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Indro Montanelli
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Indro Montanelli
Indro Alessandro Raffaello Schizogene Montanelli (22 April 1909 – 22 July 2001) was an Italian journalist, historian, and writer.
Montanelli originally volunteered in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and admired Benito Mussolini's dictatorship, but his political stance shifted in 1943. He joined the liberal resistance group Giustizia e Libertà, and in 1944, he and his wife were discovered and arrested by Nazi authorities. He was sentenced to death by firing squad but fled to Switzerland the day before his scheduled execution with the assistance of a secret service double agent.
After World War II, Montanelli continued his work at Corriere della Sera, where he started working in 1938, and distinguished himself as a liberal-conservative for many decades. As an intransigent, anticonformist, and anti-communist, he defended the idea of another political right, which was sober, cultured, pessimistic, and distrustful of mass society. In 1977, the Red Brigades terrorist group kneecapped him; however, he forgave them years later. He was also a novelist and historian, especially remembered for his Storia d'Italia (History of Italy) in volumes.
After leaving the Corriere della Sera in 1973, due to a perceived turn to the left, Montanelli worked as the editor-in-chief of Silvio Berlusconi-owned newspaper il Giornale for many years. Being opposed to Berlusconi's political ambitions, he quit as editor of il Giornale, and founded il Giornale nuovo in 1974. Berlusconi officially entered politics in 1994, after which he returned to the Corriere della Sera in 1995, and worked there until his death. Both the Italian centre-left and centre-right tried to reclaim his figure; the former, which overlooked his conservatism and anti-communism, emphasized his anti-Berlusconist militancy, while the latter, after having portrayed him as a useful idiot of the post-communist left, underplayed his opposition to Berlusconi.
Montanelli was born in Fucecchio, near Florence, on 22 April, 1909. His father, Sestilio Montanelli, was a high-school philosophy teacher and his mother, Maddalena Doddoli, was the daughter of a rich cotton merchant. The name Indro was chosen by his father after the Hindu god Indra.
Montanelli earned a law degree from the University of Florence in 1930, writing a thesis on the electoral reform of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime. He reportedly argued that the measure amounted not to reform, but to the abolition of elections. He later said that it was during his stay in Grenoble, while taking language lessons, that he realized journalism was his true vocation.
Montanelli began his journalistic career by writing for the fascist newspaper Il Selvaggio ("The Savage"), then directed by Mino Maccari, and in 1932 for the Universale, a magazine published once every fortnight, offering no pay. Montanelli later stated that he had viewed fascism as a movement capable of fostering an Italian national consciousness and addressing social and economic divisions between northern and southern Italy. His support began to decline in 1935, when Mussolini ordered the suppression of Universale and other publications that expressed critical views of fascism. It was in 1934 in Paris that Montanelli began writing for the crime pages of the daily newspaper Paris-Soir as a foreign correspondent in Norway, where he briefly worked as a fisherman, and later in Canada, where he ended up working on a farm in Alberta.
From there, Montanelli began a collaboration with Webb Miller of the United Press in New York.[citation needed] While working for the United Press, he learned to write for the lay public in a style that would distinguish him within the realm of Italian journalism. One lesson he took to heart from Miller was to "always write as if writing to a milkman from Ohio". He later recalled this open and approachable manner throughout his life. Another anecdote from Montanelli’s time in the United States concerned a class he was teaching: when a student asked him to explain an essay he had read, Montanelli replied that he would repeat it, as the student clearly had not understood it. The student then struck the table and said that, if the essay was not understandable, it was Montanelli who was at fault and should revise it. It was then that Montanelli realized that he, who had come from the authoritarian regime of Fascist Italy, had just had a confrontation with democracy.
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Indro Montanelli
Indro Alessandro Raffaello Schizogene Montanelli (22 April 1909 – 22 July 2001) was an Italian journalist, historian, and writer.
Montanelli originally volunteered in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and admired Benito Mussolini's dictatorship, but his political stance shifted in 1943. He joined the liberal resistance group Giustizia e Libertà, and in 1944, he and his wife were discovered and arrested by Nazi authorities. He was sentenced to death by firing squad but fled to Switzerland the day before his scheduled execution with the assistance of a secret service double agent.
After World War II, Montanelli continued his work at Corriere della Sera, where he started working in 1938, and distinguished himself as a liberal-conservative for many decades. As an intransigent, anticonformist, and anti-communist, he defended the idea of another political right, which was sober, cultured, pessimistic, and distrustful of mass society. In 1977, the Red Brigades terrorist group kneecapped him; however, he forgave them years later. He was also a novelist and historian, especially remembered for his Storia d'Italia (History of Italy) in volumes.
After leaving the Corriere della Sera in 1973, due to a perceived turn to the left, Montanelli worked as the editor-in-chief of Silvio Berlusconi-owned newspaper il Giornale for many years. Being opposed to Berlusconi's political ambitions, he quit as editor of il Giornale, and founded il Giornale nuovo in 1974. Berlusconi officially entered politics in 1994, after which he returned to the Corriere della Sera in 1995, and worked there until his death. Both the Italian centre-left and centre-right tried to reclaim his figure; the former, which overlooked his conservatism and anti-communism, emphasized his anti-Berlusconist militancy, while the latter, after having portrayed him as a useful idiot of the post-communist left, underplayed his opposition to Berlusconi.
Montanelli was born in Fucecchio, near Florence, on 22 April, 1909. His father, Sestilio Montanelli, was a high-school philosophy teacher and his mother, Maddalena Doddoli, was the daughter of a rich cotton merchant. The name Indro was chosen by his father after the Hindu god Indra.
Montanelli earned a law degree from the University of Florence in 1930, writing a thesis on the electoral reform of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime. He reportedly argued that the measure amounted not to reform, but to the abolition of elections. He later said that it was during his stay in Grenoble, while taking language lessons, that he realized journalism was his true vocation.
Montanelli began his journalistic career by writing for the fascist newspaper Il Selvaggio ("The Savage"), then directed by Mino Maccari, and in 1932 for the Universale, a magazine published once every fortnight, offering no pay. Montanelli later stated that he had viewed fascism as a movement capable of fostering an Italian national consciousness and addressing social and economic divisions between northern and southern Italy. His support began to decline in 1935, when Mussolini ordered the suppression of Universale and other publications that expressed critical views of fascism. It was in 1934 in Paris that Montanelli began writing for the crime pages of the daily newspaper Paris-Soir as a foreign correspondent in Norway, where he briefly worked as a fisherman, and later in Canada, where he ended up working on a farm in Alberta.
From there, Montanelli began a collaboration with Webb Miller of the United Press in New York.[citation needed] While working for the United Press, he learned to write for the lay public in a style that would distinguish him within the realm of Italian journalism. One lesson he took to heart from Miller was to "always write as if writing to a milkman from Ohio". He later recalled this open and approachable manner throughout his life. Another anecdote from Montanelli’s time in the United States concerned a class he was teaching: when a student asked him to explain an essay he had read, Montanelli replied that he would repeat it, as the student clearly had not understood it. The student then struck the table and said that, if the essay was not understandable, it was Montanelli who was at fault and should revise it. It was then that Montanelli realized that he, who had come from the authoritarian regime of Fascist Italy, had just had a confrontation with democracy.
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