Redipuglia and the dead

Abstract

Over a hundred thousand bodies are buried in the ossuary of Redipuglia. Created in north- eastern Italy under the fascist state in 1935–8, it is the largest burial site of the Great War worldwide.It encloses the remains of Italian soldiers who died in battle within a colossal stone staircase that emits a powerful sensation of absence, and a silence that suggests that the dead have been submitted to the rule of the dictatorship. Over thirty ossuaries were created by the fascist regime in the 1920s and ‘30s as part of a campaign to exploit death for political gain. The memory of the Great War was harnessed as propaganda for the promotion of militarism, nationalism, and imperialism. When Benito Mussolini opened Redipuglia in 1938, Italy was stumbling into another global conflict. Thus, Redipuglia is a powerful example of how funerary monuments may act as instruments of power, or how the memory of the dead may serve political ends that overwhelm, or erase, the identity of the individual.