"Bella Ciao" and the Surprising Strength of Invented Traditions
When folklore becomes more flexible than fact
I'm swiping through stories on IG on Sunday when I hit a jarring sequence: first, footage from the "No Kings" march with protesters belting out "Bella Ciao,” immediately followed by my friend's brunch boomerang featuring champagne clinks to the exact same melody.
I thought about it and started to wonder, How does a single song serve both resistance and weekend vibes? What makes some cultural artifacts travel effortlessly across contexts while others stay trapped in their original meaning? Why wasn’t I invited to brunch? When I dug into the history of “Bella Ciao,” a lot became clear.
A Song Without an Origin
If you haven't heard "Bella Ciao" or can't quite place the melody, start here and listen to Yves Montand’s recording.
As the story of the song goes, it was an Italian partisan anthem sung by resistance fighters during World War II. The lyrics tell of a young man who wakes one morning to find an invader has arrived, bids farewell to his "bella" (beautiful one), and chooses to join the partisans knowing he may die. He asks to be buried in the mountains under a beautiful flower, so that all who pass will say "What a beautiful flower—this is the flower of the partisan who died for freedom.”
It's a fairly emotional song that anchors Liberation Day celebrations across Italy. But here's where it gets interesting — increasing evidence suggests this history was largely constructed after the fact.
Giorgio Bocca, a partisan-turned-historian, offered this perspective: "In the twenty months of the partisan war I have never heard people sing 'Bella Ciao', an invention of the Spoleto Festival."1 Luigi Morrone's archival research found zero wartime documentation, despite countless "eyewitness" accounts that mysteriously appeared decades later.2
Meanwhile, authentic partisans actually sang "Fischia il vento," a song with solid documentation—specific author, date, witnesses.3 Yet this genuine resistance anthem stayed local while our possibly-invented "Bella Ciao" went global.
There’s another potential origin, the mondine—women rice workers supposedly singing labor songs in Italy's flooded paddies since the 1890s. This version began: "In the morning, barely awake / to the rice fields I must go / And among the insects and mosquitoes / hard work I must do." The lyrics spoke of harsh bosses with canes, of bodies bent in water for hours, ending with hope: "But the day will come when we all work in freedom."
But even this working-class story might be creative reconstruction. Evidence suggests both stories might have been crafted for 1950s cultural festivals — part of Italy's post-war effort to establish folk traditions.4
This becomes 'Bella Ciao's' charm. Without heavy historical baggage, the song became available for anyone to claim.
From Italian Folk Song to Universal Protest
Unlike many protest songs that become trapped in their original context, "Bella Ciao" found new life across completely different struggles. Kurdish fighters in Syria claimed it as their battle anthem against ISIS, adding local linguistic touches while preserving its defiant spirit. Iranian protesters created haunting "Woman, Life, Freedom" versions with lyrics like "The cluster of our anger is thirsty for rain." Ukrainian soldiers hummed it near front lines. Each adoption felt organic, necessary—groups weren't borrowing a song, they were claiming it as their own.
And then Netflix got involved. "Money Heist" completely stripped away the WWII context, rebuilding the song around contemporary economic anxieties. As the show's narrator explains: "The life of the Professor revolved around a single idea: Resistance. His grandfather, who had fought against the fascists in Italy, taught him the song—and he taught it to us."5 Anti-fascism became anti-capitalism. Bank robbers became Robin Hood. Instead of appropriating the song, the show evolved it—and global audiences enthusiastically endorsed the transformation.
Each group that embraces "Bella Ciao" doesn't just borrow its meaning—they invest new significance into it, creating a snowball effect where every sincere adoption makes the song feel more authentically universal. So what makes this possible?
Why Some Songs Travel Light
The secret to "Bella Ciao's" global success lies in its emotional universality combined with contextual ambiguity.
The song provides a template that's substantial enough to feel meaningful yet flexible enough to support infinite customization. The progression follows a classic arc: trouble strikes → protagonist chooses defiance → sacrifice transforms into legend.
This template adapts beautifully across different struggles. Whether you're facing fascist armies, economic inequality, or authoritarian overreach, the emotional journey translates.
The genius lies in the core concept of "bella ciao" as farewell. Goodbye to youth, lovers, fear, oppression—the same emotional container accommodates endless content. The song captures something fundamentally human while staying vague enough for anyone to project their particular struggle onto it.
Collective Ownership
The song's transferability stems from its unusual relationship with cultural sensitivity. "Bella Ciao" can be remixed, sampled, and transformed without stepping on anyone's cultural toes, precisely because it lacks the sacred historical weight that creates friction around other artifacts.
Consider David Guetta's infamous attempt to honor George Floyd by mixing Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech with electronic beats. The backlash was immediate and brutal: "They really gonna oontz oontz racism away?" The speech carries untouchable historical gravity.
But when Hugel creates EDM versions of "Bella Ciao"? The response is different entirely. The song exists in this rare cultural space where collective ownership feels natural rather than problematic.
The same qualities that enable revolutionary adoption also permit trivialization. When no specific community stands guard over meaning, nothing prevents the song from soundtracking both uprisings and Tiktoks. "Bella Ciao" can simultaneously gain credibility with freedom fighters while serving as background music for lifestyle content.
This isn't a design flaw—it's how invented traditions actually work. Cultural artifacts that spread inevitably trade some gravitas for reach. "Bella Ciao" travels the globe precisely because it carries no heavy historical baggage. Whether the song maintains its revolutionary edge or dissolves into ambient noise depends on what people feed it.
When Invented Outperforms Authentic
What "Bella Ciao" reveals about culture is fascinating: Invented traditions can outperform authentic ones through sheer adaptability.
This challenges some assumptions about cultural legitimacy. We privilege authentic traditions over manufactured ones, assuming that historical roots provide stronger foundations. But "Bella Ciao" suggests the opposite might be true. Sometimes the most powerful cultural artifacts are those unencumbered by historical constraints.
The song succeeds because it provides emotional architecture without demanding fidelity to any particular context. It's less archaeology, more construction kit—giving people the building blocks to create meaning rather than forcing them to inherit it.
Maybe what we're witnessing is how culture works when it's allowed to grow organically, without a heavy hand guiding its meaning. People find something that resonates, make it their own, and pass it along transformed. "Bella Ciao" doesn't just survive this process — it thrives on it, growing stronger with each new adoption. In the end, perhaps that's the truest thing about it.
Bocca, Giorgio. Storia dell'Italia partigiana.
Morrone, Luigi. "La vera storia di 'Bella Ciao'" Corriere della Sera, July 10, 2018.
Cascione, Felice. "Fischia il vento," 1943.
Bermani, Cesare. Guerra guerra ai palazzi e alle chiese, 2003.
La Casa de Papel (Money Heist), Netflix, 2017-2021.