06 – War as a game: The playful aspects of the Daring Ones’ military and paramilitary experiences, 1917-1922

In this episode, Blasco Sciarrino presents the Italian elite army corps known as the Daring Ones (Arditi), which fought mainly in the First World War. He discusses how having fun increased their fighting power in the course of war and their subsequent paramilitary activism, and considers if the playfulness and collective pursuits increased not just the Daring Ones’ military prowess, but also several of these men’s resolve to use violence. Blasco Sciarrino is a history teaching fellow and researcher. He received his PhD in 2022, on the political activism of Italian and Romanian Great War veterans in the period between 1918 and 1945, from the Central European University in Budapest/Vienna (CEU). His research interests include veteran politics, fascism, nation-building cultural policies, politics of memory and cultural/ideological transfers. The illustrations that are mentioned in this episode can be found in the WarFun visual archive.