The study of war and strategy has been at the core of the theory of international relations since the birth of the academic discipline. Strategy is a key factor in any conflict, first of all in violent conflicts. Military strategy is the bridge between politics and war. Strategic studies have mainly focused on military doctrines and the means to wage war for too long a time. Limited attention was paid to the cultural dimension of violent confrontations. Then, in the second half of the XX century the Western attention to the technological dimension of war became almost obsessive. However, if war is the continuation of politics by other means we must be aware that the human factor is of utmost importance among those "means". The willingness of soldiers to sacrifice their life on the battlefield is the precondition to wage war. At the same time, it is also the basis of any political obligation. Hence, death is the continuation of politics by other means. Various "narratives" of war have been created in history in order to justify the individual commitment to fight and eventually die in war to attain political aims. Starting in the classical age the Western world has been developing two related narratives of war: the republican model and the decisive battle one. According to the first one the good citizen was a good soldier too, and vice-versa, while the second required the concentration of violence in space and time to break the enemy's will to fight in the shortest possible time. The two concepts gave both moral and military sense to the violent, insensate, and chaotic environment of the battle. After the end of the cold war in most Western countries such a way of thinking on the relationship between war and politics has been undermined by several factors, first of all the unwillingness to sacrifice one's life in war. The readiness to die in order to attain a political aim has almost vanished. On the contrary, the concept of the "decisive battle" has survived thanks to technological evolution. As a consequence, on the one hand, old figures of warriors reappeared on the battlefield: soldiers of fortune, God's fighters, pirates, and criminals. On the other, the unwillingness to die coupled to the strategic archetype of the decisive battle is bringing more and more machines and AI into war, making it both post-heroic and post-human.
Il volume presenta l'edizione definitiva della necropoli dell'Età del Bronzo di Kamilari, situata a pochi chilometri di distanza dal più noto centro palaziale di Festòs, nella Creta meridionale. Lo scavo fu eseguito alla fine degli anni '50 dalla Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene sotto la direzione dell'allora direttore Doro Levi e produsse una dettagliata pubblicazione preliminare che lasciò tuttavia aperte numerose questioni. La ripresa dello studio e la conseguente pubblicazione sono state possibili grazie al supporto della Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene. La necropoli è composta da tre tombe a tholos, la prima delle quali (la Tholos A), la più grande, fu occupata senza soluzione di continuità dagli inizi del II millennio a.C. (Medio Minoico IB) alla fine del XIV secolo a.C. (Tardo Minoico IIIA2), per ricevere poi una parziale rioccupazione tra l'VIII e il VII secolo a.C. Per la ricchezza dei suoi contesti e la straordinaria continuità d'uso, la necropoli getta una luce importante sulle pratiche e i rituali funerari della Creta dell'età del Bronzo e rappresenta la cartina di tornasole per l'interpretazione delle trasformazioni sociali e politiche intervenute nell'area. La necropoli si distingue per l'uso del seppellimento collettivo ancora nel Medio Minoico, ossia in corrispondenza della fondazione e sviluppo del Primo Palazzo di Festòs, quando nell'area meridionale di Creta e in generale nell'intera isola, questa tipologia di seppellimento è già in declino. Ugualmente importanti sono le testimonianze della necropoli nel corso del Tardo Minoico quando, soprattutto nella prima fase, la documentazione funeraria appare intermittente sull'isola; anche nelle fasi di progressiva 'miceneizzazione', momento in cui Creta subisce profonde trasformazioni nelle pratiche funerarie, la Tholos A testimonia la persistenza di pratiche antichissime. Il volume si distingue per la partecipazione di studiosi internazionali che hanno contribuito significativamente in varie parti dell'opera. I dieci capitoli del volume affrontano in maniera esauriente lo studio delle tre tombe, con particolare riguardo alla Tholos A, la tomba più grande, che ha restituito i corredi più ricchi e importanti. Alla trattazione in dettaglio delle architetture e della stratigrafia, segue l'analisi del materiale ceramico, dei modellini fittili, dei vasi in pietra, dei sigilli, degli oggetti in bronzo e dei gioielli (Capitoli I-II.1-14). Il capitolo III è dedicato alla Tholos B; il IV e il V rispettivamente allo studio dei resti ossei umani e animali delle Tholoi A e B; il VI e il VII prendono in esame le conchiglie e il materiale botanico, con particolare riferimento ai resti lignei carbonizzati. Il Capitolo VIII analizza la Tholos C, la cui rioccupazione in epoca ellenistico-romana viene interpretata come possibile sacello connesso con culti di fertilità agraria. Gli ultimi capitoli, IX e X, analizzano rispettivamente le pratiche e i rituali funerari e lo sviluppo generale della necropoli nel contesto della piana della Messarà. Il volume è arricchito da tre appendici e da un esauriente apparato illustrativo di novanta tavole.
