Napoleone Colajanni (27 April 1847 – 2 September 1921) was an Italian writer, journalist, criminologist, socialist, and politician. In the 1880s, he abandoned republicanism for socialism, and became Italy's leading theoretical writer on the issue for a time.Seton-Watson, Italy from liberalism to fascism, p. 155 He has been called the "father of Sicilian socialism".Seton-Watson, Italy from liberalism to fascism, p. 161 Due to the Italian Socialist Party's discourse of Marxist class struggle, he reverted in 1894 to his original republicanism and joined the Italian Republican Party. Colajanni was an ardent critic of the Lombrosian school in criminology. In 1890, he was elected in the national Chamber of Deputies and was re-elected in all subsequent parliaments until his death in September 1921.
Early life and family Colajanni was born in Castrogiovanni (now Enna) in Sicily, then part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in a family of intense patriotic feelings. His father Luigi Colajanni and mother Concetta Falautano were small entrepreneurs in the sulfur industry. Colajanni, Napoleone, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 26 (1982)
Redshirts At a young age, Colajanni was inspired by Giuseppe Garibaldi and attempted to join the Redshirts in the Expedition of the Thousand for the unification of Italy in 1860, escaping to Palermo at the age of 13, but without success. A relative recognised the young boy and brought him back home. In 1862, two years later, when Garibaldi passed by Castrogiovanni in his expedition against Rome, Colajanni joined the troops. He reached the Battle of Aspromonte, where he was captured by government troops and deported to the island of Palmaria. Il re della mafia, by Marcello Donativi, in Nel regno della mafia, pp. 9-10 Liberated after an amnesty, he returned to Sicily but volunteered again with Garibaldi's troops in the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866 and participated in the Battle of Bezzecca in Trentino, northern Italy, in July 1866.
After the war, Colajanni finished school and started to study medicine in Genoa. He made contact with the republicans of Giuseppe Mazzini and started to write for Il Dovere (The Duty). In 1867, he returned to Castrogiovanni due to the death of his father but immediately left to join Garibaldi again in his new campaign to capture Rome. He arrived too late when the Battle of Mentana, in which Garibaldi was defeated by Papal troops and a French auxiliary force, had already ended.
Colajanni took up his study in medicine, this time in Naples. On 26 February 1869, he was arrested for taking part in a republican conspiracy. He remained in prison until 17 November, when an amnesty was declared because of the birth of the future king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.
Positivist and evolutionary socialism After graduating in Medicine in 1871, Colajanni enrolled as a physician on a ship to South America before returning to Italy to devote himself to the study of sociology and continue his political activities. He returned to his home town, Castrogiovanni, where he practiced medicine and managed some sulfur mines owned by his mother.
In 1875, Colajanni was among the participants at the Republican Congress in Rome to revive the movement. He started to collaborate with the magazine La rivista repubblicana (Republican Magazine) of Arcangelo Ghisleri, which put him in contact with the exponents of republicanism and socialism in Milan. Through these democratic groups, Colajanni came into contact with the positivist theories, and personalities like Filippo Turati and Leonida Bissolati. Colajanni became one of the protagonists of the Italian positivist and evolutionary socialism, inspired by Darwinian evolution.
With his book Il socialismo (Socialism) published in 1884 in Catania, Colajanni became one of the first theoreticians of the Italian workers movement. His socialism was not based on the scientific Marxist approach but was closer to the ideology of Mazzini, one of the fathers of Italian unification, with some influence of French utopian thinkers such as Georges Sorel, and in terms of practical politics resulted in a kind of radical-democratic reformism.
In 1892, Colajanni was appointed Professor of Statistics at the University of Palermo. Since 1896, he directed the Rivista popolare (Popular Magazine), by means of which he strove to improve the moral and intellectual standard of the masses and combated all forms of intolerance and hypocrisy.
