A poet, a saint, a hero. The myth of Giosuè Borsi during the Great War (1915-1918)

di Giovanni Cavagnini
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 44 (2013), p. 107

A Catholic convert since 1914, the Tuscan poet Giosuè Borsi died on the Isonzo battlefield at the end of 1915 and was celebrated by intellectuals, politicians and clergymen as the symbol of the “greater Italy” born in the trenches. While anti-clericals and atheists lost interest after the hanging of Cesare Battisti – a far more fascinating figure to them –, Catholics made of Borsi the emblem of the union of faith and patriotism, but also the vehicle of a political and religious project, that considered submission to God and to the Church as the only way to national greatness. Keywords: Catholicism, nationalism, Great War, intellectuals, memory, anti-clericalism