MEMORIES BEYOND MYTH. THE CASE OF TWO MISSING EMPIRES BY ALDO PALAZZESCHI

This essay explores the case of Aldo Palazzeschi's war memoir, Due imperi mancati, published in 1920 and rapidly shelved by critics. In contrast with the collective myth of the Great War and its rhetoric of repetition and monumentality, the book stands out as an unicum in Italian memorialistica, because of the author's marginal position (as a soldier not involved in front-line combat), his fictionalization of present events (defying the supposed objectivity of documentarism), and his use of a comical element as a debunking tool (later adopted by Lussu and Monicelli).