Consciously repressed by the current dominating culture, in Italy and Europe in the late mediaeval and early modern age death was addressed with greater confidence and awareness, and sometimes even with serenity. The modes of dying and of conceiving death – and the varied and rich religious and civil rituals that accompanied it – reflected the values and the choices of rich and poor, of kings and peasants, merchants and soldiers, nobles and churchmen, men and women. Several decades after the major studies that opened the road to these strands of research in Italy too (Ariès, Tenenti), this book offers a series of penetrating and suggestive explorations of a fascinating and complex theme which no reader can consider extraneous.
Soon after the end of the second World War, Fiera di Milano (Milan trade exhibition) was eager to demostrate the Italian spirit of rebirth. Companies and enterprises invested in the design and building of pavilions, involving artists, architects and graphic designers like Erberto Carboni, Marcello Nizzoli, Enrico Ciuti, Franco Albini. Enrico Mattei, Agip and later Eni's president wanted to emphasize Italian energy politics based on gas, and, as this essay describes, Italian gas pipelines net was the central theme of Agip and Eni's presence at the Trade Fair. The story of Agip and Eni pavilion from 1949 to 1964 involves architects like Mario Bacciocchi, who designed the building, Carlo Mollino with Franco Campo, Carlo Graffi and Max Huber, Achille and Piergiacomo Castiglioni, BBPR, Errico Ascione. Particularly important was the presence of Leonardo Sinisgalli, the engineer-poet who directed Eni's communication section from 1958 to 1963. He left the company after Mattei's death, but he was also aware that the communication in the world of mass production and culture was radically changing and poets were being substituted by copywriters.
At the beginning of the 1990 American libertarian intellectual such as Murray N. Rothbard, Llewellyn Rockwell Jr., and Hans-Hermann Hoppe gave rise to the paleolibertarian movement. Paleolibertarians, who favour laissez-faire in the economic realm but oppose moral relativism, were seeking an alliance with the so-called "paleoconservatives" like Sam Francis, Tom Fleming, Paul Gottfried or Pat Buchanan. The word "paleolibertarian", first used by Rockwell, had the purpose to recapture the radicalism and the political and intellectual rigor of the pre-war libertarian "Old right". Rothbard's death in 1995 was a blow, but paleolibertarians still continued their twofold battle for the defence of the unfettered free-market, developing the methodology of the Austrian School of Economics; and for the defence of the traditional Christian values of the Western Civilization, threatened by the post-modern "liberal" culture, now leading in the political and intellectual elite. Today the paleolibertarians, facilitated by the Internet, have become a rapidly growing intellectual movement. The main centres of diffusion of their ideas are the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn (Alabama) and the website LewRockwell.com, that ranks among the most widely read news website.
