Fleeing Dictatorship: Socialism, Sexuality and the History of Science in the Life of Aldo Mieli

Fig. 1.

Aldo Mieli, 1879-1950.

Mieli's Own Life-story, Recounted in the 1940s

On the night of New Year's Eve 1943, aged sixty-four, the Italian historian of science Aldo Mieli (1879-1950) wrote a passionate autobiographical article in Spanish, the language of the country of his second exile, Argentina.¹ During his life Mieli had achieved a great deal. He had founded two journals, Rassegna di studi sessuali and Archeion (still published as Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences) and two important institutions: the International Committee for the History of Science (still active as the International Academy of the History of Science), a learned society that organized international conferences and co-ordinated the activities of national groups from all over the world, and the Unit for the History of Science at the Centre de synthèse in Paris. He had published many books, some of which are considered classics of the history of chemistry,² and a remarkable number of book reviews, and he had edited several book series.³ He had given a tremendous impulse to the history of science in three countries, and he is seen nowadays as one of the founders of the history of science as an autonomous discipline,⁴ as well as a pioneer of gay rights.⁵

Yet, at the end of 1943 all seemed lost and the future bleak. The distance from Europe must have felt very great to him, as the war had made communications with his continent of origin extremely difficult. In a letter dated 7 July 1942, to the US-based historian of science George Sarton, founder and editor of the journal Isis, Mieli had written that for one year he had not been able to receive news from his friends in Italy, nor from his associates in France, the country of his first exile. In this letter, he expressed particular concern about the historian of chemistry Hélène Metzger, with whom for ten years he had organized the work of the Unit for the History of Science at the Centre de synthèse in Paris.⁶ Sarton himself would inform Mieli that Metzger, after being detained in a concentration camp near Lyon, had been deported to Germany.⁷ Her final destination was Auschwitz; she probably died en route.⁸

The emotions that brought Mieli to write that autobiographical article can only be imagined. On the one hand, the previous September, Italy had signed the unconditional armistice with the Allies: Italian Fascism had fallen at last. On the other, Fascism had not disappeared; Italy was partly occupied by the Germans and partly ruled by Mussolini's Italian Social Republic. The war was still raging, he did not know whether his friends were safe, his health was declining, and the deafness which had affected him since his Parisian sojourn⁹ must have made his sense of isolation even greater.

It seemed that all Mieli's projects had come to an end. His journal Archeion, his 'dear child',¹⁰ that he had founded in 1919 as Archivio di storia della scienza could no longer appear.¹¹ The Argentinian Universidad del Litoral, which had published it in the previous three years, had axed it, and Mieli's contract as director of the Institute of History and Philosophy of Science had been rescinded.¹² Following the coup d'état of June 1943 the new government had dismissed the university's vice-chancellor, and the new one (in Mieli's view 'reactionary and priest-like') had full powers to sack staff.¹³ At the end of 1943, Mieli found himself once again in a dictatorship, which he privately described as 'reactionary, clerical, fascist and anti-Semite', and once again was planning an escape - to Cuba, to Mexico or possibly back to Italy.¹⁴ He may have seen the account of his life as a sort of curriculum vitae for the benefit of future hosts, employers and friends, although its publication would have done nothing for his difficult position in...