Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini (June 22, 1805 - March 10, 1872) was an Italian writer and politician.

Born in Genoa, he became a member of the Carbonari in 1830; this was a secret association with political purposes. His activity in revolutionary movements soon caused him to be proscribed, and in 1831 he went to Marseilles, where he organized a new political society called Giovane Italia (Young Italy), whose watchword was God and the People and whose basic principle was the union of the several states and kingdoms of the peninsula into one republic, as the only true foundation of Italian liberty. This was to be achieved through a popular uprising. He also founded several similar organizations aimed at the unification or liberation of other nations: Young Germany, Young Poland and finally Young Europe (Giovane Europa).

He continued to avow this purpose in his writings and pursued it through exile and adversity with inflexible constancy. It is largely due to him that Italy today is a single nation and a unique state, instead of a medley of separate states. However, his importance was more ideological then practical: after the failure of the 1848 revolutions (during which Mazzini became the main leader of the short-lived Roman Republic), the italian nationalists started to look at the kingdom of Sardinia and his prime minister Count Cavour as the leaders of the unification movement. This meant separating national unification from the social and political reforms advocated by Mazzini. Cavour was actually able to set up an alliance with France that started a series of wars leading to the formation of a unified kingdom of Italy between 1859 and 1861 (General Giuseppe Garibaldi, a former follower of Mazzini also played a major role), but this kingdom was very far from the republic preached by Mazzini.

Mazzini never accepted monarchical united Italy and continued to agitate for a democratic republic. In 1870 he was arrested and sent again into exile, even if he managed to return with a false name and live in Pisa until his death (1872). The political movement he led was called the Republican party and was active in Italy until about 1992. Some felt that he was too modern for his times, and that the unification of the state was already a huge achievement to consent a discussion about the form of the state, at least for the period.