Il ritorno di miti e memorie coloniali. L'epopea degli ascari eritrei nell'Italia postcoloniale

The paper fits within the debate, not only Italian, on the colonial question and its entrainment in contemporary society, analyzing an exemplary case of "politics of memory" enacted in our country: that tied to the recent revival, through expressly dedicated volumes but mostly in an impressive exhibition, of the myth of the Eritrean ascaro, one of the most celebrated figures by colonial and fascist Italy. The essay analyses the image of Eritrean colonial troops ‘proposed’ in the exhibition, identifying historiographical, methodological and ideological modes which have supported it and their degree of distance from the contents and the discursive models of the colonial period. The "return of the colony" represented by the case examined, reveals the failure of the "decolonization of memory" in our country while the rehabilitation, not just symbolic, of our colonialism which it proposes provides important insights about the formation of our country's national identity.