Mapping the October Revolution Memoryscapes in Italy’s Intellectual Discourses: A Critical Discourse Analytic Approach

One hundred years after the ‘ten days that shook the world’ (to use John Reed’s famous phrase), the October Revolution is still the subject of intense intellectual and popular debate, holding a unique place in our collective imagination. Whether celebratory, apologetic or critical, public attitudes towards the value and legacy of the October Revolution form an evolving memoryscape (Muzaini and Yeoh 2016) in which the historical memory of the event is constantly de- and re-contextualized to articulate contingent demands and concerns (see Heer et al. 2008). In this paper, we seek to outline the distinct trajectory of the October Revolution memoryscape in the Italian context from a critical discourse-analytical perspective. Focusing on the opinion articles published in three major Italian newspapers in conjunction with key anniversaries (1977, 1987, 1997, 2007 and 2017), we examine the ways in which the memory and history of the Revolution were re-framed and embedded in specific argumentative topoi, and how these were employed to support different, and often conflicting, viewpoints.