Lo spettro del federalismo in Europa. Il Congresso di Ginevra del 1867

Abstract

The article dwells on a significant event in European history not adequately explored by historiography: The Geneva Congress for Peace and European Unity of September 1867, chaired by Garibaldi on the eve of the Agro Romano campaign. The congress, organised by a French sansimonian group, including Charles Lemonnier, summoned more than six thousand delegates from the major democratic and socialist associations of Europe with the aim of creating a new international organisation of democracy for the United States of Europe: the Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté, which remained in activity until 1957, flanked by the action of its press organ “Les Etats-Unis d’Europe”. In addition to describing the most significant speeches and congressdynamics, the essay shows the positions and objectives of the various components gathered in Geneva, including republicans, socialists, radicals, Mazzinians, Garibaldians and anarchists mainly from Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy. In particular, it focuses on a number of speakers including the Italian protagonists: : Garibaldi, Giuseppe Ceneri, Carlo Gambuzzi, as well as the republican historian Edgar Quinet, the German Amand Goegg, Bakunin and the Workers’ International.