second world war, antifascism, italian soldiers, censored letters
Abstract
History and archives have a completely different attitude towards the past. While history tends to demonstrate only the monumental side of what has happened and conceal the rest of itself, the archives tend to take care of what happens to humans as individuals, being it even a casual care, opposing in this way the "destiny of the age" which comes on the focus of the former. Half a century ago, when the "eight million bayonets" had already created the "lictor’s empire", "Luce" Institute, through the cinematic diaries of war reporters, tried to demonstrate the triumphalist spirit in the soldiers' hometowns, a spirit which derived from the "myth of superiority". In fact, since antiquity, mankind, through literature, have learned that even the most horrible heroes have a weak point somewhere: Achilles had it in the heel, Samson of the Jews in the hair, the protective fairies of heroes in the Albanian epos at three gold-horn goats. But the "hero with a weakness" probably should not be expected from history.
