Italy–Russia relations

Italy–Russia relations

Italy	Russia

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, 24 October 2018.

Italy–Russia relations are the bilateral foreign relations between the two countries, embodied in the so-called privileged relationship.^[1][2][3]

Country comparison[]

Official name	Russian Federation	Italian Republic
Flag
Coat of Arms
Anthem	State Anthem of the Russian Federation	Il Canto degli Italiani
Capital city	Moscow	Rome
Largest city	Moscow	Rome
Government	Federal semi-presidential republic	Unitary Parliamentary constitutional republic
Head of State	Vladimir Putin	Sergio Mattarella
Head of Government	Mikhail Mishustin	Mario Draghi
Official language	Russian	Italian
Area	17,124,442 km2 (6,612,073 sq mi)[a]	301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi)
Time zones	11	1
Population	146,009,033	59,126,000
Population density	8.4/km2	201/km2
GDP (nominal)	$1.710 trillion	$2.106 trillion
GDP (nominal) per capita	$11,654	$34,997
GDP (PPP)	$4.328 trillion	$2.610 trillion
GDP (PPP) per capita	$29,485	$43,376
HDI	0.824	0.892
Currency	Russian ruble	Euro

General[]

Russia has an embassy in Rome and consulates in Genoa, Milan and Palermo, and Italy has an embassy in Moscow, a consulate in Saint Petersburg, two consulate generals (in Ekaterinburg and Kaliningrad), and two embassy branches (in Samara and Volgograd). Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

History[]

The relationship between Russia and Italy goes back a long way.

In terms of international relations, there has been little interaction between Italy and Russia, apart from the role of Moscow's control of the Italian Communist Party from 1920 to 1991. Communities of expatriates in each other's country hardly exist.^[4]

Russian Empire[]

Peter the Great and other Russian leaders looked to Italian cities for cultural models, especially in architecture and music. Italy for Russians has been the exemplar of the highest stages of culture, whether classical, Renaissance, or Baroque.^[2] For example, the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg was in part modelled after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Classical Russian literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries was strongly influenced by Renaissance Italy.^[5]

After the victory against Napoleon in 1815, Russia challenged Austria's dominant position in northern Italy. Prince Klemens von Metternich successfully responded, and Tsar Alexander I of Russia finally went along in 1819–20.^[6]

Petrushka remains the most famous puppet show in Russia. Italian puppeteers introduced it in the first third of the 19th century. While most core characters came from Italy, they were soon transformed by the addition of material from the Russian lubki and intermedii.^[7]

Italian merchants flourished in Odessa in the 19th century. They helped develop commercial shipping in the Black Sea. They took an active role in the public and cultural life of the city and initiated projects for the improvement of business conditions in Odessa.^[8]

Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (ruled 1825–1855) was a major collector, patron and promoter of the arts. He favoured Italian culture and imposed his tastes and aesthetic orientation on the works that he bought for his personal art collection and for the New Hermitage museum, which he inaugurated in 1852.^[9]

In 1914, Italy refused to follow its official allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, into World War I. It negotiated for a better deal with the Allies, especially in terms of gaining territory from the Austria-Hungary. Russia had its own interest in that region, which complicated negotiations, but its negotiating position was greatly weakened by its heavy military losses. Britain and France managed to make Russia by April 1915 abandon its support for most of Serbia's claims and accept terms for Italy's entry into the war, which would limit Russia's strategic presence in the postwar Adriatic.^[10]

Italian-Soviet relations[]

The governments of Benito Mussolini's Italy and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union recognized each other as de jure governments of their respective countries and established diplomatic relations on 7 February 1924 shortly after the death of Vladimir Lenin. A preliminary trade agreement had been made on 26 December 1921, which one historian noted the pact "signified the de facto recognition of the Soviet Union" by Italy. ^[11] Both states signed a Treaty on Friendship, Non-Aggression and Neutrality on 2 September 1933, and although the treaty formally remained in effect until the Italian declaration of war against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, relations had already degraded with the advent of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War.^[12]

Palmiro Togliatti was the longtime leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 to 1964. He remained in Moscow when Mussolini's fascist government arrested all leading members of the Communist Party. The Comintern, under Stalin's guidance, chose Togliatti as the party leader for Italy. He remained in Moscow but kept the party solidly together. During World War II, he directed the Italian communist resistance and returned to Italy in 1944. Stalin did not permit the Italian communists to make an effort to take over Italy in 1944 to 1945. Togliatti kept in close touch with Moscow and became a major player in Italian politics. He was typically outmaneuvered by the Christian Democrats with their American allies.^[13][14]