As we celebrate the 300 th anniversary of William Penn's death as well as the 325 th anniversary of the publication of Penn's plan for a European parliament, it is also worth considering his contribution to American history, notably the foundation of Pennsylvania. The most remarkable feature of Penn's "holy experiment" in colonial British America was the harmonious relationship that was established, and maintained for some seventy years, between the Quaker colonists and the native Americans. Penn advanced racial equality as well as peaceful and harmonious relations between different cultures, sitting in council with the Indians many times and promoting the fair purchase of land from them. Penn's 1682 Frame of Government for the colony limited the power of government and guaranteed many fundamental liberties. It was subsequently adopted by the Pennsylvania Assembly as the New Charter and formed the model for most state governments in the United States. Penn's last revision of the Frame, the 1701 Charter of Privileges, remained in force until 1776. Finally, just as Penn really was the first to propose, in some detail, a European parliament, so he was the first to propose, only a few years later, a union of the British colonies in America."
In 1915, a few months after the outbreak of the 1st World War, Sigmund Freud writes the essay "Zeitgemäßes über Krieg und Tod", in which he reflects about the reason why war is still possible in a cultural advanced society like the Western one, and about the relation of modernity with the problem of "evil", violence and death. This article takes its cue from this essay in order to analyse Erich Maria Remarque's novel "Im Westen nichts Neues" (1928-29) from an innovative point of view. Remarque himself argues in many interviews and articles that his book should neither be considered a historical report about the 1st World War nor merely an antiwar-novel about the dramatic experience of a lost generation, but rather a true psychological novel. As a matter of fact, "Im Westen nichts Neues" tells about the "human all too human" mechanisms of violence and power through an understated representation of the trauma of a generation which was thrown into a sort of "state of exception", a state situated simultaneously outside and inside civil society. The essay aims to illustrate how Freud and Remarque take a very similar perspective in their works about the Great War when considering the complex relation between culture and war, civilisation and violence, psychology and power in Western modern society.
[Abstract] The death sentence of Saddam Hussein is one of those extreme cases that put in tension the foundations of the absolute prohibition of the capital punishment, still more in the moment in which we think to extend its capacity in a universal sense and consi- dering the fact that numerous States (Arabic Countries, China, United States, Japan, etc.) maintain it, comprised therefore occidental or liberal political systems, and not only authoritarian or religious-political systems: the compact exclusion of Europe from that group moreover regards an entity that has financed yearlong Saddam, giving him enormous amounts of war materials, also chemical, thanks which were realized the genocides that he was charged with, included the crime of the 148 died of Dujail (apart from the tortured ones, deported etc.), killed for reprisal after his assassination attempt, and on which the criminal trial has condemned him has been focused. Looking through the accusations and the numerous violations of the defensive guarantees of the process, moreover it is pointed out that the trial of Saddam Hussein has been an effective pro- cess, not like the ghost-trial that in 1984 the Iraq Revolutionary Court celebrated in order to condemn to death penalty 148 men, women and children suspected opponents of the regimen, 46 of which already were died at that time for the tortures or other cau- ses. The vastness of the ascribed crimes to Saddam could not know "a proportioned" penalty in any case, therefore the punishment in the "gross violations" of the interna- tional criminal law is necessarily out of proportion. In this necessary disproportion can we identify a possible humanistic valence of the criminal law based on the principle (able to renew the foundation of the absolute prohibition of capital punishment) today summarized in the idea that the value of a person cannot be compared with whichever fact he/she committed, because the value of the person is not entirely expressed by the single facts she realizes. The proportion judgment on which the capital punishment is based, results then impossible between one person (his life) and the committed facts. On such positive principle of "unmeasurability" of the distance between the value of a per- son and his conducts, may we refuse the capital punishment as a typical penalty of the "criminal law of the enemy". Humanistic and religious reflections converge on this con- clusion, in a multicultural dimension, which is more positive then a merely secular point of view. The criminal law culture can today carry out a task of singular importance if it indeed agrees to assert the absoluteness of that prohibition, avoiding the "church" of the western (United States) and of the oriental fundamentalisms, and remarking, from a European point of view, the human "corresponsibility" on which the refusal of death penalty is based.
