Teresita Pasini (''née'' dei Bonfatti, 1869 – 1948), better known by her pseudonym Alma Dolens, was a prominent

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vo ...

, and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

. "Alma Dolens" is a combination of the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''alma'' meaning "soul" or "heart" with the

participle ''dolens'' meaning "pained" or "grieving"; the name can thus be translated as "sorrowful heart" or "heavy heart", and is thought to refer to her feelings surrounding

militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...

and

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

Personal life

Alma Dolens was born into a wealthy

Umbri The Umbri were an Italic peoples, Italic people of ancient Italy. A region called Umbria still exists and is now occupied by Italian speakers. It is somewhat smaller than the Regio VI Umbria, ancient Umbria. Most ancient Umbrian cities were sett ...

an family in 1876. Her family was well known within the

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

movement, where they supported

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

. Alma Dolens married a lawyer from

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, who was supportive of her work.

Work

Alma Dolens served as the president of the Lombardy Committee for Woman Suffrage and Workers' Rights. She spoke at national peace conferences in 1909 and 1910, cementing her role within the otherwise male-dominated Italian peace movement. She believed that women were necessary for social progress, and that the lack of women within the Italian peace movement and within politics as a whole was detrimental. Dolens was also a strong proponent of creating bonds between the Italian peace movement and the

trade unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

. She created the

Società per la pace femminile ''Società'' (Italian: ''Society'') was an Italian communist cultural magazine published in Italy between 1945 and 1961. History and profile ''Società'' was founded as a quarterly magazine in Florence in 1945. The founders were Ranuccio Bianch ...

(Women's Society for Peace), and traveled throughout central Italy to create local committees within it. She worked with the metalworkers' union to create the Associazione nazionale pro arbitrate e disarmo (Workers' Society for Arbitration and Disarmament) in Milan, which had around 700 members by the early 1910s. The 191

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captur ...

ended the peace movement, creating a divide between those who felt that they should support the war and those who did not. Dolens fell in the latter category, campaigning publicly against the war and appealing to groups within the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

for financial support to allow the pacifists to reform. She continued to work throughout 1911 and 1912, but the Italian pacifist movement eventually fell apart completely, and Dolens was banned from speaking publicly in Italy for those two years. She turned her attentions elsewhere, writing about living conditions for the lower class in Italian cities. At a peace conference in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

in 1913, Dolens met and befriended

Rosika Schwimmer Rosika Schwimmer (; 11 September 1877 – 3 August 1948) was a Hungarian-born pacifist, feminist, world federalist and women's suffragist. A co-founder of the Campaign for World Government with Lola Maverick Lloyd, her radical vision of world ...

, another pacifist and suffragist. She also returned to speaking at party events in 1913, sometimes alongside

Margherita Sarfatti Margherita Sarfatti (; ; 8 April 1880 – 30 October 1961) was an Italian journalist, art critic, patron, collector, socialite, and prominent propaganda adviser of the National Fascist Party. She was Benito Mussolini's biographer as well as one ...

. In 1914, Dolens went to meetings about the impending war in Europe that had been organized by the

International Peace Bureau The International Peace Bureau (IPB; ), founded in 1891, is one of the world's oldest international peace federations. The organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910 for acting "as a link between the peace societies of the various ...

and by

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. She and Rosalia Gwiss-Adami were the Italian pacifists' delegates to the 31 July conference in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, a conference that served as one last attempt at avoiding the war. Throughout the war, she performed

relief work Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. The primary objective of humanitarian a ...

for families who had been driven out of their homes by the war within

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

. After the end of the Italo-Turkish War, she traveled through

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

to lecture. Seeing the destruction from the war reaffirmed her beliefs in pacifism, and she said in one of her lectures "the enemy is not at the border; it is all around us: it is poverty, tuberculosis, unemployment. The cure for these diseases is the end of formidable and costly weaponry." She insisted the countries should be required by law to

arbitrate Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitrati ...

during war. After the Second World War, Dolens went to live in the home of a socialist friend, Gilberto Gilioli and his wife Myrthe Ripamonti, where she died in 1948.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alma Dolens 1869 births 1948 deaths Italian anti-war activists Italian feminists Italian journalists Italian pacifists Italian suffragists Italian women writers Italian women activists Italian writers Pacifist feminists People from Umbria

Personal life

Work

See also

References