Cover not available
Article published In:
Radical Right-Wing Populism and Borders: Positioning antagonistic discourses in the (de)bounded spaces of power
Edited by Christian Lamour and Oscar Mazzoleni
[Journal of Language and Politics 23:3] 2024
► pp. 348–368

Commemoration and radical right-wing populism in European borderlands

A power geometries approach to frontier fascism in Trieste

ORCID logo | Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
The success of radical right-wing populist (RRWP) parties is based on discourses displaying “power geometries” (Massey 1993, 1999). These involve the representation of power relations, with on one side a globalized elite, boosting the mobility of human beings, goods and capital across borders, and on the other side, a territorially embedded people subject to this borderless mobility. Power geometries can also be used to approach the chameleonic behavior of RRWP politicians and their allies in the political space. The article uses this concept to interpret the attitude of the Trieste City Executive and the reactions to it when it commemorated a past connected to Italian fascism. The results show that the power geometries involving the RRWP and their allies in European borderlands can lead to discursive ambivalence in two overlapping spaces: the territorial and state-bordered space of representative democracy, and the topological and cross-border space of para-diplomacy.
Keywords: power geometries, radical right-wing populism, borders, commemorations, Italian fascism, discourse historical approach
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Power geometries and remembering an Italian autocracy: The spatial struggles and the dynamics behind a re-elaborated fascist past
  • 3.Argument, methodology and case study
  • 4.Addressing Italian frontier fascism in a Northern Adriatic borderland: The nuanced heroization, victimization and cancellation strategies in overlapping spaces of power
    • 4.1Celebrating Dannunzian Fiume: The dual heroization, the univocal cancellation and the cross-border reaction
    • 4.2The ambivalent mourning of the fallen under a totalitarian regime: Victimization and cancellation across borders
  • 5.Conclusion: Credere, obbedire, combattere for a re-elaborated frontier fascism
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 25 March 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.23088.lam
References (66)
References
Allen, John. 2016. Topologies of power. Beyond territory and networks. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
ANSA. 2019. D’Annunzio: Meloni loda statua a Trieste – Notizie – Ansa.it. Available at [URL]
Ažman Momirski, Lucija. 2021. “The Resilience of the Port Cities of Trieste, Rijeka, and Koper.” Journal of Urban History 47 (2): 293–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baracetti, Gaia. 2009. “Foibe: Nationalism, Revenge and Ideology in Venezia Giulia and Istria, I943-5.” Journal of Contemporary History 44 (4): 657–674. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baxa, Paul. 2013. “‘Il nostro Duce’: Mussolini’s visit to Trieste in 1938 and the workings of the cult of the Duce.” Modern Italy 18 (2): 117–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bernhard, Patrick. 2014. “Renarrating Italian Fascism: New Directions in the Historiography of a European Dictatorship.” Contemporary European History 23 (1): 151–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biancalana, Cecilia, Christian Lamour, Oscar Mazzoleni, Grégoire Yerly and Paul Carls. 2023. “Multi-scalar Strategies in Right-wing Populism: A Comparison of West European Parties in Borderlands.” Territory, Politics and Governance. Online First. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bosworth, Richard. 2022. “Benito Mussolini: 100 Years on.” In Rethinking Fascism, ed. by Andrea Di Michele, and Filippo Focardi. 107–126. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bresciani, Marco. 2021. “Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Idea of Nation: Italian Historiography and Public Debate since the 1980s.” Contemporary European History 30 (1): 111–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caramani, Daniele, and Luca Manucci. 2019. “National past and populism: the re-elaboration of fascism and its impact on right-wing populism in Western Europe.” West European Politics 42 (6): 1159–1187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carls, Paul. 2023. “Approaching Right-wing Populism in the Context of Transnational Economic Integration: Lessons from Luxembourg.” European Politics and Society 24(2): 265–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Castelli Gattinara, Pietro, and Caterina Froio. 2021. “Italy: The mainstream right and its allies, 1994–2018.” In Riding the Populist Wave: Europe’s Mainstream Right in Crisis, ed. by Tim Bale, and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. 170–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comune di Trieste. 2019. “Disobbedisco. La Rivoluzione di d’Annunzio a Fiume 1919–1920.” Available online at: [URL]
