Il Becco Giallo

Summary

Il Becco Giallo (English: "The Yellow Beak") was an antifascist satirical magazine in the 1920s in Italy.[1] The magazine existed between 1924 and 1926.

Il Becco Giallo
Editor-in-chiefAlberto Cianca
CategoriesSatirical magazine
FrequencyWeekly
FounderAlberto Giannini
First issue13 January 1924
Final issue1926
CountryItaly
Based inRome
LanguageItalian

History edit

Il Becco Giallo was founded by Alberto Giannini in 1924,[2] and the first issue appeared on 13 January that year.[3] The editorial column of the first issue sided clearly against fascism:[1]

[...] appoggiamo [...] con tutte le nostre energie l’opposizione la quale, al regime fascista di dittatoriale violenza che ha invertito tutti i valori morali e col terrorismo ha asservito l'Italia ad una banda di predoni, resiste eroicamente sfidando ogni giorno le più brutali aggressioni e lotta per la libertà soppressa, per la millenaria giustizia italiana conculcata, per la riconquista delle guarentigie costituzionali, per ridare prestigio all’Italia nel mondo.

[...] we support [...] with all our energy the opposition, which heroically resists the fascist regime of dictatorial violence that has inverted all moral values and through terrorism enslaved Italy to a band of raiders, and defies every day the most brutal aggression and struggle for suppressed freedom for the trampled thousand-year old Italian justice, for the restoration of constitutional guarantees, to restore prestige to Italy in the world.

Il Becco Giallo was based in Rome.[3] The editor-in-chief of the magazine which was published on a weekly basis was Alberto Cianca.[4] Contributors included Gabriele Galantara, founder and editor of L'Asino,[5] and Stefano Siglienti.[6] Luigi Pirandello, for his devotion to Benito Mussolini, was one of Il Becco Giallo's satirical targets, and used to be called P.Randello (randello in Italian means 'club (weapon)').[7] In 1926 the fascist regime forced Giannini to close it and emigrate to France.[2][8] Editor-in-chief Alberto Cianca also fled to Paris where he managed to continue to publish Il Becco Giallo.[4]

On 1 August 1927 the new clandestine series of the magazine appeared in Paris, with co-editor Alberto Cianca, thanks to financial subsidies collected in Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana (Italian Anti-Fascist Concentration) circles through the intervention of Filippo Turati and the Italo-Argentine industrialist Torquato Di Tella,[9] and later also with the contribution of the Giustizia e Libertà movement.[10] The publications of the clandestine journal continued until August 1931 (77 issues in all), when the journal closed due to disagreements that arose between Carlo Rosselli, who guaranteed funding, and Giannini, who edited the journal.

In the same period, two magazines emerged in Italy that were characterized for developing an innovative surreal humour, the Bertoldo and the Marc'Aurelio; the authors of these magazines were reactionaries that avoided political satire to comply with the regime.[1][11]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Un novecento da ridere Archived 26 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, by Alessandro Frigerio
  2. ^ a b Salvatore Attardo (2014). Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. SAGE Publications. p. 472. ISBN 978-1-4833-4617-5.
  3. ^ a b Alessandra Aquilanti (2015). Humor in Fascist Italy (PhD thesis). Stanford University. p. 95. ISBN 9798662565203. ProQuest 2501173396.
  4. ^ a b "Alberto Cianca" (in Italian). ANPI. Retrieved 23 January 2022.
  5. ^ (in Italian) Galantara, Gabriele, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 51 (1998)
  6. ^ Sandro Gerbi (1994). "Un banchiere nella Resistenza romana: Stefano Siglienti, 1943-44". Belfagor. 49 (4): 433–453. JSTOR 26147184.
  7. ^ Chiesa, Adolfo (1990) La satira politica in Italia: con un'intervista a Tullio Pericoli p.38
  8. ^ BeccoGiallo: fumetti impegnati e resistenza editoriale in Fanzin-Arte
  9. ^ Bruno Tobia (ed.), Il carteggio tra Filippo Turati e Torquato Di Tella. (1928-1931), Storia contemporanea: rivista bimestrale di studi storici, Bologna, a. XVIII, n.4 (agosto 1992), pp. 627-680.
  10. ^ Santi Fedele, La massoneria italiana nell'esilio e nella clandestinità: 1927-1939, Milano, F. Angeli, 2005, p. 135.
  11. ^ Mario Monicelli in De Franceschi, Leonardo (2001) Lo sguardo eclettico: il cinema di Mario Monicelli, p.28 excerpt

Further reading edit

  • Oreste Del Buono, Lietta Tornabuoni (eds.) (1972) Il becco giallo, Feltrinelli.
  • Il becco giallo. La satira di sinistra, a cura di Walter Marossi, Milano, M&B Publishing, 1999.