2.1. Contested Ground: Monuments, Iconoclasm, and the Politics of Fascist Memory [ES/EN]

This paper is part of an ongoing PhD study that explores Spain’s uncomfortable urban heritage, and specifically that of Navarre, through an international lens. Its main focus is the so-called “Monument to the Fallen” in Pamplona (Navarre, Spain), a complex site of memory that over the years has been ascribed with multiple and conflicting interpretations. Originally built to honor the “fallen” of the military rebels during the civil war (1936-1939), the monument occupies a prominent space within the urban fabric and is laden with the symbology of the Francoist regime. It stands as a material legacy of dictatorship, an open wound in the cityscape that continues to provoke discomfort among political and social actors who have failed to reach consensus over its future. The monument has undeniably become a site of heated controversy; conservative perspectives defending its preservation for its cultural heritage value clash with more moderate views — mainly supported by the main public authorities involved — advocating for its resignification and reinterpretation, and with more radical positions — largely voiced by memorial associations — calling for its demolition. This study seeks to address and answer questions about the different meanings that have been assigned to the monument, its impact to the local community, the ongoing public debate and the possible models of heritage management applicable to it. To investigate these issues, the study adopts a multidisciplinary approach combining participant observation and fieldwork, archival research and micro history. The case of the Monument to the Fallen in Pamplona illustrates how a site of memory can become a space for negotiating collective remembrance and seeking for justice after a dictatorial past — offering fertile ground for both scholarly and public discussion.

Strategic forgetting – omissions of some topics from the public sphere – is a necessity for political collectivities: past harms cannot be foregrounded continuously without compromising everyday sociability. At the same time, in support of restoration and a bright(er) future, democracy requires open parsing of past harms. One of the most challenging instances in which these two imperatives clash, is when democracy entails positive commemorations of the very authoritarian pasts that, had they persisted, would have prevented that same democracy from existing. How far can the tension between the conditions for commemoration (democracy) and the subject of commemoration (Fascism) stretch? In Italy’s New Town of Latina (originally called Littoria, ‘Fascist Town’), Mussolini’s inauguration in December 1932 is commemorated annually with a procession and a speech by the Mayor. Under Italy’s democratically-elected right-wing government, the town’s Fascist origins are being highlighted increasingly, if judiciously (having been mostly minimized to date), and the centennial on the horizon in 2032 is inspiring ambitious bids for commemorative projects. So far, Mussolini is not being mentioned, whereas the town’s origins are celebrated as an epic tale of land reclamation and “pioneers” (settlers from another Italian region), without mention of the political system that engineered these feats – but will this remain the case in the coming 6-7 years? My study of this town since the 1990s is historical and ethnographic. Findings so far focus on the internal settler-colonial dimension of Latina and its surrounding area, including the ways in which “pioneers” can be a gloss for Fascist commemoration; and on the commemorative tolerance provided by treating the area’s 1930s architecture as heritage. This presentation will include visual and textual materials, as well as findings from the (forthcoming) December 2025 commemoration.

This paper will explore the increasingly transnational dynamics of neofascist commemoration in contemporary Italy through the case of CasaPound Italia, a neofascist group that describe themselves as ‘third millennium fascists’, and its stewardship of memory surrounding victims of far-right militancy during Italy’s Years of Lead (1968–1988). While commemoration of these deaths—such as those of Mikis Mantakas (1975) and the Acca Larenzia victims (1978)—are rooted in Roman public space, commemoration today represents an opportunity for international mobilisation. Drawing on fieldwork and commemorative materials produced by neofascist groups on- and offline, including the open-access archive Where Monsters Are Born, this paper will argue that neofascist rituals of remembrance in Rome increasingly construct a shared narrative of ideological sacrifice and persecution, linking national martyrdoms to a broader vision that presents neofascism as a transnational project, resurrecting ways of thinking that circulated in the 1970s. By hosting foreign groups such as Golden Dawn, Autonom.PL, and Clermont Non Conforme, CasaPound’s Roman headquarters is becoming a hub for transnational far-right networking, as revealed in social media posts shared by neofascist actors. The paper argues that through these commemorative acts, CasaPound reimagines Rome not only as the historic capital of Fascism but as the symbolic centre of a new European neofascist community bound by ritual, sacrifice, and the politics of remembrance.

In recent years, in various parts of the world, the rise of far-right movements to power has fostered the implementation of political projects that, within a broad range of transformations, challenge memorial processes related to past experiences of violence and dictatorship. Situated in Argentina, this paper examines one of the strategies of intervention in the public sphere that these actors deploy in order to dispute the meanings surrounding State terrorism during the 1970s and the last dictatorship (1976–1983). These are actions that damage, destroy, and re-signify sites of memory that primarily commemorate the disappeared and those murdered during that period. Considering, on the one hand, that this phenomenon situates us within the conditions of circulation and public reception of such works—created within the framework of humanitarian activism—and, on the other hand, that they constitute intentional, violent, extreme, and reactive acts directed both at the materiality of the works and at what they represent and signify, the paper adopts the theoretical and methodological approach of iconoclasm studies. Through the selection of a representative corpus of cases at local–regional and national scales, the dynamics and modalities of iconoclastic action will be analyses according to tactical, formal, aesthetic, and representational aspects. Furthermore, the textual dimension of this type of iconoclasm (such as graffiti inscriptions) will be crucial to understanding the motivations, profiles, and interpretive frameworks of the perpetrators, since these texts intertwine narratives that range from vindications of military figures and repressive actions; to denial, relativization, and trivialization of historical facts; and to insults and unfounded accusations against human rights organizations and activists. In sum, the paper seeks to account for how the struggles among diverse memories take shape specifically in the urban public space through the contest over power, meanings, and interpretations of our recent past.

Debates on Italy’s numerous material and visual remnants of fascism have resurfaced intermittently throughout the postwar period and picked up pace over the last three decades, reinvigorated by both domestic and international events. While many Italians now view this heritage as part of an aestheticized past, or simply with indifference, for others it evokes shame, pain and guilt, or in some cases, nostalgia and pride. These composite and contradictory emotions shape politically-charged and often ineffectual debates around whether and how to intervene on such sites of memory. This paper considers how far-right and neofascist groups make use of fascist-era sites of memory to both rewrite the histories they embody and recast themselves politically as protectors both of the nation’s history and of local civic pride. By analysing both physical activism such as Casapound’s ‘restoration’ of Siracusa’s ‘Monument to the Italians Fallen in Africa’, and digital initiatives such as ‘Arte fascista’, this paper investigates the contemporary political (re-)activation of these sites. What makes these invisible sites visible again? How do moral outrage and aestheticization work as tools and narratives employed in such processes? How are digital media used to recycle or redefine the fascist iconography of these objects and make palatable their language of discipline, aggressive national pride and exclusionary ethno-nationalism? Building on our study of recent interventions on fascist sites of memory and the importance of centering local voices, we argue that more than just heritage management is at stake in the answers to these questions. Both physical and digital interventions on such sites can either reactivate or contest fascist rhetoric, obscuring or illuminating its harms and either bolstering or eroding democratic resilience.