kontextmaschine

The most legit [the Mkhedrioni] ever got was opening businesses which claimed to be ‘Economic Firm’, ‘Many Branched Bank’, or ‘Joint Stock Company’. Anyone who invested in The Golden Cup Trade Industrial Company, heavily advertised on television, saw shares double within two weeks. When they went to the company’s offices to sell their shares they found a note pinned to the door: “Goodbye”.

Christopher Othen, on early post-Soviet Georgia.
(via sinesalvatorem)

Amidst the fall of an empire, a roguish playwright exploits a clash of backwater nationalisms to become the dominant strongman of an eastern european outlaw frontier.

That’s pretty fucking d’Annunzian.

Also: roadblocks! what was I telling you?

grupaok:

Gabriele D'Annunzio in his study, 1894

fantomas-en-cavale:

Gabriele D’Annunzio sur la plage de Francavilla, photographié par Francesco Paolo Michetti, 1883

Another fact about my idol Gabriele d'Annunzio is that he liked to insist that he had invented foodstuffs that he in fact had not. Sometimes these were obscure European regional dishes not widely known, but this included cases like sending a Pope (with whom he had friendly rivalries as #1 Italian celebrity, though the Church formally and ineffectually prohibited most of his works) drinks “of his own invention” that were well known as products of a famous monastery for centuries. Also in 20th century Italy he claimed to have invented spaghetti.

A fact about my idol Gabriele d'Annunzio, which for most people would be the most interesting thing about them but for him doesn’t even make it into the top 50, is that he participated in two pistol duels and lost them both.

Once he let the other guy shoot first and miss by a mile, and then fired his own gun into the ground, sort of the intentional walk of pistol duels. The guy insisted on reloading and doing it again, which while technically his right under the accepted code duello was generally considered a Total Dick Move, and winged d'Annunzio in the crown of the head.

Gabriele attributed his developing baldness to the disinfectant used to clean the wound, proclaimed that it made him the sexiest man in the world, and claimed that in the future, everybody would be bald.

Oh hey there’s a new English-language d'Annunzio biography out, and it’s getting hella good reviews. The Ledeen one changed my life (a bit), but the Woodhouse one was a bit crap. Guess it’s time to make another trip to Powell’s.

labelleotero:

Gabriele D’Annunzio

via

hierarchical-aestheticism:

Gabriele D’Annunzio

grupaok:

Glenn Curtiss gives Italian poet, protofascist, utopian, decadent and fighter-pilot-to-be Gabriele D’Annunzio a flight at the Brescia Air Show, 1909

arsnihil:

There is no decent way of containing the excesses of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s lives. It would astonish his contemporaries to discover that he is now only faintly remembered outside Italy. Even within Italy, though firmly entrenched in the literary canon, he is most commonly recalled with a sort of collective cringe.

stammsternenstaub:

stcelestine:

Various rooms in the Vittoriale degli Italiani, mansion of nationalist and proto-fascist poet, Gabriele D’Annunzio.

My Embarrassing History Crush. But dude, he put a whole fucking boat in his garden and took over a town for funsies :(

Look at his beautiful fucking self :(

L.

He built a house for his boat. He put a fucking cruiser in his garden.

labelleotero:

For anyone who’s a fan of Gabriele D’Annunzio and doesn’t speak Italian, I just found out that there will be a brand new English translation of Il Piacere (Pleasure) published this summer.  This is pretty big news considering that up until now, the only version of this novel available in English (under the title Child of Pleasure) was heavily censored and dates all the way back to the late 19th century.  Can’t wait to read it!

THE FATHERLAND IN MOURNING
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO
has unexpectedly died

The Poet-Soldier departed at 8:30 last night at his workbench - The
King and Duce notified - The body dressed in uniform of the General of Aviation

Intense grief in Italy and abroad

But even as he glorifies war, he does not sanitize it. “He sets the grim package down on the counter the way a merchant lays down a bolt of fabric to be measured by the yard./ These are the remains of Alfredo Barbieri from the Ljubljana mission.” (p. 66) “One barrage of fire had massacred our men./ The bloody pile was far away but seemed to be approaching with a slithering of entrails.” (p.256) He was wounded. His friends and comrades killed. He mourned the fallen with a passion approaching mania. But not only did he glorify war in writing, he begged to fight, and used his fame and influence to secure permission to fly on bombing missions even after his afflicted eye was amputated.

Josh Cook reviews Notturno by Gabriele D’Annunzio. (via therumpus)

It’s an… ehh article, there’s a few things I’d challenge and the part at the end where he announces that he’s compiled some great quotes and then doesn’t share them is quite an unworthy tease (d'Annunzio gave amazing quote), but it’s always nice to see some anglophone recognition.

The top picture is Gabriele d'Annunzio’s Flight over Vienna, the 1918 operation in which the Italian poet-adventurer led a biplane squadron on a unprecedented 700+ mile round trip to drop propaganda leaflets over the Austro-Hungarian capital - most famously mocking Italian poetry composed by il vate himself.

Like many of the military operations d'Annunzio conceived and executed during World War One, the raid was tactically brilliant, strategically pointless, yet still valuable in terms of raising morale and as proof-of-concept for developing doctrines of mechanized combat - in this case, strategic bombing.

The lower picture, of course, comes from the period after the war, when d'Annunzio personally conquered the city of Fiume and ruled it for over a year as pirate-king, pioneering the charismatic pageantry characteristic of later fascist regimes.