Piero Parini (13 November 1894 – 23 August 1993) was an Italian journalist, politician and soldier. He fought in World War I and the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. He rose through the ranks of the Italian political establishment through his work as diplomat and director of the Fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia . During World War II, he became the de facto ruler of the annexed Ionian Islands in Greece, and later supported the Italian Social Republic, becoming the mayor of Milan.
Piero Parini was born on 13 November 1894 in Milan, into a family of a railway official. During World War I he fought as an officer of Corpo Aeronautico Militare . Following the end of the war, he became a foreign correspondent and later director for the Fascist flagship newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia . In 1928, he was appointed coordinator of Fascist organizations of the Italian diaspora. He later worked as the Italian ambassador in Aleppo. In 1936, he founded and commanded a unit of Italian expatriates in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, capturing the city of Dire Dawa. In 1937, he visited Japan and China as part of a diplomatic mission. In 1939, he became an advisor of the prime minister of the puppet Albanian Kingdom, Shefqet Vërlaci. [1]
Following the Battle of Greece and the Axis occupation of Greece, the Ionian Islands came under Italian control. On 22 April 1941, after discussions between the German and Italian rulers, Adolf Hitler agreed that Italy could proceed with a de facto annexation of the islands. On 5 June 1941, Parini arrived at Corfu as the new Chief of the Political Affairs Bureau of the Ionian Islands, a political body ruling the islands. Parini accommodated the bureau headquarters in the Mon Repos villa, enacting a rigorous Italianization campaign. On 10 August, the Ionian Islands, except Kythira, were annexed by Italy as part of the Grande Communità del Nuovo Impero Romano (Great Community of the New Roman Empire). On 16 August, Parini replaced Corfu mayor Spyridon Kollas with lawyer Gerasimos Tryfonas, to sever all administrative ties between the islands and the Greek mainland and the collaborationist government in Athens. Parini ruled as de facto dictator imposing new laws or ignoring existing ones as he pleased. [2]
Parini encouraged the migration of Italians to the islands, expanded and legalized the underground Fascist organizations, and promoted his policies through a radio station and the official newspaper Jonica, later replaced by Gazzetta Jonica. Pictures of the heroes of the Greek War of Independence were removed from public schools as were book chapters dealing with modern Greek history. The Italian language became a mandatory school subject and shop owners were forced to use bilingual signs. On 25 March 1942, the circulation of the Greek drachma was outlawed and replaced by the Italian Ionian drachma. Greek stamps were replaced in a similar manner. [3] The Ionian Islands did not manage to escape the horrors of the Great Famine of 1941–42, partially due to Parini's refusal to allow the Red Cross to distribute aid in the region. [4]
Following the Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, Parini departed Corfu in late August 1943 on the yacht Aspasia, while a second ship carried 40 crates of looted art he had collected. He supported the Italian Social Republic and was appointed mayor of Milan. In April 1945 he escaped to Switzerland with forged Spanish papers along with his second wife Melpo Fafaliou, whom he had married in 1944 following the death of his first spouse Rozetta Colombi. The authenticity of the papers was soon questioned and Parini was deported to Italy, where he was given a 12-year prison term by a military tribunal for war crimes committed during his spell as mayor of Milan; he was released in 1946 in an amnesty. A second trial regarding war crimes committed in the Ionian Islands ended in his acquittal. He then emigrated to South America with his wife, where he died in 1993. [5]
Corfu or Kerkyra is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered by three municipalities with the islands of Othonoi, Ereikoussa, and Mathraki. The principal city of the island is also named Corfu. Corfu is home to the Ionian University.
Rodolfo Graziani, 1st Marquis of Neghelli, was a prominent Italian military officer in the Kingdom of Italy's Royal Army, primarily noted for his campaigns in Africa before and during World War II. A dedicated fascist and prominent member of the National Fascist Party, he was a key figure in the Italian military during the reign of Victor Emmanuel III.
The Septinsular Republic was an oligarchic republic that existed from 1800 to 1807 under nominal Russian and Ottoman sovereignty in the Ionian Islands.
The Corfu incident was a 1923 diplomatic and military crisis between Greece and Italy. It was triggered when an Italian general heading a commission to resolve a border dispute between Albania and Greece was murdered in Greek territory along with two other officers of his staff. In response, Benito Mussolini issued an ultimatum to Greece and, when it was not accepted in whole, dispatched forces to bombard and occupy Corfu. Mussolini defied the League of Nations and stated Italy would leave if it arbitrated in the crisis, and the Conference of Ambassadors instead eventually tendered an agreement favouring Italy. This was an early demonstration of the League's weakness when dealing with larger powers.
