remains contested. The second is that the post-war political settlement was shaped by the Cold War: the elections of 1948, fought between the Christian Democrats and the Popular Front, were the most intensely contested in Italian history, and the alignment they produced structured Italian politics for four decades. Both facts belong in an answer that goes beyond the narrative, and both can be stated neutrally.

Worked example

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English on the founding of the Republic

Translate into English. Il 2 giugno 1946 gli italiani furono chiamati a scegliere fra monarchia e repubblica, e per la prima volta votarono anche le donne. Vinse la repubblica, e l'Assemblea Costituente, eletta lo stesso giorno, redasse una Costituzione che entrò in vigore il 1° gennaio 1948. Undici anni dopo l'Italia sarebbe stata fra i sei paesi fondatori della Comunità Economica Europea.

gli italiani furono chiamati a scegliere
Italians were called upon to choose. Furono chiamati is a passato remoto passive with essere, so the participle agrees in the masculine plural. Chiamare a plus infinitive is to call upon someone to do something. The English idiom were called upon, or were asked, both work; were called to choose is not natural English.
e per la prima volta votarono anche le donne
And for the first time women also voted. Note the word order: Italian places the subject after the verb here, which is normal after an adverbial phrase and carries emphasis. Anche modifies le donne, not votarono, so it means women too, not also voted — misplacing that in English changes the meaning and is exactly the sort of thing translation marks test.
Vinse la repubblica
The republic won. Again verb before subject, which Italian uses freely and English does not; the English must be reordered. Vincere is intransitive here. Keeping Italian word order — won the republic — would be nonsense, and the discipline of reordering rather than transcribing is the core skill of Section C.
l'Assemblea Costituente, eletta lo stesso giorno, redasse una Costituzione che entrò in vigore
The Constituent Assembly, elected on the same day, drew up a Constitution which came into force. Eletta is a past participle used adjectivally and agreeing with Assemblea. Redigere means to draft or draw up; its passato remoto is redasse. Entrare in vigore is the fixed phrase for legislation taking effect. Il 1° gennaio uses the ordinal for the first of the month only — every other date takes a cardinal number.
Undici anni dopo l'Italia sarebbe stata fra i sei paesi fondatori
Eleven years later Italy would be among the six founding countries. Sarebbe stata is a condizionale passato used here as a future-in-the-past — the narrative stands in 1946 and looks forward — and English renders it with would be, not would have been. This is one of the highest-value recognitions in Italian-to-English translation, because the literal would have been produces a counterfactual that the Italian does not mean. Fondatore is used adjectivally: paesi fondatori.

Result: On 2 June 1946 Italians were called upon to choose between monarchy and republic, and for the first time women too voted. The republic won, and the Constituent Assembly, elected on the same day, drew up a Constitution which came into force on 1 January 1948. Eleven years later Italy would be among the six founding countries of the European Economic Community.

Typical mistakes

Saying Italy became a republic in 1945. The referendum was on 2 June 1946 and the Constitution took effect on 1 January 1948.
Treating le 6 nazioni as something other than the six founding states of the EEC under the Treaties of Rome of 1957.
Writing la Costituzione fu scritta dagli Alleati. It was drafted by an elected Italian constituent assembly.
Saying that Italy joined the European Community later. Italy was one of the six founders and signed the treaties in Rome.

Active revision

Spiega in italiano, in circa 170 parole, come l'Italia passò dalla dittatura alla democrazia fra il 1945 e il 1957, collegando almeno due articoli della Costituzione a ciò che il regime aveva fatto.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Exam technique: using historical detail as evidence, not as narrative#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9IN0 Paper 3 Task 1 - knowledge and understanding of society and culture (AO4), 12 marksPearson Edexcel 9IN0 - Task 1 stimulus cards are drawn from the twelve sub-themes, three per theme

Tema 4 produces three of the twelve stimulus cards, so roughly one candidate in four will be offered a historical sub-theme in the speaking test, and every candidate must be ready for one. The failure mode is specific and predictable: a candidate who knows the history well narrates it. Narration scores badly, because the AO4 grid is not asking what happened but for a critical and analytical response — relevant, perceptive ideas supported by pertinent information, with developed and justified arguments and convincing conclusions. A chronology, however accurate, contains no argument. The corrective is simple to state and takes practice to execute: every date you give must be given in order to prove something, and you should be able to say what.

Convert narration into argument with a fixed move. Instead of saying that Mussolini became prime minister in October 1922, say that the fact that he was appointed by the King rather than elected shows that the crisis was as much institutional as popular. Instead of saying that the racial laws were passed in 1938, say that their date — before the German occupation — settles a question about responsibility. Instead of listing the events of 1943, say that the three dates of that year explain why the following two years were a civil war and not simply an occupation. In each case the structure in Italian is the same: il fatto che plus congiuntivo, dimostra che, il che spiega perché, e questo basta a smentire l'idea che plus congiuntivo. Prepare four such conversions before the exam and you will never narrate under pressure.

