Maurizio Rava (1878-1941) was the Italian governor of Italian Somalia between 1931 and 1935. He was also a famous writer.

Early life

Maurizio Rava was born to a Jewish family in Milan. He studied painting and started writing essays since he was a young student at a Milan Lyceum. Maurizio Rava graduated at the "Academy of Fine Arts of Rome".

At the age of 20 Rava collaborated with italian newspapers & magazines ("La Tribuna"; "L'idea Nazionale"; "Rassegna italiana") and at 30 he wrote his first book: "Al Lago tsana. Redazione". In the next thirty years he wrote nearly one hundred essays and many books.

In 1903 he married Enrica Canevari and got a son (Carlo Enrico, who later was a famous architect).

Rava was volunteer in WW1 in the Italian Alpine Corps and got one silver military medal together with 2 bronze medals, while fighting in the Trentino mountains.

Political career 
Rava had supported the Italian Nationalist Party since he was a student. He later joined the National Fascist Party during World War I. In 1919 he was a cofounder of the "Fascio" of Roma. 

In 1922, Rava participated in the March on Rome and was the most important of Mussolini's main Jewish collaborators.

In the 1920s Rava was vice-Governor of Italian Tripolitania and a general in the fascist militia. From 1 July 1931 to 6 March 1935 Rava was the governor of Italian Somalia, where he promoted building roads, hospitals, schools, ports and many infrastructures (electricity, asphalt on main urban roads, etc..). He also promoted the "assimilation-integration" of the young native Somalians in schools at the same level of the italian colonists.

Although in the late 1930s he faced problems within the party because of Nazi Germany's prejudice against Italian Jews, he was always respected by the fascists. The same Mussolini often defended him, calling him "one of his best collaborators since the 1920s, who greatly improved the Somalia colony".

Rava promoted some links with the Israeli Navy when was opened the Betar Naval Academy. This Academy was a Jewish naval training school established in Civitavecchia, Italy in 1934 by the Revisionist Zionist movement under the direction of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, with the agreement of Mussolini.

After being nominated "senator", he died in 1941 from wounds received in Italian Libya, when was a "general of brigade" fighting the British. In the last years of his life he was very close to Italo Balbo (the second in charge in fascist Italy after Mussolini) 

His funeral was held in Rome with the participation of thousands of fascists -defiantly against the racial laws imposed by Hitler- saluting him, creating a strong reaction of disapproval from the Nazi German ambassador in Rome.

Books

Rava wrote some books, the most important were:

 Parole ai coloniali 
 Al lago Tsana. Relazione
 Ottantatreesima Esposizione della Società Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti Roma MCMXIV 
 Sul cimitero di nove citta'''
 Eritrea. La nostra colonia primigeniaHe also wrote in the last years of his life: "Ingiustizia delle sanzioni: l’Italia stato aggredito", Roma 1936; "Il problema della mano d’opera in Somalia", Roma 1937; "Ovest etiopico: nei paesi del platino e dell’oro", Roma 1938; "Politica sociale verso gli indigeni e modi di collaborazione con essi", Roma 1938; "Diario di un secondo viaggio nell’ovest etiopico", Roma 1939''

Notes

Bibliography
 Bandini, Franco. "Gli italiani in Africa, storia delle guerre coloniali 1882-1943". Longanesi. Milano, 1971.
 Corni, G. "Somalia italiana", II, Ed. Littorie. Milano, 1937
 Del Boca, A. "Gli italiani in Africa orientale, II, La conquista dell’impero". Einaudi. Bari, 1979
 Garvin, Barbara (& Prof. Bernard Cooperman). "The Jews of Italy: Memory And Identity. Studies and Texts in Jewish History and Culture", University Press of Maryland (Bethesda 2000), ISBN 1-883053-36-6

See also
 Italian Somalia
 Italian Tripolitania

1878 births
1941 deaths
20th-century Italian Jews
Governors of Italian Somaliland
National Fascist Party politicians
Jewish fascists