Ovi Magazine Issue #26: WWI - 100 years - Published: 2014-07-28

Prof. Ernesto Paolozzi Treasurer for the Italian Institute for
Historical Studies. - Director for Foundation Luigi Einaudi
of Rome. - Professor of History and Philosophy at the Suor
Orsola Benincasa University, Naples - Member of the Italian
Commitee for historical studies.
The great war ultimately was a total sealing of an era…, one of those rare historical
moments wherein the sudden acceleration of events provokes a radical change of
the historical flow. Europe is deconstructed and then reconstructed in a totally new
and unexpected way. It lost its moral, political and economic center. It produced
terrible totalitarian regimes whose nefarious inheritance still weighs heavenly on
our present history.
Italy was hit particularly hard. This is not the forum in which to reconstruct in great
detail all facts and events. Paradigmatically we can assert that the country which
had came out victorious was on one hand hit by various form of irrationalism,
and on the other hand by extreme social demands which were radical and
mostly subversive rather than revolutionary. The arrival of Fascism annulled that
moral thrust which had seemed to be the fulfillment of the movement of national
unification. A nationalism ensued which was founded on the will to power, on
egoism, on vulgar sentiments, and substituted democracy and freedom. All this
happened even more tragically in Nazi Germany, the prologue to that enormous
tragedy which provoked the Second World War and the definite crisis of European
civilization.
A new Europe was forged pursuant to this tragedy which we are still in the process
of constructing as an ethical and political polity. We have only partially constructed
it in the economic area. A process on the whole that is difficult, elevated in its goals
and always threatened by the risk of being interrupted.
In my opinion, this is the only way feasible for any European State, as long as this
new European identity is built on the foundations of an ancient civilization, one that
brings together in solidarity diverse people in collaboration with other great liberal
and global democracies, starting with the one in the United States of America.
Europe can play a great role in a global consensus based on progress, tolerance
and moderation; one that mediates between different cultures and customs. It
would be tragic if once again Europe were to close itself in a shell of national
egoism, or were it break apart once again because of banal political calculations
or petty economic interests.
The old Europe can become the young Europe only if, having learned from the
tragedies represented by the two world wars, it accepts the task of promoting in
the first place social freedom and justice in a novel mode or in new conditions as
history always requires.