Biography

Indro Alessandro Raffaello Schizogene Montanelli (Italian pronunciation: [ˈindro montaˈnɛlli]; 22 April 1909 – 22 July 2001) was an Italian journalist, historian, and writer. He was one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes according to the International Press Institute. A volunteer for the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and an admirer of Benito Mussolini's dictatorship, Montanelli had a change of heart in 1943, and joined the liberal resistance group Giustizia e Libertà but was discovered and arrested along with his wife by Nazi authorities in 1944. Sentenced to death, he was able to flee to Switzerland the day before his scheduled execution by firing squad thanks to a secret service double-agent.After World War II, Montanelli continued his work at Corriere della Sera, where he started working in 1938, and distinguished himself as a staunch conservative columnist for many decades. An intransigent, anti-comformist, and anti-communist, he defended the idea of another political right, which was sober, cultured, pessimistic, and distrustful of mass society. In 1977, the Red Brigades terrorist group kneecapped him; years later, he forgave them. He was also a popular novelist and historian, especially remembered for his monumental Storia d'Italia (History of Italy) in 22 volumes.After leaving the Corriere della Sera in 1973 due to a perceived turn to the left, Montanelli worked as the editor-in-chief of Silvio Berlusconi-owned newspaper il Giornale for many years but was opposed to Berlusconi's political ambitions, and quit as editor of il Giornale, which he founded as il Giornale nuovo in 1974, when Berlusconi officially entered politics in 1994. He returned to the Corriere della Sera in 1995 and worked there until his death. Both the Italian centre-left and centre-right tried to reclaim his figure; the former, which overlooked his conservatism and anti-communism, emphasized his anti-Berlusconist militancy while the latter, after having portrayed him as a useful idiot of the post-communist left, removed his opposition to Berlusconi.During the global 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Montanelli came under scrutiny for his racist attitudes and actions. While working at the fascist magazine Civiltà Fascista, Montanelli wrote many articles expressing racist ideas, declaring the superiority of the white race, and supporting colonialist ideals. While stationed in Italian Ethiopia during the Ethiopian War, Montanelli married a 12-year old Eritrean girl (as it was custom for the institution of the madamato), who later married an Eritrean officer of his platoon. Due to those controversies, protesters defaced a statue erected for him in Milan and demanded it be removed in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. He also denied the use of poison gas during the war in Ethiopia; he acknowledged their use in 1996.