There is always more to learn about the past, but sometimes I come across something I am shocked to have not previously known. That happened the other day when scanning emails from my H-Net subscriptions. Caitlin Collis’s opening to her review of a book published last year made me sit up straight:
In February 1937, less than a year after the Italians violently subsumed Ethiopia into their nominal East African empire, two disillusioned Eritrean collaborators tried to assassinate the viceroy of the new colony, Rudolfo Graziani, and thereby cripple the Fascist colonial administration. While not a single Italian was killed in the botched attack, the next seventy-two hours saw Italian Blackshirts (members of the voluntary Fascist militia), civilians, and soldiers indiscriminately massacre an estimated nineteen thousand innocent Ethiopians.
19,000 people in three days!! That’s an atrocity of astonishing proportions for its duration, and fully deserves to be remembered among the horrors of colonialism, fascism, and the truly depressing 1930s. Hopefully the book Collis reviewed, The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame, by Ian Campbell, will generate greater awareness of this mass murder, and lead to some reconciliatory action. Published in 2017, seventy-years after the massacre, the book may capitalize on the interest created by this significant anniversary.
Wikipedia does not include an entry for the Addis Ababa Massacre, which is also known as the Graziani massacre. It does have an entry for “Yekatit 12,” however, which is the date in the Ethiopian calendar for the start of the mass killing. The entry references Campbell’s book and lists it as the only source under “Further Reading.”
In his review for History Today earlier this year, RJB Bosworth emphasized the fascist character of the reprisals for the failed attack on Graziani. The review by The Economist published last year situates Campbell’s book in the contemporary politics of history. Ethiopia memorializes the atrocity in a major public square, and with memorial services, as this piece in The Guardian shows. According to The Economist, Italy has not apologized for the mass murder, and officially downplays or ignores the massacre. Graziani, however, is remembered as an important general, and his memory was honoured in 2012 with a monument initially supported with public funds.
The Focus on the Horn blog includes posts about Campbell’s research into the 1937 massacre, as well as Italian commemoration of Graziani and the Ethiopian memory of the atrocity, and Italian colonial rule generally. It is clear that some historical reckoning needs to happen regarding the 1937 Addis Ababa massacre.
Resources
- “Addis Ababa massacre memorial service – in pictures,” 20 February 2018, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2018/feb/20/addis-ababa-massacre-memorial-service-in-pictures. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- J.B. Bosworth, “The Addis Ababa Massacre,” History Today, 2 February 2018, https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/addis-ababa-massacre. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- Ian Campbell, The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame (Oxford University Press, 2018). [Publisher’s website at: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-addis-ababa-massacre-9780190674724?cc=ca&lang=en&.]
- Caitlin Collis. Review of Campbell, Ian, The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame. H-War, H-Net Reviews. October, 2018. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=52022. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- “Italy and the Addis Ababa massacre,” 20 July 2017, The Economist, https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/07/20/italy-and-the-addis-ababa-massacre. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- “Yekatit 12,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yekatit_12. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “Why Are So Many Fascist Monuments Still Standing in Italy?” The New Yorker, 5 October 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/why-are-so-many-fascist-monuments-still-standing-in-italy. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- Jacob Wiebel and Toni Weis, “A Monument for Graziani: Italy’s unresolved relations to its violent colonial past,” 29 August 2012, Focus on the Horn, https://focusonthehorn.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/a-monument-for-graziani-italys-unresolved-relations-to-its-violent-colonial-past/. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
- “Ian Campbell on the Addis Ababa massacre of 1937,” 27 February 2014, Focus on the Horn, https://focusonthehorn.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/ian-campbell-on-the-addis-ababa-massacre-of-1937/. (Accessed 10 October 2018.)
Citation
Nathan Smith, “News to Me: The Addis Ababa Massacre,” 10 October 2018, HIS241.com, http://www.his241.com/?p=565
