1924 – 2024: One hundred years since the murder of Armando Casalini
(Forlì, 14.6.1883–Rome, 12.9.1924)
Already a volunteer in the 1915-18 war despite a physical handicap that would have exempted him from conscription, he was a trade unionist and founder of the Republican Party.
In 1922, after embracing Mussolini’s ideas, he founded the pro-fascist Unione Mazziniana Nazionale with other former republicans.
In 1924, as a candidate on the fascist ticket, he was elected to Parliament.
On September 12 of the same year, Casalini was assassinated on a tram in Rome, shot with a revolver in front of his daughter Lidia. The murderer, communist Giovanni Corvi, attacked him shouting, “Revenge for Matteotti!”
Like Matteotti, Casalini was a member of parliament, murdered for his political ideas and associations.
We will see if the “most right-wing government of the republican era” will remember this figure with the same emphasis as it has remembered others, or if it will, as usual, be the government that most asks for forgiveness.
In the meantime, we will not forget. Presente.