Egemonia/egemonico nei “Quaderni del carcere” (e prima)

Abstract

The essay consists of two parts, dealing respectively with the use of the concept hegemony before and
within Gramsci’s prison writings. The first part attempts to reconstruct a sort of “prehistory” of the term,
from its Greek origin to the long eclipse in Roman times, in the middle Ages and in early modernity. I then
go on to its nineteenth-century revival, first in the political vocabulary of the promoters of Italian and
German national unity, and then in the Marxist debate of the Second International. But it is among the
Bolsheviks that the concept took on that pregnant meaning which Gramsci began to reflect on during his
stay in Moscow (1922-23), then in the period in Vienna (1923-24) and above all after his return to Italy
(1924-26). The second part of the essay attempts to trace diachronically the developments of the
reflection on hegemony in the Notebooks, in which the particular meanings of “political hegemony” and
“civil hegemony” emerge, no longer referring solely to the proletariat but to any social class or group
fighting to conquer and / or maintain power. This struggle takes place predominantly on the terrain of civil
society and as protagonists sees individuals (the intellectuals), public and private institutions, and parties
(the modern Prince), in an inextricable nexus between national and supranational realities. The outcome
of Gramsci’s reflections constitutes a free and bold translation of Lenin’s original concept of hegemony
which, moreover, he maintains is already present in embryo in the historical writings of Marx.