Overview

In the midst of the Second World War, the government of Benito Mussolini collapsed. This dictator had, for a decade, held Italy in a dangerous alliance with Nazi Germany. On September 3rd, 1943, in Cassibile, Sicily, the Italian General Castellano and the American General Eisenhower signed a Treaty in which they illustrated the very harsh conditions of Italy's surrender and its passage alongside the Allies. The vicissitudes of this period led first to the imprisonment of Mussolini, and then to his daring liberation by the Nazis. On Italian territory, two governments, that of General Badoglio and that of the Republic of Salò, led by Mussolini's party, faced each other, while the Allies landed in Sicily and Anzio. In Lazio, the Allies began their action against the Nazi-Fascists who were retreating towards the north of the peninsula. In the meantime, relations between Italy and the Soviet Union resumed, and, in 1944, Pietro Quaroni, the first ambassador after the diplomatic break-up of 1940, was sent to Moscow. The book, through Italian diplomatic documents, reconstructs this delicate historical moment in Italo-Soviet relations in the final act of the Second World War.

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9781527543010

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Francesco Randazzo is Associate Professor of History of International Relations in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Perugia, Italy. He is Coordinator of the International Center for Research and Eurasian Studies, and is the author of several publications that mainly concern Russia, the Soviet Union and diplomatic relations with Italy. He is a member of the editorial boards of journals and he is an advisor for a number of Italian, Russian and Romanian journals. He directs two series of historical studies, EurAsia and I Quaderni del Cirseu, and obtained an international award from the Dante Alighieri Society of St. Petersburg for the publication of the book Dio salvi lo zar (2012). His recent publications include La guerra civile in Russia nei documenti militari e diplomatici italiani 1918-1922 (2019), and Zarstvo and Communism. Italian Diplomacy in Russia in the Age of Soviet Communism (2018).

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