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FrancoAngeli Journals

Studies and research

No. 301 (2023): Italia Contemporanea - open access section

A deportation during the fascist “Ventennio”. The Ethiopian high dignitaries confined in Mercogliano (1937-1940)

  • Erminio Fonzo
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/IC301-oa1
Submitted
marzo 24, 2023
Published
2023-03-28

Abstract

At the end of the 1930s, about one hundred Ethiopian citizens were confined in the town of Mercogliano (Avellino). The confined persons were members of the country’s ruling class and were part of a wider group of aristocrats deported in Italy after the attempt against Rodolfo Graziani (19 February 1937). The Ethiopians, hosted in two religious institutes, were subjected to a regime that was not too hard under the material point of view, but traumatic in psychological terms, because nearly all of them had sworn allegiance to Italy and expected to have a political role in the new colonial Ethiopia. The deportees were repatriated between the second half of 1938 and the beginning of 1940. For most of them, the experience of deportation represented a rupture in their relationship with Italy and proved to be counterproductive for the fascist regime.

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