Giuseppe Garibaldi (redirected from G Garibaldi)

Garibaldi, Giuseppe 

Born July 4, 1807, in Nice; died June 2, 1882, in Caprera. Italian national hero, general, one of the leaders of the revolutionary-democratic wing in the national liberation movement struggling “from below” for the unification of Italy.

A native of Nice, the son of a sailor, Garibaldi from early youth led an independent life as a ship’s boy. He joined the liberation movement in 1833. In 1834 he participated in the Savoy expedition of the Mazzinists. Sentenced to death in absentia, he emigrated to South America, where for more than ten years he fought for the independence of the republics of Rio Grande and Uruguay. At the beginning of the Revolution of 1848-49 he returned to Italy, his native land. In the Austro-Italian war of 1848–49, he was at the head of a force of volunteers organized by himself. Garibaldi was one of the leading figures of the Roman Republic (proclaimed on Feb. 9, 1849, at his proposal), as well as the organizer of the defense of Rome. After the fall of the republic, he and 4,000 others completed a heroic march to come to the aid of revolutionary Venice. Repeatedly eluding the ring of three enemy armies, he made his way to Piedmont but was arrested and banished by the government. He was in exile from 1848 to 1854.

During the Austro-Italo-French War of 1859, he was again at the head of volunteers—the Alpine Rifle Corps—and led them victoriously through Lombardy. In 1860, during the Italian Revolution (1859-60), he commanded the revolutionary force called the Thousand and went to the aid of the liberation uprising on the island of Sicily. The revolutionary dictatorship established by Garibaldi on the island introduced a series of changes to help the peasants. Garibaldi’s expedition, together with the popular uprisings as well as the support of Garibaldi’s campaigns by the peasantry, led to the liberation of all of southern Italy from the Bourbon power. This was the greatest undertaking of the masses in the struggle for the unification of a country through revolutionary means.

In an attempt to incorporate still-separate Rome and Venice into the Italian state, Garibaldi launched two armed attacks to liberate Rome (in 1862 and in 1867). In 1866, leading a force of volunteers, Garibaldi participated in the Austro-Italian War of 1866, as a result of which Venice became part of Italy. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, Garibaldi offered his services to the republican government of France. He commanded the Vosges army, Avhich inflicted a number of serious defeats on the Prussian army.

A genuine internationalist, Garibaldi enthusiastically sympathized with the national liberation movements of the Hungarians, Poles, and Greeks. He welcomed the Paris communards and was a supporter of the First International.

A great practical revolutionary worker, Garibaldi was close to the people. From early youth he was imbued with republican ideals. However, Garibaldi did not have a clear-cut political program. In his eyes, the basic aim of his life was the liberation and unification of Italy in its “struggle against tyranny.” Devoting his entire energy to the attainment of this goal, he sometimes made concessions to the monarchy. (Thus, during the Revolution of 1859-60, seeking to make use of the Sardinian kingdom for the unification of Italy, he led the expedition of the Thousand under the slogan “Italy and Victor Emmanuel.”) Garibaldi’s inconsistency and the weakness of the Italian republicans in general, who concluded a temporary union with the Savoy dynasty as well as with the liberals and who did not know how to keep the initiative in their own hands, gave the liberal-monarchical circles the opportunity to make use of the fruits of Garibaldi’s revolutionary victories.

Italy was unified as a monarchical state. Garibaldi’s selfless struggle for freedom won him the love not only of the Italian people but of the peoples of the entire world. His example had an enormous influence on the liberation movements of many countries. The Italian people hold the revolutionary traditions of Garibaldi in high esteem. Thus, the Italian antifascists fighting in Spain in 1936-38 against the Spanish fascist mutineers and the Italo-German interventionists named their unit the Garibaldi Battalion. During the national liberation war of the Italian people (1943-45), the first partisan detachments also took the name of Garibaldi (Garibaldi Brigades).

WORKS

Epistolario, vols. 1-2. Milan, 1885.
Edizione nazionale degli scritti, vols. 1-6. [Bologna, 1932-37.].
Lettere e proclami. Milan, 1954.
In Russian translation:
Igo monakhov, ili Rim v XIX stoletii. St. Petersburg, 1870.
Memuary. Moscow, 1966.

REFERENCES

Marx, K., and F. Engels. Soch., 2nd ed., vols. 13-18 (see index of names).
Lenin, V. I. “Pod chuzhim flagom.” Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 26.
Lenin, V. I. “Imperializm i sotsializm v Itaiii.” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 27.
Gramsci, A. Izbr. proizv., vols. 1-3. Moscow, 1957-59. (Translated from Italian.)
Herzen, A. I. “Byloe i dumy.” Sobr. soch., vol. 11. Moscow, 1957. Pages 254-91.
Chernyshevskii, N. G. Poln. sobr. soch., vols. 7-8. Moscow, 1950.
Dobroliubov, N. A. Sobr. soch., vols. 6-7. Moscow-Leningrad, 1963.
Nevler (Vilin), V. Dzh. Garibal’di—geroi ital ianskogo’naroda. Moscow, 1937.
Nevler (Vilin), V. Dzh. Garibal’di. Moscow, 1961.
Nevler (Vilin), V. “Dzh. Garibal’di i progressivnye deiateli Rossii.” Voprosy istorii, 1957, no. 7.
Nevler (Vilin), V. “Svidanie polkovnika russkoi armii N. P. Ditmara s Dzh. Garibal’di.” Istoriia SSSR, 1961, no. 4.
Nevler (Vilin), V. Ekho garibal’diiskikh srazhenii. Moscow, 1963.
Lur’e, A. Garibal’di: 1807-1882, Moscow, 1957.
Miziano, K. Nekotorye problemy istorii vossoedineniia Italii. Moscow, 1955.
Miziano, K. “Pokhod Dzh. Garibal’di v otsenke russkikh sovremennikov.” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1961, no. 4.
Kirova, K. “Sotsial’no-politicheskie vzgliady Dzh. Garibal’di.” In the collection Iz istorii obshchestvennyh dvizhenii i mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii. Moscow, 1957.
“Novye dokumenty o Dzh. Garibal’di.” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1960, no. 2.
Trevelyan, G. M. Garibaldi’s Defence of the Roman Republic, 3rd ed. London, 1907.
Trevelyan, G. M. Garibaldi and the Thousand. London, 1909.
Bandi, G. I mille. Florence [1955].
Sacerdote, G. Vita di Garibaldi, vols. 1-2. Milan, 1957.
Mack Smith, D. Garibaldi, Milan [1959].
Beseghi, U. 1849: Garibaldi rimase solo. Bologna [1958].
Brancato, F. La dittatura Garibaldina nel Mezzogiorno e in Sicilia. Trapani, 1965.

V. E. NEVLER