In 1936, the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy for its aggression in Ethiopia. The Soviet Union was in good standing with the League at the time and generally applied the sanctions by sharply reducing its trade with Italy.^[15]

In the late 1930s, Hitler planned to gain Lebensraum by invading the Soviet Union with the support from Italy, co-operation with Poland, friendship with Britain and the isolation of France. Italy was mildly supportive, but Hitler's program failed by Polish aloofness, British rejection of appeasement in 1939, Soviet strength, and the American entry to the war in support of the Soviets.^[16]

Even during the war, when Italy was on Germany's side fighting against the Soviets, Italian troops were known for treating Soviet civilians much better than the Germans did. After the Italians signed an act of surrender to the Allies on 29 September 1943, at the Three Powers Conference in Moscow, the Soviets, the Americans and the British adopted the Declaration Regarding Italy for the overthrow of fascism in Italy, the barring of fascists from public life and the setting up "democratic organs". The Soviet Union restored full diplomatic relations with Italy on 25 October 1944. A treaty on trade and navigation was signed on 11 December 1948.^[17]

In the decisive 1948 election, both the Soviets and the Americans intervened. The communists launched strikes, mass rallies, assaults on police stations and occupations of factories. The Americans responded by threatening military intervention in the event of a communist coup. The Christian Democrats won on an anticommunist platform, the communists were frozen out of power at the national level in Italy although they still controlled local governments in industrial cities.^[18]

In the 1960s, Italy's FIAT built a car-assembling plant in the Soviet city of Tolyatti, named after Togliatti.^[19]

Italy had the largest communist party in the Western world, with over 2 million members. After the Sino-Soviet Split, the party had much more room to maneuver. While not officially aligning with China, it sharply disagreed with the Soviets on numerous points. The historic compromise and the party's acceptance of pluralism at home, the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia, relations with the Chinese Communist Party, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and martial law in Poland. The Soviets offered concessions to win the party's support for their foreign policy. However, it denounced Soviet actions in Poland and suggested that both Soviet and American foreign policies were obnoxious, Pravda denounced the party's "blasphemy".^[20] The end of the Soviet Union made the party disintegrate in 1991 and split into the Democratic Party of the Left and the Communist Refoundation Party ("Rifondazione Comunista").^[21]

Russian Federation[]

In 2006, Russia and Italy signed a protocol of cooperation to fight crime and defend civil liberties. There are close commercial ties between the two countries. Italy is Russia's second most important commercial partner in the EU, after Germany, and its state-owned energy company, ENI, has recently signed a large long-term contract with Gazprom to import Russian gas into Italy.

In modern times, Russia has continued to have a privileged relationship^[22] with Italy. The Silvio Berlusconi governments (2001–2006 and 2008–2011) strengthened Italy's ties with Russia by the Italian prime minister's personal friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Cooperation extends also to the aviation sector, between Italy's Alenia and Russia's Sukhoi, which are jointly developing a new aircraft. Russians have always visited Italy in great numbers.

In 2017, Putin's party United Russia, signed a deal with the Northern League to strengthen their political cooperation.^[23]

Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, leader of the Democratic Party, suggested that Russian-backed organisations^[24] may have been promulgating fake news in Italy to influence electoral outcomes,^[25][26] and he accused the Five Stars Movement of spreading information supporting the Russian government and foreign policy.^[27][26] In December 2017, former US Vice President Joe Biden accused Russia of helping the opposition Five Stars Movement and Lega Nord.^[28] In March 2018, the Italian government, led by Paolo Gentiloni, expelled two Russian diplomats after the Skripal poisoning case in the United Kingdom.^[29]

The parties that won the 2018 election and formed a coalition government, the Lega Nord and the Five Star Movement, have been giving voice to the Italian industry's discontent with American and European sanctions on Russia.^[30][26]

On 22 March 2020, after a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Putin ordered the Russian Army to deploy medics, special disinfection vehicles and other medical equipment to Italy, which was the European country to be most severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.^[31]

See also[]

• Foreign relations of Italy
• Foreign relations of Russia
• Scuola Italiana Italo Calvino
• Russia–European Union relations
• Capriccio Italien

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Collina, Cristian. "A bridge in times of confrontation: Italy and Russia in the context of EU and NATO enlargements." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 13.1 (2008): 25–40.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Relations of Italy and Russia.

• Soviet-Italian Agreements at Great Soviet Encyclopedia