Valentina Potenza
Valentina Potenza | |
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| Born | Valentina Graziella Beatrice Lucrezia Potenza dell'Aquila i Lorenzi 14 February 1872 Mosa, Megelan |
| Died | 10 December 1947 (aged 75) Etra, Free Territories |
| Nationality | |
| Known for | Founder of il palazzo and éminence grise of Alscia |
Nobildonna Valentina Graziella Beatrice Lucrezia Potenza dell'Aquila i Lorenzi (Gylic transcription: Valentina Gyraţiela Beatyrice Lukreţia Potenţa Delakila Ilorenţi; 14 February 1872 – 10 December 1947), known simply as Valentina Potenza (Gylic transcription: Valentina Potenţa), was a Megelanese noblewoman who became a leading member of The Establishment in Alscia. She was the creator of il palazzo, and garnered a reputation as the éminence grise of Alscia.
Valentina was an elitist, statist, and paternalistic conservative. She disdained both democracy and authoritarianism. She advocated rule by an altruistic and responsible elite — using liberal democratic trappings such as elections and a free press to protect the people's freedom and guarantee "circulation of elites" — and manipulating the public opinion to obtain desired outcomes and protect elite influence.
Valentina amassed significant behind-the-scenes influence in Alscia, and used her wealth to further her goals. She encouraged the use of methods of political particularism excluding corruption and malfeasance in office, such as pork barrel politics and clientelism, in order to achieve the elite-ruled society. She sought to neutralise threats to the Alscian order, in particular labour strife and radicalism, by "stealing" popular ideas to marginalise the opposition and using the media to manufacture public consent.
Both her power and her wealth disappeared when Alscia joined the Free Territories. However, her memoirs became a best-seller during the Liberation War, and gave her a "wicked" reputation. Her life and career have sustained a Gylian fascination for similarly influential and cohesive groups or éminence grise figures.
Early life
Valentina was born on 14 February 1872 in Mosa, Megelan. Her family was part of the Megelanese nobility, and her parents were successful businesspeople who owned a local distillery and a farm. She was raised on the farm, where she regularly helped the family pick apples and care for their horses. Throughout her life, she was a passionate horse rider, and would remark, "Sometimes I feel like I understand horses better than I do people."
Her politics were shaped by her father, who was a a traditionalist and a right-winger. Valentina took after his disdain for democracy and his belief that mob rule was holding Megelan back as a country. However, the elder Potenza was also a devoted worshipper of the Lady of the East, and believed that women were better than men, an unusual belief at the time. He thus insisted on his daughter receiving the best education so that she could bring glory to the family.
Valentina was educated in school, and by tutors when her parents could afford them. During her childhood, her parents strongly encouraged her to be ambitious in life. She considered military, diplomatic, and political careers. She attended university and studied law.
After completing her degree, she joined the civil service. She worked for the Ministry of Foreign and Political Affairs. In 1900, she and her husband were appointed attachés to the Megelanese embassy in Vichenza. They lived in the Cacertian Empire for the next several years.
She and her husband were in Vichenza when the Cacerta-Xevden War erupted, and took notice of the Cacertians' rapid victories. In 1906, they used a vacation to secretly travel to Garés and observe reconstruction. The couple were spurred by the trip, and began to discuss plans to move there after the war. She candidly wrote in her memoirs that she regarded the incipient province as a "blank canvas", where it would be easier for her to achieve her political ambitions.
Alscia
Valentina and her family moved to the new territory as the Treaty of Ðajyr was being negotiated, and were already resident when Alscia was formally organised. She had arrived with their entire savings in Cacertian inganarre, and quipped in her memoirs that "for perhaps a few hours, I was the richest woman in Alscia" — at least, until Lera Seraðu arrived. Her parents joined them when they fled Megelan to escape the Warlord Era.
Valentina arrived in Alscia with great ambitions, fully-formed ideas, and the financial means at her disposal to pursue them. She ostentatiously presented herself as a wealthy and powerful noblewoman from the beginning, and embellished her life's story to impress Gylians, most of whom had no firsthand knowledge of Megelan. Her personality, eccentric dress sense, and ideals helped her make a name for herself.
Power broker
Valentina observed the political scene heading into Alscia's first election, and particularly Donatella Rossetti's meteoric ascent from obscurity to frontrunner. She got into Donatella's good graces during the campaign, and a great friendship developed between the two. Valentina became Donatella's closest advisor, and controlled the flow of information and access to her.
Valentina believed that the immediate post-war conditions were ideal for establishing a power elite, but that its consolidation had to be done quickly, before democratic forces could mobilise. She brought Maria Caracciolo into her and Donatella's inner circle, and later Arlette Gaubert, thus being the main force in creating il palazzo.
Valentina hated publicity and sought to remain in the shadows as much as possible. She wielded her influence through her closeness to Donatella, her largesse, and her appointment to various boards and commissions (both public and private, such as those of Gaulette). She pushed for the Popular Progressive Front to function like a political machine, and encouraged use of political particularism methods, such as patronage, clientelism, and pork barrel politics. However, she drew the line at corruption and malfeasance in office, which she despised and regularly railed against as a "cancer on the body politic", calling for them to be investigated and punished as draconically as possible.
Her behind-the-scenes role and significant influence earned her various nicknames, such as "chamberlain of the palace" (camerlenga del palazzo), "lady of the shadows" (nobildonna delle ombre), and "lady of the purse" (nobildonna della borsa) — the latter in reference to her wealth and use of it to further her goals.