Corfu or Kerkyra is a city and a former municipality on the island of Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands. It is the capital of the municipality and of the Corfu regional unit. The city also serves as a capital for the region of the Ionian Islands. The city is a major tourist attraction and Greek regional centre and has played an important role in Greek history since antiquity.
Il Popolo d'Italia was an Italian newspaper published from 15 November 1914 until 24 July 1943. It was founded by Benito Mussolini as a pro-war newspaper during World War I, and it later became the main newspaper of the Fascist movement in Italy after the war. It published editions every day with the exception of Mondays.
The Italian Islands of the Aegean were an archipelago of fourteen islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea, that—together with the surrounding islets—were ruled by the Kingdom of Italy from 1912 to 1943 and the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. When the Kingdom of Italy was restored, they remained under formal Italian possession until they were ceded to Greece in 1947 under the Treaty of Paris.
The Kingdom of Italy was a state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 2 June 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and form the modern Italian Republic. The kingdom was established through the unification of several states over a decades-long process, called the Risorgimento. That process was influenced by the Savoy-led Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered Italy's legal predecessor state.
Italianization is the spread of Italian culture, language and identity by way of integration or assimilation. It is also known for a process organized by the Kingdom of Italy to force cultural and ethnic assimilation of the native populations living, primarily, in the former Austro-Hungarian territories that were transferred to Italy after World War I in exchange for Italy having joined the Triple Entente in 1915; this process was mainly conducted during the period of Fascist rule between 1922 and 1943.
Corfiot Italians are a population from the Greek island of Corfu (Kerkyra) with ethnic and linguistic ties to the Republic of Venice. Their name was specifically established by Niccolò Tommaseo during the Italian Risorgimento. During the first half of the 20th century, Mussolini successfully used the Corfiot Italians as a pretext to occupy Corfu twice.
Imperialism, colonialism and irredentism played an important role in the foreign policy of Fascist Italy. Among the regime's goals were the acquisition of territory considered historically Italian in France and Yugoslavia, the expansion of Italy's sphere of influence into the Balkans and the acquisition of more colonies in Africa. The pacification of Libya (1923–32), the invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36), the invasion of Albania (1939), the invasion of France (1940), the invasion of Greece (1940–41) and the invasion of Yugoslavia (1941) were all undertaken in part to add to Italy's national space. According to historian Patrick Bernhard, Fascist Italian imperialism under Benito Mussolini, particularly in Africa, served as a model for the much more famous expansionism of Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian dictator and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as "Duce" of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.
Angelico (Angelo) Carta was an Italian military officer, best known for his actions during the Axis occupation of Crete in World War II.
The Ionian Islands were an overseas possession of the Republic of Venice from the mid-14th century until the late 18th century. The conquest of the islands took place gradually. The first to be acquired was Cythera and the neighboring islet of Anticythera, indirectly in 1238 and directly after 1363. In 1386 the Council of Corfu, which was the governing body of the island, voted to make Corfu a vassal of Venice. During the Venetian period the Council remained the most powerful institution on the island. A century later, Venice captured Zante in 1485, Cephalonia in 1500 and Ithaca in 1503. These 3 islands modelled their administration on Corfu’s model and formed their own councils. The conquest was completed in 1718 with the capture of Lefkada. Each of the islands remained part of the Venetian Stato da Màr until Napoleon Bonaparte dissolved the Republic of Venice in 1797. The Ionian Islands are situated in the Ionian Sea, off the west coast of Greece. Cythera, the southernmost, is just off the southern tip of the Peloponnese and Corfu, the northernmost, is located at the entrance of the Adriatic Sea. It is believed that the Venetian period on the Ionian Islands was generally prosperous, especially compared with the coinciding Tourkokratia — Turkish rule over the remainder of present-day Greece.
Manlio Morgagni was an Italian Fascist, journalist, former mayor of Milan, former member of the Senate of Italy, and director of the prominent news agency Agenzia Stefani during a period when it was closely aligned with the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.
Sansepolcrismo is a term used to refer to the movement led by Benito Mussolini that preceded Fascism. The Sansepolcrismo takes its name from the rally organized by Mussolini at Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan on March 23, 1919, where he proclaimed the principles of Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, and then published them in Il Popolo d'Italia, on June 6, 1919, the newspaper he co-founded in November 1914 after leaving Avanti!
Riccardo Lombardi was an Italian politician.
Niccolò Giani was an Italian Fascist philosopher and journalist who was the founder of Fascist mysticism.
Gaetano Polverelli (1886–1960) was an Italian journalist and politician who served as the minister of popular culture in the cabinet of Benito Mussolini being the last Fascist to hold the post.
Giuseppe Gorla (1895–1979) was an Italian civil engineer and politician who was a member of the National Fascist Party. Between 1940 and 1943 he served as the minister of public works.
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