Abstract

The survey reconstructs the themes and main currents of research pursued by Italian historiography during the last ten years on the political problem of the Resistance. It describes the political setting within which the Resistance has been framed in relation to the continuities and breaks between the fascist and democratic states, and the latter's basis of legitimacy. The labelling of the 1943-45 war as a "civil war"; the view of 8 September as the "death of the fatherland", or vice versa as a founding moment of the new national identity; the question of the so-called "grey zone" and of "civil resistance"; Salò fascism and the Kingdom of the South: these are some of the issues examined by recent Italian historiography in an endeavour to supersede the hagiographic and mollified image of the Resistance transmitted by the first post-war studies. There emerges a much more articulated picture enriched with new documentary evidence which, however, is still unable to resolve the "problem" of the Resistance in popular memory - when, that is to say, assessment is made of its ethical-political nature and its legitimacy as a foundation of the democratic state.