Comune di Trieste. 2021. “Presidente della Repubblica Borut Pahor ricevuto in Municipio dal sindaco di Trieste Roberto Dipiazza.” Available online at: [URL]
Contemplazioni. 2019. Disobbedisco. La rivoluzione di d’Annunzio a Fiume 1919–1920. Milan: Contemplazioni.Google Scholar
Ellinas, Antonis. 2018. “Media and the Radical Right.” In The Radical Right, ed. by Jens Rydgren. 390–410. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ghiretti, Francesca. 2021. “The Belt and Road Initiative in Italy: The Ports of Genoa and Trieste.” IAI Papers 211, 17 April.Google Scholar
Goriup, Lilli. 2020. “L’Omaggio di Dipiazza ai Fucilati del Tigr Manda in Tilt il Centrodestra di Trieste.” Il Piccolo. Available online at: [URL]
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. 2002. “A Gnawing Fascist Nostalgia. Letter from Trieste.” The New Leader 85 (2): 15–17.Google Scholar
Hametz, Maura Elise. 2002. “The Ambivalence of Italian Antisemitism: Fascism, Nationalism, and Racism in Trieste. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 16 (3): 376–401. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, Jason. 2018. The Father, the Son and the Sins of Italian Politics. The New York Times. Available online at: [URL]
Il Piccolo. 2019a. “Il caso diplomatico.” Il Piccolo, September 13.Google Scholar
. 2019b. “La Croazia insorge e condanna Turbati i rapporti fra i Paesi.” Il Piccolo. Available online at: [URL]
. 2020. “Plauso da Salvini a Zingaretti per il gesto di Mattarella e Pahor.” Il Piccolo. Available online at: [URL]
. 2021a. “Elezioni Comunali 2021 – Risultati Comune Di Trieste (Friuli Venezia Giulia).” Il Piccolo. Available online at: [URL]
. 2021b. “Giorgia Meloni e d’Annunzio: la foto sulla panchina di Trieste fa il giro del web.” Il Piccolo. Available online at: [URL]
Keating, Michael. 1999. “Regions and international affairs: Motives, opportunities and strategies.” In Paradiplomacy in action, ed. by Franscico Aldecoa, and Michael Keating. 1–1.6 London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał, Wodak, Ruth, Bradby, Hannah, Gardell, Mattias, Kallis, Aristotle, Krzyżanowska, Natalia, Mudde, Cas and Jens Rydgren. 2023. “Discourses and practices of the ‘new normal’. Towards an interdisciplinary research agenda on crisis and the normalization of anti- and post-democratic action.” Journal of Language and Politics 22(4): 415–437. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labus Bačić, Helena. 2019a. “’L’Olocausta di d’Annunzio’, una mostra per aprire un dialogo e un dibattito.” La Voce del popolo. Available online at: [URL]
. 2019b. “’L’olocausta di d’Annunzio’ e il messaggio antifascista.” La Voce del popolo. Available online at: [URL]
Lamour, Christian. 2021. “Interviewing a Right-wing Populist Leader during the 2019 EU Elections: Conflictual Situations and Equivocation beyond Borders.” Discourse & Communication 15 (1):59–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022a. “A Radical-right Populist Definition of Cross-national Regionalism in Europe: Shaping Power Geometries at the Regional Scale beyond State Borders.” International Journal of Urban & Regional Research 46 (1): 8–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022b. “Right-wing Populist Media Events in Schengen Europe: The Negotiated Border Discourse in-between Nation States.” Journal of Language and Politics 21(4): 521–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022c. Orbán Urbi et Orbi: Christianity as a Nodal Point of Radical-right Populism. Politics and Religion 15 (2):317–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2023a. Orbán Placed in Europe: Ukraine, Russia and the Radical-right Populist Heartland. Geopolitics. Online first. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2023b. “The Truth of Two Cities: Trieste, Rijeka and the Interplay between Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Cross-border Regional Europe.” Identities. Online first. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2023c. “The Scientific Discourse Circulated during a National-populist Commemoration: Dannunzian Fiume and the ‘Italo-cosmopolitan’ Field of History.” Modern Italy 28(1): 35–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2023d. “Representing the Radical Right of the Grande Nation in the Grand Duchy: The Viral ‘Fortress Europe’, the Contagious ‘Borderless Europe’ and the Non-communicable ‘Cross-border Regional Europe.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 31 (3): 768–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2024. “A Brave Old World: The Nuanced Combination of State-national Retrotopia and Trans-national Populism by an Assembled Radical-right Family.” Futures 1561 (2024) 1033231: 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lamour, Christian, and Paul Carls. 2022. “When COVID-19 Circulates in Right-wing Populist Discourse: The Contribution of a Global Crisis to European Meta-populism at the Cross-border Regional Scale. Journal of Contemporary European Studies. Online First. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lamour, Christian, and Oscar Mazzoleni. 