The arduous sentence

Was Napoleon a conqueror or a liberator? A revolutionary or a reformer? A despot or an enlightened political leader? Was it true glory? Posterity will judge. Taking up Alessandro Manzoni, we too pose the problem of the historical evaluation of the human and political experience of Napoleon Bonaparte. Manzoni interpreted a widespread sentiment: for his contemporaries Napoleon was an exceptional individual, feared but admired.

It is said that in the various battlefields, the enemies, even if frightened, nourished the morbid curiosity to see that little man who had upset Europe. The great philosopher Hegel, who saw him in 1806, said that Napoleon was "the spirit of the world on horseback". May 5 this year marks the bicentenary of Napoleon's death.

In this case we are posterity. Napoleon, for better or for worse, gave a direction to his time and made a fundamental contribution to forming Europe as we know it. It transformed European society, imposed on it the new values ​​of the French Revolution, unleashed nations, brought civil and technical progress, but deprived the conquered states, forced thousands of young people to enlist under the French banner, subordinated economies and governments to the French interest. Napoleon was so great as to make any attempt to imprison him in a simple judgment difficult and inadequate.

There is, however, an aspect of the Napoleon problem that may have interesting developments also in the current debate: the role of the individual in historical events. A certain historiography of the past has emphasized the role of individuals. Almost as if Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander the Great had the monopoly of responsibility for every event of their time. It is a common and widespread trend still today that tends to simplify very complex historical dynamics through personalization. The opposite tendency is to minimize the role of individuals in favor of the masses, reducing the role of individuals to mere puppets.

The approach that highlights the continuous relationship between individuals and the masses appears to be more coherent and adequate. Without a specific social context and constant support from the masses, the individual can do nothing: to reduce all Nazism to Hitler alone is absurd.

The awareness of the continuous interaction between individual choices and the social context is one of the fundamental aspects that make history a current knowledge because it invites us not to trivialize reality but to always consider it in all its complexity.

Renato Bonomo
NP May 2021