I would find it hard to believe that the readers of this book have never heard one of the most beautiful and famous Italian songs in the world ‘Bella Ciao’. I suppose it is less likely, however, that they are familiar with the curious fate of ‘Bella Ciao’, which, after a century-and-a-half of its turbulent life, has recently reached a strange climax.

The origin of ‘Bella Ciao’ is still uncertain. Some historians have recognised in its melody and lyrics the influences of French medieval ballads and northern Italian working songs from the late nineteenth century. It gained great popularity when it was adopted as the unofficial anthem of Italian partisans in their fight against the Italian fascist regime and German occupation of Italy in 1943–1945. Even in 2019, a wave of protest marches against the policy of former Italian minister of interior Matteo Salvini, who was flirting with fascism, took the song as its trademark.

At around the same time, the song was adopted as a salient recurring musical figure in Money Heist (Spanish: La Casa de Papel, ‘The House of Paper’), a Spanish heist crime drama television series released in 2017. After being (ab)used in the television series, it went viral on social media and soon became a worldwide sensation, with millions of people listening to, playing or singing their version of the song. Not surprisingly, ‘Bella Ciao’ has become a common feature at public and private gatherings, including those of revelling political and business elites. It is probably hard to imagine a more grotesque situation than one where ‘Bella Ciao’ is played at a party after the traditional Islamic wedding ceremony of a prominent Bosnian wedding couple, in front of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was the best man at the wedding, which happened in the summer of 2021 in Sarajevo. Due to such misuses, the socially critical idea of the song was completely lost to most of its performers and listeners.

One Saturday evening in the summer of 2021, however, when the new reinforcements of FC Lazio in Rome, Italy, had to sing songs as part of a traditional ‘initiation’ ceremony, Albanian football player Elseid Hysaj chose the popular hit ‘Bella Ciao’ for his song. Hysaj was filmed by his teammates, standing on a chair, singing ‘Bella Ciao’.