Ricerc@Sapienza

The project will focus on the evolution of the pro-European unity movements, in connection with the Ist-IIIrd International through 1848-1948. It will give a better awareness of the connections among pacifism, federalism, internationalism, during the political and social evolution and the growing tensions among powers and nations, Russia and central- East Europe included. While improving the common knowledge on the longue durée of the European unification process it will examine the contribution to the same given by: XIXth century personalities, cultural backgrounds (Enlightenment, saint-simonism, women movements etc) and associations from: a) France, Britain, USA, Switzerland, already unified; b) Italy and Germany that were accomplishing their unification; c) central-Eastern countries, like Poland, Bohemia, southern Slavs, still belonging to old empires.
The project will focus on the following events: a) the Brussels and Paris Peace Congresses of 1848-49 (In V. Hugo's speech Un jour viendra Russia was part of a Europe shaking hands with USA); b) the Geneva Congress of 1867 (Mazzini and Marx didn't attend) when the federalist `United States of Europe became an explicit target (USE was the title of a review and a book published from that event onward, as well as of R. Seeley's project of 1871 and W.T Steed's book of 1899 ); c) dissent within the 1st International (close to Europeanism) and birth of the 2nd one based upon Marxist theories; d) The Hague Conventions on International arbitration and Nobel peace prizes; e) the I W.W. and the Bolshevik Revolution (Lenin and Stalin would be against United States of Europe among capitalist countries)
The project will trace the presence of these events and cultures within the European unification process started after the I W.W. through SDN, Memorandum Briand,PanEuropa, antifascist federalism, British federalist proposals, until The Hague Congress of 1948, whence the current European unification process started.