2024. “Introduction. Positioning Antagonistic Discourses in the (De)bounded Spaces of Power.” Journal of Language and Politics. Online First. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lendvai, Paul. 2017. Orbán. Europe’s New Strongman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Manucci, Luca. 2020. Populism and Collective Memory. Comparing Fascist Legacies in Western Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Massey, Doreen. 1993. “Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place.” In Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Chance, ed. by J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson, and L. Tuckner. 59–69. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 1999. “Imagining globalisation: power-geometries of space-time.” In Future worlds: migration, environment and globalization, ed. by A. Brah, M. Hickman, and M. Mac an Ghaill. 27–44. Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
. 2005. For Space. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 2013. “Space, Hegemony and Radical Critique.” In Spatial Politics. Essays for Doreen Massey, ed. by David Featherstone, and Joe Painter. 21–31. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
President of the Republic of Slovenia. 2020. “Slovenian President Pahor and Italian President Mattarella jointly attend commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the burning down and solemn return of the Trieste National Hall to the Slovenian national community in Italy.” Available online at: [URL]
Presidenzia della Repubblica. 2020a. “Dichiarazioni dei Presidenti Mattarella e Pahor al termine della firma del protocollo di restituzione del Narodni Dom.” Available online at: [URL]
. 2020b. Il Presidente Mattarella incontra i rappresentanti delle associazioni degli esuli. Available online at: [URL]
Pupo, Raoul. 2005. Il Lungo Esodo. Istria: le persecuzione, le foibe, l’esilio. Milan: RCS Libri S.p.A.Google Scholar
. 2021. Adriatico amarissimo. Una lunga storia di violenza. Rome: Laterza.Google Scholar
Purvis, Martin, and David Atkinson. 2009. “Performing wartime memories: ceremony as contest at the Risiera di San Sabba death camp, Trieste.” Social & Cultural Geography 10 (3): 337–356. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, Martin. 2018. “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).” In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, ed. by John Flowerdew, and John E. Richardson. 44–59. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2009. “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).” In Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis. ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Michael Meyer. 87–121. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Scianna, Bastian Matteo. 2019. “Forging an Italian hero? The late commemoration of Amedeo Guillet (1909–2010).” European Review of History. Revue européenne d’histoire 26 (3): 369–385. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simonelli, Federico Carlo. 2021. D’Annunzio e il mito di Fiume. Riti, simboli, narrazioni. Pisa: Pacini Editore.Google Scholar
Sondel-Cedarmas, Joanna. 2022. “Giorgia Meloni’s new Europe. Europe of sovereign nations in the Brothers of Italy party manifestos.” In The Right-Wing Critique of Europe, ed. by Joanna Sondel-Cedarmas, and Francesco Berti. 60–75. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stamatović, Kristijan, Peter De langen, and Aleš Goznik. 2020. “Revisiting the Cooperation Matrix for Classifying Cases of Port Cooperation – Case Study: Northern Adriatic Ports.” Economic and Business Review 22 (3): 415–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taggart, Paul. 2017. “Populism in Western Europe.” In The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. by Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul Taggart, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, and Pierre Ostiguy. 248–264. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Telequattro. 2017. “Meloni: Da Trieste, Appello ai Patrioti. Bene Via Almirante.” Available online at [URL]
. 2020. “Dipiazza ‘Trieste Capitale della Pace’, Fedriga ‘Bene Visita In Foiba’.” Available online at: [URL]
Tomasin, Giovanni. 2020. “Il Balkan? Bruciato dagli Sloveni. Bufera sull’Evento in Sala Tessitori.” Il Piccolo. Available online at: [URL]
Wodak, Ruth. 2001. “The discourse-historical approach.” In Methods of critical discourse analysis, ed. by R. Wodak, and M. Meyer. 63–94. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, de Cillia, Rudolf, Reisigl, Martin, and Karin Liebhart. 2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Second Edition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University PressGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Michał Krzyżanowski. 2017. “Right-wing populism in Europe & USA.” Journal of Language and Politics, 16 (4): 471–484. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Lamour, Christian
2024. Normalizing and Mainstreaming the French Radical Right: Divergences in Leadership Communication during a Summer of Inland and Borderland Tensions. The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.