Abstract

The First World War was a writing laboratory of letters, memoirs and even poetic texts not only for professional writers and intellectuals but also for most of the soldiers and prisoners who took part in it. Here We illustrate a parody of Dante's "Divine Comedy" for the most part unpublished; Italian soldiers of Austria - Hungary Army wrote it during their imprisonement in Russia. We analyze linguistic, historical and literary profile of this text, bringing out its exemplary and emblematic value, both with regard to the evolution of Dante's myth of the Risorgimento and also regarding the contradictions of the Great War.