«The first volunteer»: the myth of Guglielmo Oberdan and the Great War. This essay aims to trace Guglielmo Oberdan’s mythopoetic role during the First World War. Specifically, it focuses on the influence this man – a hero of the Italian Risorgimento, charged with plotting to kill the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph and consequently sentenced to death by hanging on December 20, 1882 – had on the young people who fought at the Italian front to conquer the “unredeemed lands”. The reevaluation of this character, who was to be transformed from a Resorgimental hero into the first volunteer of the Italian army that fought against the Austrian enemy, clearly comes out by analyzing the celebrations and pamphlets that were published during the war.
