Pietro Caporilli

File:Pietro Caporilli.jpg

Pietro Caporilli

Pietro Caporilli (3 November 1901 – 16 December 1977) was an Italian historian, writer and journalist, a lover of historical literature and a scholar of the social and political phenomena of the past and the 20th century. He was a witness and actor of heroic and even bloody events; he was part of the legionaries of Fiume with D'Annunzio.

Biography

Pietro Caporilli was born in Alatri (Frosinone). Married in 1927, he always lived in Rome with his wife Evelina and their seven children: Memmo, Renato, Rosita, Romano, Rossana, Graziella and Maria Cristina, except for a period spent in Como. During fascism in 1930, as a consultant to the Ministry of Popular Culture, he edited, in addition to various anti-Bolshevik publications, the text Educazione Giovanile nello Stato Fascista (Youth Education in the Fascist State) with a preface by Virginio Gayda. In 1936, he became Istria's federal secretary for Dalmatia.

During World War II, he was a war correspondent on submarines commissioned by the Ministry of War with the rank of tank lieutenant, from 1940 to 1942. After the Dictation of Peace in 1945, the desire to report the reality and essence of the events he witnessed was strengthened in him — as a mission and reason for living. He joined the RSI with Rodolfo Graziani.

In 1943, he was sentenced to death by the C.L.N. Matteotti Brigade. He was later purged for apologia of fascism in 1945. He participated in Italian political life under the De Gasperi government and was elected to the lists of the Italian Social Movement in 1952.

His intransigent and sometimes caustic pen caused a stir. He was editor of La Domenica del Corriere from 1943 to 1945. Founder and editor of the weekly ‘satirical anti-roguish’ Asso di bastoni from 1948 to 1954. In 1953, he founded and edited the weekly Giramondo, a forerunner of the communication methods typical of today's social networks. His sharp and always consistent pen at the service of history ended his writing on 16 December 1977.

Pietro Caporilli died in Rome.

Works

• L'educazione giovanile nello stato fascista (1930)
• Gli eroi del mare (1931)
• Il fascismo e i giovani (1932)
• Uomini di ferro (1932)
• Balilla (1934)
• Gli ammutinamenti francesi del '17 (1934)
• Elogio dell'amicizia britannica: Gibilterra, Malta, Suez, Cipro, Egitto (1936)
• Il terrore bolscevico: come la Ceka ha massacrati in Russia 1.761.065 nemici di classe (1936)
• Gli orrori della Ceka (1937)
• Gli eroi della trincea (1937)
• Noi della ciurma: avventure e ricordi di un marinaio (1937; reprinted as Noi della ciurma: dalla passione di Fiume alla guerra antibritannica, 1942)
• Spagna rossa (1938)
• Gl'Inglesi in Mediterraneo (1939)
• Le rivolte dell'esercito francese (1939)
• L'assedio dell'Alcazar (1940; preface by José Moscardó Ituarte)
• Le straordinarie avventure del sommergibile 'Pier Capponi' (1941)
• Sommergibili in Atlantico (1942)
• I racconti della guerra tradita (1950; editor)
• Storia del fascismo: rassegna fotografica dal 1914 al 1945 (1960–1961)
• Acqua salata: avventure e ricordi di uno scavezzacollo (1962)
• L'ombra di Giuda: eroi e traditori nella tragedia italiana (1962)
• Baracca: memorie di guerra aerea (1963; editor)
• Crepuscolo di sangue: uno che ha seguito Mussolini fino all'ultima ora racconta (1963)
• Mussolini giudicato dagli stranieri (1965; editor)
• Trent'anni di vita italiana: panorama storico dal 1915 al 1945 (1967; 2 volumes)

Translations

• Henri Béraud, Bisogna ridurre l'Inghilterra in schiavitù?: testo dei due articoli pubblicati su Gringoire (1935)
• Alexandre Dumas, Napoleone (1966)

External links

• Pietro Caporilli at the Internet Movie Database