Through the lens of the court case of Luigia Paulovich, a legal appeal filed with Administrative Court of the Council of State against the Prefect of Trieste in 1931, In the Name of Italy: Nation, Family, and Patriotism in a Fascist Court explores the world of Fascist justice, highlighting the interplay of Italian law and Fascist expectations against the backdrop of inherited cultural, political, and gendered beliefs. It sheds light on the nature of Fascist authority demonstrating the fragmentation of power, the constraints of dictatorship, and the limits of popular quiescence. Focusing on the ... More

Through the lens of the court case of Luigia Paulovich, a legal appeal filed with Administrative Court of the Council of State against the Prefect of Trieste in 1931, In the Name of Italy: Nation, Family, and Patriotism in a Fascist Court explores the world of Fascist justice, highlighting the interplay of Italian law and Fascist expectations against the backdrop of inherited cultural, political, and gendered beliefs. It sheds light on the nature of Fascist authority demonstrating the fragmentation of power, the constraints of dictatorship, and the limits of popular quiescence. Focusing on the proceedings of the case revealed in local documents and national court records, the compelling narrative of an elderly woman’s challenge to the “italianization” of her surname reveals institutional uncertainty, signs of underlying discontent, and legal opposition to Fascistization in the first decade of Mussolini’s rule. The book shows how Fascist aims to create a “new” society clashed with conservative notions of family, church, and patriotism to affect the legal system and the perceptions and practice of justice. It demonstrates how competing visions of nationalism and italianità in Italy’s Adriatic borderlands, Dalmatia, and Rome persisted in regional cultural and legal particularities that impeded Fascist efforts to promote national standardization and enforce government centralization. The widow’s triumph indicates that while Fascist dictatorship appeared in many guises, dissent adopted many masks.