Conspirator in France. Guerrilla fighter in Spain. Partisan in Italy. A Transnational Biography of the Libertarian Anti-Fascist Sirio Biso

Abstract

The recent “transnational” approach to studying European resistance to Nazifascism has highlighted the role played by international mobility, which many European antifascists and resistance fighters engaged between the 1930s and 1940s. It has also emphasised the significant contribution made by antifascist volunteers who had fought in the Spanish Civil War to the various national resistances. Adopting a biographical perspective, this article reconstructs the experiences of one such transnational fighter: Sirio Biso, a libertarian antifascist from La Spezia who escaped to France, volunteered in Spain, became a partisan in Italy, and finally became an agent recruited by Allied intelligence.

Received: 2025/04/29

Admitted: 2025/05/27