Memoria e storia pubblica: Resistenza in Italia e in Francia

Memory and public history: Resistance in Italy and in France
This essay compares Italy and France concerning the modes, the unrolling and the themes of the construction of a national memory of the Resistance and, in general, of the Second World War. The former touches upon issues such as public monuments, memorials, public writing, literature and cinema about the Resistance, festivals, militant historiography, museums, institutions and research centres aiming at the reconstruction and circulation of the history and memory of the Resistance. Although the years 1944-47 appear similar in the two cases, due to the spreading activity of the parties born out of the Resistance, in France the Gaullist and Communist party, and, in Italy, the parties and governments emerged from the Cln (National Liberation Front), in the following years the paths taken diverged in a remarkable way.