ANPI

The National Association of the Italian Partisans: Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia (ANPI), is an association founded by participants in the Italian resistance against the fascist and Nazi occupation during World War II. The ANPI was founded in Rome in 1944, despite ongoing war in northern Italy. The association was constituted as a moral foundation on April 5, 1945.

History
The National Association of the Italian Partisans was created by volunteers who took part in the war in the central regions of the Italian peninsula.

After the fall of the Italian Social Republic the ANPI spread over the country: as far as the southern tip of Italy, where resistance fights were rare, although this was where many of the partisans that fought in the center-north of Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, France came from.

On April 5, 1945, the day that the ANPI was recognized as a moral foundation, the association represented all the Italian partisans and it was managed by a council where all the different brigades that fought the war were present (Brigate Garibaldi, Ferruccio Parri’s Giustizia e libertà, independent, Brigate Matteotti, Mazzini and catholic partisans groups), but after the first national congress that took place in Rome in 1947, problems arose, due to the very different visions of internal and foreign politics. The intense discussions eventually caused the exit of same partisan groups:
 * in 1948, Independent and catholic groups created the FIVL: Italian Federazion Freedom’s volunteers (Federazione Italiana Volontari della Libertà)
 * in 1949, the groups related to Giustizia e Libertà, created the FIAP: Italian Federation of the Partisan Associations: (Federazione Italiana delle Associazioni Partigiane).

The congresses
ANPI national congresses are:
 * 1) Rome, 6–9 December 1947.
 * 2) Venice, 19–21 March 1949
 * 3) Rome, 27–29 June 1952
 * 4) Milan, 6–8 April 1956
 * 5) Turin, 19–21 June 1959
 * 6) Rome, 14–16 February 1964
 * 7) Bologna, 18–21 March 1971
 * 8) Florence, 4–7 November 1976
 * 9) Genoa, 26–29 March 1981
 * 10) Milan, 10–13 December 1986
 * 11) Bologna, 2–5 June 1991
 * 12) Naples, 28–30 June 1996
 * 13) Abano Terme (PD), 29–31 March 2001
 * 14) Chianciano Terme (SI), 24–26 February 2006
 * 15) Turin, 24–27 March 2011:

Objectives
ANPI’s objectives are the valorization of the historical role of the partisan war by mean of researches and the collection of personal memories. The defense against Historical revisionism and the ideal and ethical support to the high values of freedom and democracy expressed in the 1948 Constitution, in which were collected the ideals of the Italian resistance.

Members
"I enroll to ANPI because the resistance is not only the memory of the past but an actual fact in present times."

- ANPI's artists membership enrollment campaign

Differently from other veterans associations, today can become ANPI members altogether with the categories enlisted in the article 23 of its regulation ("partisans, patriots, soldiers that fought against German soldiers after the armistice", prisoners or deported – during the civil war – for political activities or racial discrimination, imprisoned militaries that did not support the Italian Social Republic), but also all the citizens that, without any distinction of age, will declare and subscribe to be antifascist, in accordance to ANPI regulation.

With the introduction of this new regulation, approved during the at the 14th congress, in 2006; ANPI allowed a generational change of the association members, that, in 2010 counted about 110,000 affiliated:

In particular, in addition to 10% of “historic partisans” there are 10% of young people between 18 and 30 years, while the majority (60-65%) are people between 35 and 65 years old.

In three years, between 2006 and 2009, members increased from 83,000 to 110,000, with a great numbers of young antifascists elected to high rank positions at the local and national level.

In June 2010, Dacia Maraini and Concita De Gregorio created a membership enrolment campaign that recruited many artists and intellectuals as testimonials. Among them were Marco Bellocchio, Andrea Camilleri, Massimo Carlotto, Liliana Cavani, Roberto Citran, Cristina e Francesca Comencini, Vincenzo Consolo, Simone Cristicchi, Serena Dandini, Emma Dante, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Ellekappa, Sabrina Ferilli, Dario Fo, Matteo Garrone, Fabrizio Gifuni, Giorgia, Irene Grandi, Ugo Gregoretti, Monica Guerritore, Margherita Hack, Fiorella Mannoia, Simona Marchini, Neri Marcorè, Mario Monicelli, Giuliano Montaldo, Claudia Mori, Nicky Nicolai, Moni Ovadia, Marco Paolini, Michele Placido, Gigi Proietti, Franca Rame, Lidia Ravera, Toni Servillo, Paolo Sorrentino, Sergio Staino, Roberta Torre, Nadia Urbinati, Vauro, Lucio Villari, Gustavo Zagrebelsky

Structure
The association is currently structured with local group, district group, council group, provinaicial and regional committees. The headquarters of the association is in Rome, Via degli Scipioni 271. Arrigo Boldrini was the ANPI president from the first congress (1947) until 2006. During the 14th congress the new honorary president Agostino Casali was elected. Raimondo Ricci is the national president and Armando Cossutta is the vice-president.

Patria Indipendente
ANPI monthly publishes a magazine named “Patria Independente” (Independent nation), The magazine focuses on historical-political issues; it contributes to notify events related to the Italian resistance. The director of this magazine since 2009 is Wladimiro Settimelli.

ANPI National Festival
Since 2008, every two years, ANPI organizes its national festival. During the event are organized meetings, debates and musical concerts that focus on anti-fascism, peace and democracy.