Identify the person given in the adjoining picture and write a few lines about him.
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Answer:
Giuseppe Mazzini, (born June 22, 1805, Genoa [Italy]—died March 10, 1872, Pisa, Italy), Genoese propagandist and revolutionary, founder of the secret revolutionary society Young Italy (1832), and a champion of the movement for Italian unity known as the Risorgimento. An uncompromising republican, he refused to participate in the parliamentary government that was established under the monarchy of the House of Savoy when Italy became unified and independent (1861).
Name:Giuseppe Mazzini
Born: June 22, 1805 Genoa Italy
Died: March 10, 1872 (aged 66) Pisa Italy
Founder: Young Italy
Role In: Risorgimento
Education and exile.
Giuseppe Mazzini was a doctor’s son; his birthplace, formerly a republic, was annexed to the Kingdom of Piedmont in 1814. As a child, he gave promise of high intellectual ability, fully confirmed when he entered the University of Genoa at 14. Two years later, strongly influenced by seeing a patriot fleeing from Italy after an unsuccessful insurrection, he began to think “that we Italians could and therefore ought to struggle for the liberty of our country.”
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On graduating in law in 1827, he practiced as a “poor man’s lawyer,” wrote articles for progressive reviews, and hoped to become a dramatist or historical novelist. But his life was already shaping itself differently. His love of freedom led him to join the Carbonari, a secret society pledged to overthrow absolute rule in Italy. In 1830 he was betrayed to the police, arrested, and interned at Savona, where for three months he reviewed his political beliefs and conceived the outlines of a new patriotic movement to replace the decaying Carbonari.
When released early in 1831, he was ordered either to leave Piedmont or to live in some small town. He chose exile and went to Marseille, where his slight figure, handsome olive features, black hair and beard, and black velvet suit were soon familiar to the other Italian exiles, who accepted him as their leader. His first public gesture was an “open letter” to Charles Albert, the king of Piedmont, urging him to give Piedmont constitutional government, to lead a national movement, and to expel the Austrians from Lombardy-Venetia and their other Italian strongholds. The letter was circulated in Italy, but Charles Albert’s only reaction was to threaten Mazzini with arrest if he returned to Piedmont. As a lifelong republican, Mazzini was afterward censured for this friendly approach to an autocratic sovereign; he explained that he had meant to expose Charles Albert as one who would never fight for Italian freedom.
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Foundation of Young Italy.
At Marseille Mazzini spent two of his most rewarding years. He founded his patriotic movement for young men and called it Giovine Italia (Young Italy). It was designed as a national association for liberating the separate Italian states from foreign rule and fusing them into a free and independent unitary republic. Its methods were education and insurrection, and it had a moral basis derived from Mazzini’s own belief in God (though he was not a Christian) and in permanent laws of progress, duty, and sacrifice. It was the first Italian democratic movement embracing all classes, for Mazzini believed that only a popular initiative could free Italy. “Neither pope nor king,” he declared. “Only God and the people will open the way of the future to us.”
The new movement captured the imagination of Italian youth. Branches were secretly formed in Genoa and other cities; by 1833 there were 60,000 members. Mazzini edited the propagandist journal Giovine Italia, which was smuggled into Italy with other revolutionary pamphlets. He also became the lover of a fellow exile, the beautiful Modenese widow Giuditta Sidoli.
Young Italy’s attempted insurrections were failures. A projected rising in Piedmont in 1833 was discovered before it had begun; 12 conspirators were executed, one committed suicide, and Mazzini was tried in absence and condemned to death. He said prophetically, “Ideas ripen quickly when nourished by the blood of martyrs.” A few months later, when he had moved to Switzerland to escape from the French police, he tried to rally 1,000 volunteers to invade Savoy (then part of the kingdom of Piedmont). Only 200 could be mustered, and the force was disbanded.