Young Ambassadors of the Fascist Empire: Voices of Italian Children Abroad in the Magazine Il Tamburino.

The article examines the fascist magazine *Il Tamburino*, published in the 1930s for Italian children living abroad, as a tool used by Mussolini’s regime to foster fascist identity and imperial ambitions among the Italian diaspora. Through analysis of hundreds of children’s letters featured in the magazine, it reveals how these young readers performed fascist ideals—such as discipline, bravery, and loyalty to Mussolini—and how their everyday experiences at Italian schools, summer camps, and through material culture like uniforms and toys contributed to a vernacular sense of Italianità. The magazine also functioned as a transnational community-building platform, fostering emotional ties among dispersed Italian children, though it simultaneously reflected internal hierarchies and tensions shaped by fascist control and expectations. The study highlights both the regime’s efforts to inculcate fascist nationalism abroad and the varied, sometimes ambivalent, ways children engaged with or diverged from these ideological prescriptions.