ELISA SIGNORI

La «conquista fascista» dell'Università.

Libertà d'insegnamento e autonomia nell'Ateneo pavese dalla riforma Gentile alle leggi razziali.

N. 182

Summary — From the Gentile reform of 1923 to the initiation of racial legislation in 1938, the physiognomy of Italian universities was progressively redesigned, and the individual members of staff, as well as the academic community as a whole, had to face up to an authoritarian system of norms which made deep inroads into autonomy and freedom of teaching. This essay reconstructs some of the key events in this history in the case of the University of Pavia, focussing on the interweaving of individual and collective choices and the game of interference between politics and administration, between institutions, teaching practices and research. In this process a turning point occurs in 1931 with the introduction of oaths of loyalty for university professors: two cases in Pavia of refusal to take the oath allow us to capture the contrast between institutional and behavioural dynamics in the academic world during that crisis. Concerning the various issues examined, from those of control to those regarding the disciplines, the trend examined here comes to a head with the ostracism of Jewish teachers, whose academic work and subsequent lives, from their expulsion to their post-war reintegration, are contextualized by reference to questions of implementation and bureaucracy regarding the antisemitic legislation and its reception in the academic world.