ABSTRACT
This essay analyses the perception and representation of the atomic threat in Cold War Bologna as well as the various forms of mobilisation taking place in the city against the A-bomb in the 1950s. Uninterruptedly governed by the Italian Communist Party from 1945 to 1989, in the era of atomic urbanism Bologna positioned itself ideally in the Eastern bloc even if it belonged formally to the Western one. The nuclear menace was perceived and represented by the Communists as closely related to US warmongering, while the Christian Democrats blamed the Soviets for the very same reason. Communist propaganda informed by the myth of a peaceful USSR, created a peculiar iconography of the nuclear threat in the 1950s Bologna. Dozens of articles on the effects of a possible A-bomb explosion along with drawings and various kinds of images were published in the local Communist press to shock Left-wing Bolognese supporters. Downtown Bologna was considered to be the main possible target for a nuclear attack on the part of the United States. The perception of the atomic menace, crystallised in iconographic, oral and written sources, led the Bolognese to take part in dozens of rallies and demonstrations against the deployment of the A-bomb. The Bolognese Committee of the “Partisans of Peace” promoted a petition for the Stockholm Appeal banning nuclear weapons. Left-wing women played a major role in the mobilisation against the A–bomb, becoming part of the public narratives related to the atomic threat. By comparing and contrasting Communist and Catholic-oriented sources, the hegemonic Communist representation of the nuclear threat will be analysed.
