Eja, eja, eja, alalà

“Eja, eja, eja, alalà” is presented as a D’Annunzian slogan taken up by the Fascists and made audible as a collective expression of allegiance. Its most explicit appearance accompanies Benito Mussolini’s entrance at the gathering where the National Fascist Party is born: the cry binds the movement’s leader to the crowd in a single public performance.

Adoption and political setting

The book explicitly identifies the phrase as one of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s many slogans adopted by the Fascists. That attribution connects the chant to the poet’s political language and to the public drama surrounding Fiume, which he described as a place of passion, youth, and heroic life in contrast with the exhausted world of postwar diplomacy. The slogan’s adoption thus carries more than a sound from one political stage to another: it shows the Fascists making D’Annunzian language part of their own repertoire.

The wider narrative repeatedly places political belonging in scenes of collective sound and display. At a socialist demonstration in Milan, women at the head of the march carry Lenin’s portrait and a red flag while singing songs of liberation. The Fascist acclamation belongs to a different political gathering and allegiance, but the contrast makes clear how songs, symbols, and coordinated crowds distinguish rival mass movements.

The chorus at the party’s founding

At the party congress, the audience’s enthusiasm rises as Mussolini enters from the back of the theater, followed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Ferruccio Vecchi. The book describes the response as a single chorus: “Long live our Duce! Eja, eja, eja, alalà, hurray for Benito Mussolini!” Framed by the calls before and after the phrase, the chant directly links the slogan to Mussolini and makes the welcome a declaration of collective devotion, not merely applause for a speaker.

The scene also places this acclamation within a political reconciliation. Congress attendees stand, embrace, and kiss Mussolini; he is lifted onto the presidency table, and the narrative immediately declares the party born. The cry therefore accompanies a transition from personal acclaim to an organized political identity. Its force comes from the room speaking as one at the moment a new party takes shape.

Repetition and political ritual

After the congress’s spectacular reconciliation, Mussolini speaks again to set out the party’s future program. When the three-hour speech ends, the theater erupts in shouting, singing, and cries of “eja, alalà,” amid applause and embraces. The shortened form recurs as part of the same repertoire of enthusiasm: the audience’s response turns a long political address into a shared, physical affirmation of the movement.

The narrative places this fervor near another public ritual: five days earlier, Italy had buried the Unknown Soldier in a ceremony described as a national cult, and the Fascist founders later kneel at the tomb. The chant is not identified as part of that burial, but its recurrence in the congress scenes contributes to the book’s portrayal of politics acquiring the forms of ritual. In those scenes, the slogan gives a crowd a common voice and makes allegiance to Mussolini audible.