Revolution and Eternity. Introductory Remarks on Fascist Temporalities

Abstract

Revolution and Eternity. Introductory Remarks on Fascist Temporalities

The special issue compares the central temporal concepts and chronopolitics of Italian Fascism, National Socialism and the Romanian Legion of the Archangel Michael. In our introduction we begin this venture by scrutinizing the fascist alternative to the narrative of progress, its obsession with dynamism and revolution and the cult of speed. These elements are juxtaposed with fascism's anti-historicism and its mythic longing for an eternal order. We show the close nexus between fascism's momentum and its quest to unearth an eternal entity – the nation or the Volk. We illustrate how the fascists united revolution and eternity, i.e. the destruction of the past with the restoration of origins, the beginning of a new era with the thousand-year standstill of time.