Back Home	Seminar on Records and Archives in Society
Course This Week Past Readings History Archives Projects	Greg Crawford ,HIST 647, Winter 1999 Eugenio Casanova and the Suspect Lincoln Letter Komov,Valerie. "In Search of Archives History: Eugenio Casanova and the Suspect Lincoln Letter." Archival Issues 18(1993): 55-61. I. Thesis and Summary If everyone recalls from Week 1 reading Barbara Craig's article "Outward Visions, Inward Glance: Archives History and Professional Identity", she wrote about the importance of studying archival history. To ensure the profession's success in the future archivist must examine the past. Inspired by Craig's article, Valerie Komor examines how national politics have had an adverse effect on the archival profession. Her article focuses on the politicization of archival administration in Fascist Italy during the late 1920's and early '30's. The Fascist goal was to use the Italian archival community as a tool to mold a history that would legitimize the Fascist dictatorship and create a Fascist national identity. A. Background on Eugenio Casanova - By 1920's, Casanova recognized as Italy's leading archivist and one of the top European archivists. He was Superintendent of the Archivio di Stato and Director of the Archivio del Regno, Italy's two most prestigious archival posts. He was also a leading historian of the Risorgimento, the 19th century movement that led to Italian unification. From 1926 to 1931, Casanova was editor of the fields leading historical journal, the Rassegna. B. Background on politics in Italy - Fascists led by Benito Mussolini come to power in 1922. Proclaims himself dictator in 1925. To legitimize his dictatorship, Mussolini sought to identity his Fascist movement with the Risorgimento. To accomplish this goal, Mussolini was determined to wrest control of Risorgimento studies from what he called the "Sanhedrin of professional old beards" and entrusting them to historians . [who would] see it through Fascist eyes. Guess who was a member of the Sanhedrin of professional old beards? C. Conflict between Fascists and Casanova ­ Representing the Fascists in this conflict was Cesare Maria De Vecchi, Commissioner Extraordinary of the Archivi del Regno. He was determined to give the archives profession in Italy a Fascist flavor. Conflict centered on Casanova's approval to publish in the Rassegna in 1931 a document entitled "The Entire Message of Abraham Lincoln to Macedonio Melloni, Translated and Disseminated by Giusseppe Mazzini." It was purportedly a letter written by Lincoln in 1853 in which he presented his expert opinion regarding Italian unification, the territory it should encompass, and the ethnic groups that neighbored Italy. Casanova believed the letter to be authentic. He was not alone in this assessment. Mussolini himself published the Lincoln letter in his Fascist newspaper ten years earlier to justify Italy's territorial claims. D. The Downfall of Casanova - Given the letters content, Komor wrote, one would have expected the Fascists to support its publication. They did not. De Vecchi claimed the Lincoln letter a forgery. He led Italian historians in ousting Casanova from his archival posts and his position as editor of the Rassegna. Guess who replaced Casanova as editor of the Rassegna? E. Reason for Casanova's downfall ­ Casanova was not removed because he was anti-Fascist. Nor was he removed because of his professional abilities. Casanova was removed because he was an obstacle to Fascist efforts to politicize history. Under Casanova's direction, Risorgimento studies maintained a traditionalist bent which irritated Mussolini. The Lincoln letter provided Mussolini and De Vecchi with an opportunity to get rid of this thorn in their side and they took it. They did not care if it was authentic or not. With Casanova out of the way, Mussolini could proceed with his Fascist reclamation of history. F. Lessons for future ­ Komoro hoped that out of the new democratic states of Eastern Europe would emerge autonomous archival communities "with resources to assist in the establishment of national identities and democratic ideals." II. My Opinion 1. The author's thesis was similar to Craig's article and the other readings we had from week 1 that addressed the need of the archival community to study its past - the history of records and record-keeping, the origins of archival theories and practices, etc. However, Komor went one step further. She expanded archival history to include the political, cultural, and social contexts in which archivists have historically worked. What impact has these three had on the development of the archival community? I agree with Komor that archivists should seek the answer to this question. I believe that of all the readings we had this week the Panitch article did the best job of doing this. 2. The one question I had that Komor did not answer to my satisfaction was why did Casanova publish the Lincoln letter? Was it really because he considered it to be authentic? Or, was there a political reason? 3. I found the article to be very interesting and should be retained as an additional reading.