L'autrice propone, in forma di intervista, un ritratto della poliedrica figura di Ludovico Corrao sotto il profilo della sua attività urbanistica. Il generoso ingegno del Senatore Corrao, che ha guidato la costruzione della città nuova di Gibellina a seguito del terremoto del 1968, ha concepito un progetto di città ispirandosi all'arte e alla cultura come principi connotanti e caratterizzanti di una nuova società. L'intervista, che vuole anche essere un omaggio alla figura di Corrao dopo la sua recente tragica scomparsa ed un invito ad approfondire la conoscenza della storia e della realtà attuale di Gibellina, è preceduta da un breve profilo della sua attività politica e urbanistica. ; The author proposes, in the form of an interview, the portrait of the polyhedral figure of Ludovico Corrao targeting its work in urban planning. The generous genius of Senator Corrao, who lead the construction of the new town of Gibellina following the earthquake in 1968, conceived the project of a city inspired by art and culture, as connoting and characterizing principles of a new society. The interview, that also wants to be a tribute to the recent tragic death of Corrao and an invitation to know the istory and the current reality of Gibellina, is preceded by a short biosketch of his political and urban planning activity.
The Ancient Cemetery of the Lido in Venice was built in 1386: due to its favorable location just across the lagoon, the cemetery was occasionally used for defensive and military purposes. Many tombstones were lost, destroyed or reused, others were moved to a more internal area of the lagoon, which in 1774 became the official cemetery known as "New Cemetery". Venetian tombstones are artifacts rich in history, poetry and art. Their study allows us not only to rebuild the lives and the fortunes of the community members, but also to detect meaningful aspects of the literary and artistic culture of that time. This work is a catalogue of all the 1240 tombstones incorporated in the "Ancient" cemetery of the Lido. Each gravestone presents an analysis of the architectural style of the tombs as well as the kind of stone used and an assessment of his condition, a description of the coat of arms if engraved on the stone, a paleographic analysis of the writing, a note about the poetic and grammatical features of the text and a historical commentary detailing any relevant information found in the community death records. Transcriptions and translations of the epitaphs from Hebrew to Italian have been also added for 410 tombs. This analysis is supplemented with a detailed study of the history of the cemetery and the Jewish community of Venice, as well as the poetry of epitaphs, the paleography and art. This last topic has been further explored through an architectural analysis of the tombstones and a study on the Hebrew heraldry in light of the emblems engraved on the stones of the Venetian cemetery. ; L'ancien cimetière du Lido de Venise a été construit en 1386. En raison de son emplacement favorable, juste en face de la lagune, le cimetière était parfois utilisé à des fins défensives et militaires. De nombreuses pierres tombales ont été perdues, détruites ou réutilisées, d'autres ont été déplacées vers une zone plus interne de la lagune, qui est devenue en 1774 le cimetière officiel connu sous le nom de «Nouveau cimetière». ...