Historical sub-themes reward three specific habits. First, dates in clusters rather than singly: 1919 to 1925 as the rise, 1943 to 1945 as the collapse, 1946 to 1948 as the founding. A cluster is an argument about periodisation; a single date is a fact. Second, naming a debate as a debate — gli storici discutono se ..., la questione del consenso è controversa, il termine guerra civile è stato introdotto dagli storici e non è una svalutazione della Resistenza — which demonstrates that you know the difference between what is established and what is argued. Third, connecting to the present, which is what the sub-theme's own title, dal fascismo ai giorni nostri, actually asks: the Constitution, the two national holidays on 25 April and 2 June, the twelfth transitional provision, and Italy's founding membership of the European Community are all present-day consequences of the period.

Two cautions. First, this material must be handled with the same care in the exam as anywhere else: state what happened, attribute what is argued, and do not use the vocabulary of either apologetics or slogans. An examiner is assessing analysis, and both registers are the opposite of it. Second, do not let the history crowd out the language. The AO3 grids are applied to the same answer, and historical narration in Italian has a natural tendency towards a single tense and a single sentence shape. Plan deliberately for variety: a passive, a congiuntivo after an expression of opinion, a relative with a preposition, a comparative. The narrative will carry the AO4 marks only if the Italian carries the AO3 ones alongside it.

Worked example

Converting four dates from narrative into argument

Take four dates from this topic and turn each from a statement of what happened into a statement of what it proves, in Italian.

October 1922
Narrative: nell'ottobre del 1922 Mussolini divenne capo del governo. Argument: il fatto che Mussolini sia stato nominato dal Re, e non eletto, dimostra che la crisi fu prima di tutto istituzionale: le forme costituzionali furono rispettate proprio mentre venivano svuotate. Il fatto che takes the congiuntivo sia stato nominato; the second half uses a venire passive in the imperfetto and the adverb proprio to sharpen the paradox.
January 1925
Narrative: nel 1925 iniziò la dittatura. Argument: la distanza fra l'ottobre del 1922 e il gennaio del 1925 è essa stessa una prova: per più di due anni il regime non fu una dittatura ma un governo di coalizione, e questo spiega perché tante istituzioni poterono convincersi di poterlo contenere. Essa stessa is emphatic; poterono convincersi di poterlo contenere stacks two modals, which is exactly the kind of extended construction the AO3 range grid names.
1938
Narrative: nel 1938 furono approvate le leggi razziali. Argument: la data del 1938 basta a smentire l'idea che le leggi razziali siano state imposte dalla Germania, dal momento che precedettero di cinque anni l'occupazione tedesca. Basta a smentire l'idea che plus congiuntivo siano state imposte; the causal dal momento che takes the indicative. The date is doing argumentative work, which is the whole technique.
2 June 1946
Narrative: il 2 giugno 1946 nacque la Repubblica. Argument: il fatto che le donne abbiano votato per la prima volta proprio nel referendum che fondava la Repubblica lega due cose che di solito si raccontano separatamente: la nascita della democrazia italiana e l'ampliamento del suffragio. Abbiano votato is a congiuntivo passato after il fatto che; the point made is a connection between two facts, which is the specification's own definition of a perceptive response.
Check what has changed
Read the four arguments back. None of them is longer than the narrative version by more than a clause, and each contains a claim that could be disagreed with — which is the test. If a sentence about history cannot be disagreed with, it is a fact rather than an argument, and facts alone sit in the middle bands of the AO4 grid.

Result: Four dates converted: 1922 proves the institutional nature of the crisis; the gap to 1925 proves that the dictatorship was not immediate and explains the miscalculation of those who thought it could be contained; 1938 settles the question of responsibility for the racial laws; and 2 June 1946 links the founding of the Republic to the extension of the franchise.

Typical mistakes

Narrating a chronology and expecting the knowledge to earn AO4 marks. The grid asks for analysis, not for accuracy alone.
Presenting a contested historiographical judgement as an established fact, or an established fact as merely one view.
Writing the whole answer in one tense. Historical narration in Italian drifts towards the passato prossimo unless you plan against it.
Stopping in 1945. The sub-theme is called dal fascismo ai giorni nostri and the present-day consequences are part of the answer.

Active revision

Prendi quattro date del periodo 1919-1957 e, per ciascuna, scrivi in italiano una frase che non racconti l'evento ma dimostri qualcosa, usando «il fatto che» con il congiuntivo almeno due volte.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Italian (9IN0) specification

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri: dictatorship, war and the making of the Republic

5 sections~38 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Advanced 5

Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri: dictatorship, war and the making of the Republic

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English of a historical passage

Key points

Paper 2 Section A: translation into Italian of a historical passage

Key points

Building a narrative paragraph in Italian with controlled tenses

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English on the founding of the Republic

Key points

Converting four dates from narrative into argument

Sources

Dal fascismo ai giorni nostri: dictatorship, war and the making of the Republic

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English of a historical passage

Key points

Paper 2 Section A: translation into Italian of a historical passage

Key points

Building a narrative paragraph in Italian with controlled tenses

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English on the founding of the Republic

Key points

Converting four dates from narrative into argument

Sources