In tutte le cose l’uno si divide in due: Giuseppe Regis e Maria Arena
Abstract
The article reconstructs the life stories of economist Giuseppe Regis and sinologist Maria Arena. Hailing from Turin and Palermo respectively, the couple met and married in Rome during the final years of the Fascist regime, after which they joined the Italian Communist Party. In 1957, the Party sent them to Beijing, where Regis worked in commercial intermediation and Arena taught Italian. Shortly after returning to Italy, the couple broke with the PCI in order to continue supporting Communist China by disseminating and translating political documents through the publishing house Edizioni Oriente and the journal Vento dell’Est. Following Arena’s death in 1986, Regis continued his scholarly work and maintained his support for Chinese economic policies, even after Mao Zedong’s death. Based on archival sources, memories and the qualitative insights offered by Regis’ Diario cinese, the article provides historical context for the trajectory of a militant couple who played a prominent role in global Maoism networks, in Italian political movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and more broadly in the knowledge of China in Italy.
Presentato: 10 Marzo 2025 | Accettato: 06 Maggio 2025 | Pubblicato 17 Novembre 2025 | Lingua: it
Keywords Edizioni Oriente • Italian Communism • Italy‑China relations • Maoism • Maria Arena • Vento dell’Est Journal • Giuseppe Regis
Copyright © 2025 Gilda Zazzara. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
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