«Abbandonare la patria, l’are dei nostri Dei». Opera e fuggitivi risorgimentali in Argentina
abstract
Before the massive migration of Italians, fugitives from Bourbon and Hapsburg repressions arrived in Argentina. They were people with a high cultural background. Some of these were also good musicians: they founded almost all the Argentine bands. These people lived in the century that invented the idea of nation. Yet for them homeland was a place of mind that could grow indiscriminately in Italy, Argentina or elsewhere. Subsequently, the power of the young Latin American states needed to justify the borders drawn by politics. Local cultural elites put themselves worked for this purpose and desperately sought distinctive signs, often picturesque, to differentiate their own country from the Other. The map defeated the mind. In this paper, I study the cases of two of those heroic fugitives and their pioneering role in culture in Argentina: Tommaso Mazzanti e Giuseppe Giribone.
Keywords: Solidarity • Homeland • Nationalism • Music • Internationalism