Spazio vitale

Part of a series on
Fascism
Core tenets Nationalism Totalitarianism Single party state Dictatorship Militarism Direct action Mixed economy Class collaboration Third Position New Man Imperialism
Topics Definitions Economics Fascism and ideology Fascism worldwide Symbolism
Ideas Autarky Authoritarian democracy Bourgeois nation Class collaboration Corporatism Proletarian nation Totalitarianism
People Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler José Antonio Primo de Rivera Zaki al-Arsuzi Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Ante Pavelić Ikki Kita Wang Jingwei Plínio Salgado Konstantin Rodzaevsky Avraham Stern Oswald Mosley William Dudley Pelley Aleksandr Dugin
Literature The Doctrine of Fascism Fascist manifesto La Conquista del Estado Mein Kampf My Autobiography The Myth of the Twentieth Century Zaveshchanie russkogo fashista
Organizations Axis powers 1934 Montreux Fascist conference
History World War I March on Rome Beer Hall Putsch Aventine Secession Pacification of Libya German election of 1932 Enabling Act Second Italo-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War Anti-Comintern Pact World War II The Holocaust
Lists Fascists by country
Related topics Anti-fascism Clerical fascism Fascist (epithet) Glossary of Fascist Italy Iron law of oligarchy Nazism Neo-fascism Racism Social fascism Palingenetic ultranationalism
Fascism portal Politics portal

Spazio vitale (Italian for "vital space") was the territorial expansionist concept of Italian Fascism. It is similar to the German Nazi Party's concept of lebensraum. However, unlike lebensraum, spazio vitale was not based on the genocide of the subjugated nations, but presented the Italian race as a "custodian and bearer of superior civilization", whose mission was to export the fascist revolution and "civilize" the territories conquered. The defeated nations would be subjected to Italian rule and protection, but were to keep their own languages and cultures. Fascist ideologist Giuseppe Bottai likened this historic mission to the deeds of the ancient Romans, stating that the new Italians will "illuminate the world with their art, educate it with their knowledge, and give robust structure to their new territories with their administrative technique and ability".

The territorial extent of the Italian spazio vitale was to cover the Mediterranean as a whole (Mare Nostrum) and Northern Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. It was to be divided into piccolo spazio ("small space"), which was to be inhabited only by Italians, and grande spazio ("large space") inhabited by other nations under Italian domination.

See also

• Glossary of Fascist Italy
• Imperial Italy (fascist)
• Italian Fascism
• Lebensraum
• Mare Nostrum