RESUMEN: Nudo de tensión entre vida biológica e historicidad, la animalidad recorre la serie de mataderos que la crítica argentina ha indagado como ficción soberana, pautada por el dualismo político. La polarización de 1840 plasmada en El matadero de Echeverría, con titubeos narrativos frente a voces y cuerpos animalizados del sector popular, retorna desde mediados del siglo XX en versiones de la dicotomía civilización-barbarie, que mantienen la distinción naturaleza-cultura y las coordenadas de historicidad antropocéntrica, como la crónica de Walsh que en 1967 enmienda el reparto clasista de Echeverría. El umbral crítico de la vida (Agamben) emerge en reescrituras recientes del matadero, donde el flujo del capital atraviesa no solo el cuerpo del trabajador sino lo viviente. Un cuento de Kohan (2009) y una novela de Maia (2013) descubren bajo la dicotomía la complejidad de pasajes entre animales y humanos, donde indagan las economías de relaciones entre vidas protegidas y abandonadas. Confrontando las conflictividades culturales argentina y brasileña, marcadas por el peso de economías agroexportadoras y el dualismo como control de mezclas, estos relatos de trabajadores del ganado inquieren lo difuso del borde vida-muerte tras dos siglos de progreso humanista en América Latina. ABSTRACT: Animality, a knot of tension between biological life and historicity, runs through the series of slaughterhouses that Argentine critics have investigated as sovereign fiction, guided by political dualism. The 1840 polarization embodied in Echeverría´s El matadero (The Slaughterhouse), with narrative hesitations about voices and animalized bodies of popular sector, has returned since the middle of the 20th century in versions of the civilization-barbarity dichotomy, which maintain the nature-culture distinction and the coordinates of anthropocentric historicity, such as Walsh's chronicle that in 1967 amends the class distribution of Echeverría. The critical threshold of life (Agamben) emerges in recent rewritings of the slaughterhouse, where the flow of capital passes through not only the body of the worker but also the living being. A story by Kohan (2009) and a novel by Maia (2013) discover under dichotomy the complexity of passages between animals and humans, where they investigate the economies of relationships between protected and abandoned lives. By confronting Argentine and Brazilian cultural conflicts, both marked by the weight of agro-export economies and dualism as control of mixtures, these stories of cattle workers inquire about the diffuseness of the life-death border after two centuries of humanist progress in Latin America. ; Nudo de tensión entre vida biológica e historicidad, la animalidad recorre la serie de mataderos que la crítica argentina ha indagado como ficción soberana, pautada por el dualismo político. La polarización de 1840 plasmada en El matadero de Echeverría, con titubeos narrativos frente a voces y cuerpos animalizados del sector popular, retorna desde mediados del siglo XX en versiones de la dicotomía civilización-barbarie, que mantienen la distinción naturaleza-cultura y las coordenadas de historicidad antropocéntrica, como la crónica de Walsh que en 1967 enmienda el reparto clasista de Echeverría. El umbral crítico de la vida (Agamben) emerge en reescrituras recientes del matadero, donde el flujo del capital atraviesa no solo el cuerpo del trabajador sino lo viviente. Un cuento de Kohan (2009) y una novela de Maia (2013) descubren bajo la dicotomía la complejidad de pasajes entre animales y humanos, donde indagan las economías de relaciones entre vidas protegidas y abandonadas. Confrontando las conflictividades culturales argentina y brasileña, marcadas por el peso de economías agroexportadoras y el dualismo como control de mezclas, estos relatos de trabajadores del ganado inquieren lo difuso del borde vida-muerte tras dos siglos de progreso humanista en América Latina. ; Animality, a knot of tension between biological life and historicity, runs through the series of slaughterhouses that Argentine critics have investigated as sovereign fiction, guided by political dualism. The 1840 polarization embodied in Echeverría´s El matadero (The Slaughterhouse), with narrative hesitations about voices and animalized bodies of popular sector, has returned since the middle of the 20th century in versions of the civilization-barbarity dichotomy, which maintain the nature-culture distinction and the coordinates of anthropocentric historicity, such as Walsh's chronicle that in 1967 amends the class distribution of Echeverría. The critical threshold of life (Agamben) emerges in recent rewritings of the slaughterhouse, where the flow of capital passes through not only the body of the worker but also the living being. A story by Kohan (2009) and a novel by Maia (2013) discover under dichotomy the complexity of passages between animals and humans, where they investigate the economies of relationships between protected and abandoned lives. By confronting Argentine and Brazilian cultural conflicts, both marked by the weight of agro-export economies and dualism as control of mixtures, these stories of cattle workers inquire about the diffuseness of the life-death border after two centuries of humanist progress in Latin America.
