Le traduzioni in lingua russa delle opere di Mussolini: una questione politica

For a long time, the demonization of the foreign enemy, a Soviet heritage, imposed the exclusion from the Russian publishing landscape of works ideologically opposed to Marxism-Leninism. This article intends to outline a historical overview of the translation of Benito Mussolini’s works into Russian, highlighting the interrelationship between editorial policies and the evolution of the Soviet and Russian sociopolitical context. From the consultation of library catalogues of post-Soviet countries and countries that were the destination of the first Russian diaspora, four titles appear to have been translated: the novel Claudia Particella (1908), My Autobiography (1928), The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) and Story of a Year (1944). Considering their place and date of publication, the translations can be classified into two groups. The first includes foreign translations from the first decades of the twentieth century, linked to the context of post-revolutionary emigration, while the second includes works published mainly in Russia after the collapse of the USSR. The historical overview is followed by a more detailed analysis of the current Russian context, made necessary by the federal censorship of the titles cited. The so-called ‘anti-extremist legislation’ highlights an internal political fragility, which means that Mussolini’s works are to this day still highly problematic in Russia and cannot be relegated to a mere historical interest.