The professor of civil law Ugo Matteithe deputy of Liberi e Uguali Stefano Fassinathe former speaker of the Chamber and parliamentarian of the Democratic Party Laura Boldrini and even Barbara Spinellidaughter of Altiero founding father of the European Union and partner of Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, godfather of the euro. Here they are, i Putinians of Italy: put them all in a row on Republic on Fridays Gianni Riotta in an article in which he told who are the so-called “Putin’s supervisor“, Those who“ understand Putin ”, who justify it. A list of “bad guys”, of alleged “colluding with the enemy“, Which Riotta points out by covering his article with the patina of authority by means of a publication (which he calls” study “) published a few months ago, at the end of 2021, in the United States (title: Russian Active Measures: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow). In reality, Riotta’s for a good part turns out to be a completely personal list of names: Mattei, Fassina, Boldrini, Spinelli, in fact, in that “American” text do not exist. Yet, despite his long experience as a former director and correspondent, in the development of the piece he manages to never tell the unsuspecting readers of Republic that about half of the names he lists are not the result of that “study” on which his thesis is based. Conversely, in that text there are many other citations that do not appear in Riotta’s article: for example, there is a long passage dedicated to Luissuniversity of which Riotta directs the journalism school.
Riotta supports her piece by leaning on a text she calls “Columbia university study edited by the teachers Olga Bertelsen e Jan Goldman“. But it is not a study and even less it is “from Columbia University”, as some journalists on social media had already pointed out in recent days (Simone Fontana between these).
Is this enough to call the text “a Columbia University study”? No, at least according to the press office of Columbia University itself, which after hearing the Harriman Institute (Columbia academic center dealing with Russia and the Soviet Union) wrote to me:
– Simone Fontana (@simofons) March 3, 2022
It is actually a research paper that is part of a collection of essays (total of over 400 pages) published by the German publishing house In the same place which in the US is distributed by Columbia university press, that is the publishing house of the New York university. The curators are not Columbia faculty: Bertelsen works at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at Prescott, ArizonaGoldman alla Citadel Of Charleston, South Carolina. The Italian authors of the “study” (which study is not) do not work at Columbia and, indeed, have no academic assignment: Massimiliano Di Pasquale introduces himself as a “photojournalist and essayist”, Luigi Sergio Germani he is “scientific director of the Gino Germani Institute of Social Sciences and Strategic Studies”.
The authors of the research paper aim to “discuss the Russian influence on Italian culture and academia”. And they distinguish “two different types of pro-Russian intellectuals in Italy”: i neo-eurasianistiwith “radical pro-Moscow and anti-West positions”, and “Russia understander“With” a pragmatic and moderate pro-Russian position, based on the considerations of realpolitik“. In the transfer from Di Pasquale and Germani’s text to Riotta’s article, however, as a result of a stroke of a magic wand, they become “Putinversteher”, an expression never used in the so-called “study”.
The result is a somewhat obsessive vision, in which both those who make Putin’s ultracy and those who make a mistake a prediction, both those accused of doing business with the Russians and those who sign agreements in cultural exchanges are inserted in the same phenomenon. In any case, among the first, that is, among the “pro-Moscow radicals”, exponents of the Italian social movement as the publisher Claudio Mutti and the leader of the Youth Front Carlo Terraccianobut also Gianluca Savoini – known for the events related to the alleged Russian funds to the League -, the philosopher Diego Fusaro and the historical correspondent of the Press – now missing – Giulietto Chiesa. Among the “Russlandversteher”, however, they appear Sergio Romanoformer Italian ambassador to Moscow and historic signature of the Corriere della Sera – according to which, the authors write, “Russian geopolitical interests should not be undermined by democratic movements in Ukraine” – and the philosopher Massimo Cacciari, “Condemned” for a wrong prediction at the time of the invasion of Crimea in 2014 when “he said that the Russians would stop” and that “fears for the rest of Ukraine were unfounded”. Among the other names included in the analysis are those of the former president of Rai Marcello Foa and the former director of Rai2 Carlo Freccero because, in 2019, according to the authors, they sided in favor of broadcasting a sovereign-inspired program on public TV The eighth blog.
Conversely, neither in the essay by Di Pasquale and Germani nor in any of the total of 402 pages of the collection published in the USA by Columbia university press the name of never appears Barbara Spinelliwhich Riotta on Republic he promoted on the field “Putinversteher with diplomatic stamp” referring to the fact that his speech on the Done a few days ago it was relaunched on Twitter by the Russian embassy in Rome. Nor are the names of Ugo Matteiprofessor of civil law who became known in the last year for having led the no green pass protests of the university world, or of the president of the Chamber Laura Boldrini – guilty of having abstained on Parliament’s resolution ondispatch of weapons in Ukraine – or the parliamentarian of the M5s Vito Petrocelli (who voted against), all cited by Riotta in his piece which thus transformed from a semblance of analysis to personal judgment (or vice versa).
On the contrary, from Riotta’s piece there remain several names contained in that “study” of which he told, yes, but up to a certain point, with a large use of cherry picking – as he would say -, with which the former director has chosen to mention some names and to discard others. In that volume, for example, personalities from many Italian universities are cited, from Wisdom a Like Foscari. And among these there is also the Luiss, the private university named after Guido Carli. Since the passage of the document dedicated to Luiss is very long, here we will limit ourselves to a few examples. The volume recalls the partnership between the private university, the Moscow State Institute for International Relations and theEnel and also the words spoken by Mariasilvia Ciola, then head of the delegation that visited the Moscow institute who spoke of an “also political” operation: “Despite the worsening of relations between Russia and the West – note the authors of the text – ‘academic exchanges remain'” (internal quotation marks are a quote from Ciola’s words). And again Di Pasquale and Germani speak of Raffaele Marchettithen the rector’s delegate for Internationalization who “cooperates closely with the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute (which is a think tank based in Berlin, ed), created and financed by the Russian oligarch and former general of the KGB Vladimir Yakunin“. There is nothing about this and anything else concerning Luiss in the article by Gianni Riottawho coincidentally is director of the Luiss school of journalism.
In the team of those who would have a “moderate pro-Russian” position ends – according to the authors of the mini-essay – even Lucio Caracciolo, the director of the historic geopolitics magazine published today by Gedi. According to this volume, Caracciolo, together with Germano Doctors (another signature of the magazine), “represents the Russlandversteher school of thought”. As for Doctors “in an interview with Start MagazineDoctors, who published a series of geopolitical analyzes on Sputnik Italia, argues that NATO can still play a relevant role if Washington and Western countries get rid of their “anti-Russian obsessions, and NATO ceases to be an anti-Russian alliance and becomes an anti-Chinese alliance”. There is even something for the Corriere della Sera e Republicthat is the newspaper in which Riotta writes: they are accused of having published editorials that “reinforced Russian propaganda messages” during the protests of Euromaidan in 2013. The only newspaper “saved” by the authors is The print, which “offered a balanced interpretation and a complete analysis of events”. Yet Riotta also worked there.