Criminal sociology
Colajanni published many books and essays on social and political problems, and exposed the unscientific theories of Cesare Lombroso and his Scuola positiva (Positive School),See for instance: Homicide and the Italians, by Napoleone Colajanni, The New York Times, March 24, 1901 as well as Enrico Ferri on criminology. Colajanni was particularly critical of Lombroso's biological determinism, in particular the alleged inferiority of Southern Italians, and he put a much greater emphasis on social conditions as a cause of offending. Lombroso and his disciples remained dominant in Italy.Emsley, Crime, police, and penal policy, p. 191
Colajanni was the first to publish a book with criminal sociology in the title.Hurwitz & Christiansen, Criminology, p. 28 He belonged to the Terza scuola (Third School) and argued that in order to curtail the level of crime in a society there should be a certain level of security with regard to sustainable living conditions, economic stability, and a more equal welfare distribution.Van Swaaningen, Critical Criminology, p. 37
After the publication of his two-volume study La sociologia criminale (Criminal Sociology) in 1889, in which he emphasised the social factors on criminal behaviour, Colajanni was virulently attacked by Lombroso and his disciples. The work received a moderately positive response from the scientific community both in Italy and abroad. Lombroso did not allow any criticism by rival scientists and his alleged scientific supremacy. He unleashed a smear campaign and scientific crusade against Colajanni while blocking access to academic journals to prevent Colajanni's replies.Hiller, Bodies that tell, pp. 36-41
In his essay Per la razza maledetta (For the Cursed Race, published in 1898), Colajanni ridiculed the history of anthropometry and its related categories of the Lombrosian school and deconstructed their ethnic stereotypes. He argued that the high rates of criminality in Southern Italy, which were seen as evidence of alleged Southern racial inferiority, could simply be explained by social conditions and levels of education. He opposed the notion of racism and racial superiority as an ideological tool to legitimise dominance and exploitation, which would lead to the destruction of other races instead of its alleged progressive transformation. In a later work, Latini e anglo-sassoni: Razze superiori e razze inferiori (Latins and Anglo-Saxons: Inferior and Superior races, published in 1903), he expanded his critique on the concept of superior and inferior civilisations to the Anglo-Saxon nations.Huysseune, Modernity and Secession, p. 52
Political activities In 1879, Colajanni had been appointed as a municipal councillor in Castrogiovanni. In 1882, he was a candidate in the general election in the constituency of Caltanissetta. While he was not elected, he obtained a significant following. Although poor health forced him to stay at Castrogiovanni, he continued to write political articles in periodicals of democratic orientation.
In 1890, Colajanni was elected in the Kingdom of Italy's Chamber of Deputies in the district of Caltanissetta for the first time. He was re-elected in all subsequent Italian Parliaments until his death in September 1921. Napoleone Colajanni, Camera dei diputati, portale storico In Parliament, he sat as a republican and showed socialist tendencies, becoming one of the de facto leaders of the republicans in Parliament. He sponsored initiatives like the parliamentary inquiry on colonial adventure in Italian Eritrea (1891) and the Banca Romana scandal (1892).
Colajanni argued against the incipient colonial policy of the moderate Historical Left, and anti-colonialism was one of his favourite themes. In his book Politica coloniale (Colonial Policy), written in 1891, Colajanni rejected the colonial adventure in Eritrea. According to Colajanni, the poor agricultural conditions made the country inappropriate for impoverished Southern Italian populace and completely inadequate to serve as a market for the emerging Italian industry.
Colajanni played an important role in the Banca Romana scandal. A suppressed report about the sorry financial state of the bank was leaked to Colajanni, who divulged its contents to parliament. On 20 December 1892, Colajanni read out long extracts in Parliament and the then Historical Left prime minister Giovanni Giolitti was forced to appoint an expert commission to investigate the bank.Seton-Watson, Italy from liberalism to fascism, p. 154 The resulting inquiry caused the fall of the government of Giolitti in November 1893.Cabinet Forced To Resign; Italian Ministers Called "Thieves" by the People, The New York Times, November 25, 1893
Fasci Siciliani Although he was never a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Colajanni was Sicily's leading political radical. He supported the Fasci Siciliani, a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1891 and 1893. The demands of the movement were fair land rents, higher wages, lower local taxes, and distribution of misappropriated common land.Seton-Watson, Italy from liberalism to fascism, pp. 162-63 He took the Fasci under his political protection, defending them in parliament and in the press.Fentress, Rebels & Mafiosi, pp. 227-228
Francesco Crispi, who took over after the fall of Giolitti in December 1893, promised important measures of land reform for the near future. Crispi was not blind to the misery and the need for social reform. Before 1891, he had been the patron of the Sicilian working-class and many of their associations had been named after him. Crispi's good intentions were soon drowned in the clamour for strong measures. In the three weeks of uncertainty before the government was formed, the rapid spread of violence drove many local authorities to disregard Giolitti's ban on the use of firearms. In December 1893, many peasants lost their lives in clashes with the police and army.Seton-Watson, Italy from liberalism to fascism, pp. 165-67
In order to stem the turmoil, Crispi offered Colajanni the Ministry of Agriculture, which he refused. When riots on the island got out of hand, Crispi asked Colajanni to undertake a mission of appeasement on Sicily. On 3 January 1894, only four days after Crispi had promised Colajanni there would be no state of siege, martial law was declared in the island. General was dispatched with 40,000 troops to restore order. Colajanni condemned the Fasci leaders for lacking to keep the peace.Sicily in a State of Siege; The Tax Agitation Has Been Practically Suppressed, The New York Times, January 9, 1894 After conferring with Morra, he issued a manifesto in which he urged the people to restore order. He argued that the government was engaged in bettering the working conditions and deserved their confidence, at least for a while. He called fools and traitors those breaking the peace.More Troops For Sicily, The New York Times, January 7, 1894