The Ancient Cemetery of the Lido in Venice was built in 1386: due to its favorable location just across the lagoon, the cemetery was occasionally used for defensive and military purposes. Many tombstones were lost, destroyed or reused, others were moved to a more internal area of the lagoon, which in 1774 became the official cemetery known as "New Cemetery". Venetian tombstones are artifacts rich in history, poetry and art. Their study allows us not only to rebuild the lives and the fortunes of the community members, but also to detect meaningful aspects of the literary and artistic culture of that time. This work is a catalogue of all the 1240 tombstones incorporated in the "Ancient" cemetery of the Lido. Each gravestone presents an analysis of the architectural style of the tombs as well as the kind of stone used and an assessment of his condition, a description of the coat of arms if engraved on the stone, a paleographic analysis of the writing, a note about the poetic and grammatical features of the text and a historical commentary detailing any relevant information found in the community death records. Transcriptions and translations of the epitaphs from Hebrew to Italian have been also added for 410 tombs. This analysis is supplemented with a detailed study of the history of the cemetery and the Jewish community of Venice, as well as the poetry of epitaphs, the paleography and art. This last topic has been further explored through an architectural analysis of the tombstones and a study on the Hebrew heraldry in light of the emblems engraved on the stones of the Venetian cemetery. ; L'ancien cimetière du Lido de Venise a été construit en 1386. En raison de son emplacement favorable, juste en face de la lagune, le cimetière était parfois utilisé à des fins défensives et militaires. De nombreuses pierres tombales ont été perdues, détruites ou réutilisées, d'autres ont été déplacées vers une zone plus interne de la lagune, qui est devenue en 1774 le cimetière officiel connu sous le nom de «Nouveau cimetière». Les pierres tombales vénitiennes sont des artefacts riches en histoire, en poésie et en art. Leur étude nous permet non seulement de reconstruire la vie et les événements des membres de la communauté, mais également de détecter des aspects significatifs de la culture littéraire et artistique de l'époque. Cet ouvrage est un catalogue de toutes les 1240 pierres tombales incorporées dans le cimetière «Ancien» du Lido. Chaque fiche présente une analyse du style architectural des tombeaux ainsi que le type de pierre utilisé et son état de conservation, une description du blason gravé sur la pierre, une analyse paléographique de l'écriture, une note sur les caractéristiques poétiques et grammaticales du texte et un commentaire historique avec les information trouvées dans les registres de morts de la communauté. Les transcriptions et les traductions des épitaphes de l'hébreu à l'italien ont également été ajoutées pour 410 tombeaux. Cette analyse est complétée par une étude détaillée de l'histoire du cimetière et de sa communauté, ainsi que de la poésie des épitaphes, de la paléographie et de l'art. Ce dernier sujet a été approfondi par une analyse architecturale des pierres tombales et une étude inédite sur l'héraldique juive.
Anche se la politica editoriale comunista rappresenta un campo di indagine fondamentale nella ricerca sul Pci, la sua attività editoriale è caduta in un oblio storico. Assumendo il libro come supporto materiale e veicolo della cultura politica comunista, e la casa editrice come canale di socializzazione, questa ricerca s'interroga sui suoi processi di costruzione e di diffusione. La ricerca si muove in due direzioni. Nel primo capitolo si è tentato di dare conto delle ragioni metodologiche dell'indagine e della messa a punto delle ipotesi di ricerca sul "partito editore", raccogliendo alcune sfide poste alla storia politica da altri ambiti disciplinari, come la sociologia e la scienza politica, che rappresentano una vena feconda per la nostra indagine. La seconda direzione, empirica, ha riguardato la ricognizione delle fonti e degli strumenti di analisi per ricostruire le vicende del "partito editore" dal 1944 al 1956. La suddivisione della ricerca in due parti – 1944-1947 e 1947-1956 – segue a grandi linee la periodizzazione classica individuata dalla storiografia sulla politica culturale del Pci, ed è costruita su quattro fratture storiche – il 1944, con la "svolta di Salerno"; il 1947, con la "svolta cominformista"; il 1953, con la morte di Stalin e il disgelo; il 1956, con il XX Congresso e i fatti d'Ungheria – che sono risultate significative anche per