Giordano Bruno Guerri: Protector of Italy’s National Identity

Known for his work as an editor of various Italian publications and author of several books, the Italian novelist and journalist Giordano Bruno Guerri was once a professor of contemporary history and founder of “Italiani Liberi,” a cultural movement which advances free thought. Now the president of Vittoriale degli Italiani, he hopes that through his great work fostering the conservation, renovation and communication of the complex D’Annunzio, Italy will become a country whose merits are fully recognized.

A version of this exclusive interview first appeared in the pages of the 12th issue of ODDA Magazine.

Giordano Bruno Guerri

Tell us about your childhood in Italy before going to school at Colle Val d’Elsa and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. What were your influences? How did you spend your time? What were your favourite subjects in school? What activities were you involved in? Name three unexpected experiences that helped shape you as a person and author.

In 2011 I published a little book enclosed to the newspaper “Corriere della Sera”. The book is entitled “Ebo e Gina” and it is about my parents and grandparents. I am currently continuing to write it, in order to tell the story of my life, especially to my children. I’m actually writing when I was 13. My childhood and adolescence were periods full of love for me from my parents, who were always too poor and busy working to actually follow me. I spent entire afternoons playing freely in the square of my village or at the Salesian Oratory, which was used as a sort of kinder-garden. I was very bad at school and the only subject I really liked was Geography because I was always dreaming of adventures. Moreover, teachers were very severe. I began to really study only at university. The first experience that have influenced is that, since my childhood, I have always loved reading and I used to scrape together little money, so that I could buy books. The second is that, at some point, my parents started to work for an upper class family –my father as a driver and my mother as a maid- and with those people I found out that it was actually possible to live a different kind of life. The third and last is that, after a fight with a boy and after having knocked him down, I walked away and then turned to check what he intended to do; he wanted to throw me a stone and I jumped, as I thought he wanted to hit my legs. Instead, his goal was my head and the stone hit my nape. The scar is still visible.

Upon your graduation in 1976, you published your first work as a university master thesis titled “Giuseppe Bottai, un fascista critico.” What prompted you to choose Giuseppe Bottai as a subject for your thesis? How has Bottai and your thesis work influenced your career?

In those years, Fascism had not been properly studied, rather only condemned from a political perspective, which without knowledge has no historiographical sense. My books have the purpose of correcting all those interpretations that I consider insufficient or incorrect. Nobody studied Bottai, an extremely important man for Italian culture, because he was Fascist. Consequently, it was not possible to properly evaluate the cultural life of Italy’s Fascist era. I did it, in order to demonstrate that a Fascist culture actually existed. The book had a great success and it influenced the considerations about that era and nowadays it is a classic, accepted even by those who contested it in the past. Nevertheless, I’m still suspected of sympathizing with Fascism and that is simply absurd, as I am a Radical, a Liberalist and a Libertarian.

The cover of one of Giordano Bruno Guerri’s many books.

At the initial stages of your career, you once worked as a copy editor for Aldo Garzanti and his publishing venture. What did you like and/ or dislike about being a copy editor? How did it prepare you for being an editor and publishing director? And, if you could do it all over again, would you have done something else instead?

Working as an editor on others’ books taught me the profession of writing and especially the ability of summarizing –a wonderful and rare gift within the environment of essays. I have also learnt not to be boring. Sometimes, I was really bored working on books I had not chosen to read. Obviously, this experience was also a great preparation for the job positions of editor and editorial director. I learnt a lot from my supervisors. I actually would have liked writing romances, but I convinced myself of not being able to do Now I think I am, but maybe, in the past, I was not. For sure, could I turn back time, unlike D’Annunzio, I would prefer making more children and writing less books.

As a former editor of “La Storia Illustrata“ and “Chorus,” and the Director of the Milanese newspaper “L’Indipendente” amongst several others, who were, and are, your influences in media and history? How did they lead you into becoming a professor of contemporary history and a journalist?

My favourite motto is “The mind needs to be opened, just like a parachute”. I have tried to applythis principle to every activity I have carried out. And I believe, hopefully, I’ve managed to influence some people to this effect, in terms of getting rid of prejudices and preconceived ideas, in order to think independently. There is no difference between being a professor and being a journalist, both jobs aim to spread something you know. It’s like playing the same melody with two different instruments.

The ”ItalianiLiberi” is a political and cultural movement that aims to preserve and strengthen the national identity, history and culture of Italy. Tell us about your association with the group, its influences and how it began.

ItalianiLiberi is not a nationalist movement. That idea disgusts me, as the traditional nationalism is behind the times and has absolutely no sense, nowadays. The movement was born as a form of cultural resistance to the European Union, which tends to conform all the people within it, expecting to make Laplanders and Sicilians identical. In my opinion, it is an unacceptable cultural and social violence, which impoverishes everyone. Moreover, the Italian people never had the right to choose whether being or not part of the European Union and they have to endure – like all the other countries- a double government and decisions made by people that probably have never been in Italy. The movement was born thanks to an idea of Ida Magli, the most extraordinary cultural anthropologist in Italy –and maybe in the world -. Although I met her when I was already 35 years old, I consider myself her pupil. Of course, as a pure theorist, she upheld and conducted her theories to extreme conclusions, which often didn’t take into account insurmountable realities, such as those of economic nature. Anyway, the ideas that Ida and I expressed in the book “Per una rivoluzione italiana” (“For an Italian revolution”) in 1966, were ignored in that moment, have nowadays become extremely widespread in Italy, especially those about the European Union and the Muslim world.

Kyle Johnson

As a creative director, marketing manager and fashion editor, Kyle has
developed brand identities and creative strategies for a variety of
businesses and written on a variety of fashion topics for ODDA and Lab
A-4 magazines. With his background in advertising, he helps his
clients understand complex ideas, motivates them to action and
cooperates with media outlets to carry out successful brand
strategies. But the madness doesn’t stop there. He is also a recipient
of numerous international industry awards hosted by AVA, MarCom,
Hermes and GDUSA, and a judge of several international awards
competitions where he competently utilizes his passion for meaningful,
quality design to give constructive criticism and insightful design
advice to his peers.