la nostra ricerca sull'editoria comunista. Infine, il presente lavoro si basa su tre livelli di analisi: l'individuazione dei meccanismi di decisione politica e dell'organizzazione assunta dall'editoria comunista, esaminando gli scopi e i mutamenti organizzativi interni al partito per capire come i mutamenti strategici e tattici si sono riflessi sull'attività editoriale; la ricostruzione della produzione editoriale comunista; infine, l'identificazione dei processi di distribuzione e delle politiche per la lettura promosse dal Pci. ; Communist editorial policy is a fundamental research area for the study of PCI, but the party's publishing activity has fallen into historical oblivion. Assuming the book as a material support and vehicle of the communist political culture and the publishing house as a socialization channel, this research questions the its construction and diffusion processes. This research follows two main paths. In the first chapter, we tried to explain the methodological reasons of "Party Publisher". In the second part of the thesis, empiric, we try to reconstruct the history of communist publishing houses. The historical period embraced is divide in two parts – 1944-1947 and 1947-1956 – according to the classical history of the cultural policy of the PCI, and is centered on four historical events: the "Salerno turn" (1944), the "Cominform turn" (1947), Stalin's death (1956) and the XX Congress (1956). We adopted three levels of analysis: identifying the organization and decision making structure of Communist publishing activity, reconstructing book production processes, and identifying distribution processes and reading promotion policies promoted by the PCI.
La tesi si propone di tracciare un confronto tra due autori molto distanti tra loro sia nel tempo che nello spazio: Nikolaj Gogol' e Dario Fo; in particolare si analizzano le commedie Il Revisore di Gogol' (1836) e Morte accidentale di un anarchico di Fo (1970). Il nesso tra le due opere è stato individuato dalla critica italiana (Franco Quadri, Ferdinando Taviani, Paolo Puppa). Tuttavia gli spunti interpretativi e comparativi non sono mai stati sviluppati appieno della critica. Nonostante le grandi distanze temporali e spaziali, l'analisi si propone dunque di evidenziare i numerosi motivi di consonanza tra le due opere e i due autori, che peraltro testimoniano anche della grande fortuna arrisa all'estero all'autore ucraino, attraverso la mediazione del teatro russo-sovietico del XX secolo. L'approccio metodologico adottato si fonda sui testi dei formalisti russi, di Lotman, sulla Stilkritik di Aurbach, sugli studi di Frye sulla Bibbia intesa come "grande canone" della letteratura occidentale, e soprattutto sull'analisi della cultura carnevalesca e popolare condotta da Bachtin. Lo studio è indirizzato su alcuni elementi precisi: la trama, lo scambio della personalità, l'impostura, la paura e il riso. Per ciascun di questi elementi è stata svolta l'analisi comparativa delle due opere, situandole in un contesto letterario e culturale che va all'antichità e al Medio Evo, dal quale entrambi gli autori mutuano molte suggestioni. ; The thesis aims to draw a comparison between two authors widely separated in time and space: Nikolai Gogol and Dario Fo, in particular, we analyze the comedies The Government Inspector by Gogol (1836) and Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Fo (1970). The link between the two works has already been recognized by some Italian critics (Franco Quadri, Ferdinando Taviani, Paolo Puppa). However, comparative guidelines between the two works have never been fully developed. Despite the vast distances of space and time, our analysis is to highlight the many reasons of consonance between the two works and the two authors, which also testified, however, of the great fortune abroad of the Ukrainian author, through the mediation of the Russian-Soviet theater of the twentieth century. Our methodological approach is based on the Russian formalists, Lotman, on Stilkritik of Auerbach, on Frye analysis of the Bible as the "great canon" of Western literature, and especially on the analysis of the carnival and popular culture worked by Bakhtin. Our study focuses several crucial items: the Plot; the "Exchange of Personality"; the Deception; the Fear; the Laughter. Comparison has been carried out for each of these items, resulting the situation of the two comedies in a large literary and cultural context expanding from Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the second half of the twentieth century. From this context both authors, as we demonstrate, have borrowed a lot of suggestions.