Champion of elitism
Valentina was an out and out elitist, who hated both democracy and authoritarianism. Her elitism was exacting: she had high expectations of elites, and was merciless if they failed to live up to them. For her, elites carried arduous responsibilities: their members had to embody social responsibility, high standards of cultivation and conduct, philanthropy and humanitarianism — in short, to be pillars of the community. Cultivating this sort of culture and responsibility in an upper class was a dominant preoccupation of il palazzo, and one of its mechanisms was the honours system administered by the Office of Civil Honours.
She believed stability was best guaranteed by a state based on laws, and thus advocated protecting and expanding freedoms and civil rights. She saw liberal democratic elements like elections and a free press as a means to guarantee "circulation of elites" — the combination of social mobility and draconian enforcement combining to perpetuate the culture of noblesse oblige. Her vision of society was defined by mutual obligation: elites had the responsibility of looking after the people's well-being, and the people had the responsibility of following the elites' lead and helping them police themselves.
She advocated manipulating the public opinion to obtain desired outcomes and protect elite influence. She saw the "masses" as too disorganised and driven by unconscious factors, thus susceptible to manipulation. Therefore, the altruistic and responsible elites should manipulate first before malicious actors could try. She viewed the media as playing a dual role in both informing the public and manufacturing consent.
Violet Bonham wrote:
"If Donatella Rossetti's vision was of government as an engineering marvel with an elegance of structure, and Valeria Valente's vision was of a clockwork society which found humanity in efficiency, Valentina Potenza's vision in its way was also breathtaking: an eternally stable regime of prosperity and progress overseen by a benelovent, democratically-elected elite."
Italianisation
Valentina was unique among il palazzo for not having any Gylian ancestry or ties to Gylias. She had little regard for the Gylic languages or the diversity of the Gylic peoples. She advocated strict Italianisation, and believed that "in time, the Gylics will forget their old languages, old customs, and become exemplary Italians." Her proposals included making Italian the official language of Alscia, Italian-only education, banning non-Italian publications, and Italianising all Gylic names and place names.
Valentina's casual Italian chauvinism, especially expressed with "her customary faultless politeness", disturbed the other members of il palazzo.
She favoured the Free Megelanese in public life, both due to her own ancestry and a belief that the tight-knit and largely conservative community would represent a bulwark against radicalism. The Free Megelanese came to be somewhat overrepresented in the civil service.
Labour movement
Valentina's advocacy of corporatism and class collaboration gave her a notable interest in industrial relations. She feared labour unrest as one of the biggest threats to Alscian stability. She argued for keeping trade unions strong enough to secure material benefits for workers, but weak enough to be co-opted and not pose a threat to the capitalist system.
To complement Donatella's efforts to foster partnership between labour and business, Valentina kept a close watch on the national trade union centre, the UAL. She used her clientelist methods to ensure that union leadership was kept docile, and that radicals were suppressed. Clientelism and media manipulation built a climate where unions were steered towards self-restraint, and communists and anarchists were purged from unions, denying them presence or influence in the UAL. She made sure the UAL was kept busy with providing education, entertainment, leisure, cultural activities, and welfare to its members, strengthening the labour aristocracy against radical syndicalists.
Valentina boasted that her greatest achievement was preventing strikes from occurring in Alscia. When she learned a union was considering a strike, she would force the union and company into arbitration under government supervision. There, she pressured the company to give concessions to the union, primarily wage rises, reduced working hours, or sacking unpopular managers. The intervention would weaken the union's momentum, and the final agreement would appease workers due to its generous provisions. She believed that strikes should be "a threat, a spectre to keep business in line, but never an actual reality."
Valentina's efforts to keep the UAL "strong but toothless" for the sake of corporatist class collaboration led to stormy relations with the Donatella Rossetti government's labour ministers. She got on so well with the Social Democratic Party's Sisal Þaşan that she called her an "alter ego", but she clashed with subsequent Socialist Party labour ministers, Anau Ðeásațe and Şiesi Eituá.
Anti-communism
Valentina was firmly anti-communist. This stance isolated her in Alscia, which was renowned as a haven for radicals. On this issue, her only ally in the government was finance minister Letizia Silvestri. However, Valentina recognised that Alscia as a haven for radicals had major propaganda value, especially during the Alscian Border War. Her aim was therefore to carefully prevent radicals from making actual inroads into Alscia's politics or public life, making them more of a showpiece for Alscia's freedoms and commitment to Gylian liberation.
Valentina opposed any attempts to suppress communism by laws or force, writing that "I cannot think of a greater way to strengthen the communists' cause than through bans." Instead, she favoured "defanging" revolutionary movements by raising the standard of living, keeping the peace in labour relations, introducing sweeping social policy, and creating a welfare state. General prosperity would make the population more cautious about radical changes, thus destroying the appeal of communism.
Later life
Valentina's careful balancing act was unraveled by the Liberation War and the proclamation of the Free Territories. During the ongoing dissoution of the Cacertian Empire, the radicalisation of Alscia led to widespread public support for joining the Free Territories, which horrified Valentina. However, she recognised that trying to stem the tide was a lost cause. In a referendum in February 1939, Alscians voted overwhelmingly to join the Free Territories. Her husband recalled that she was despondent for several days after the referendum, and would repeatedly say, "All is lost. Everything I've worked for is gone."
Valentina left Donatella's side during the Liberation War, and at first remained quietly in Etra with her family. She was included on the honoured citizens list, at least in part due to Donatella's intervention. Although she viewed the Free Territories as "a colossal monument to stupidity", she was impressed with how well she was treated by the anarchists. She was provided a pension and a protective guard, all of whom spoke fluent Italian and addressed her by her title of nobility.
Memoirs
Valentina began working on her memoirs during the war, using the copious notes, diary entries, and documents she'd amassed during her years serving Donatella. They were published in 1943 under the title How Power Operated in Alscia (Come funzionava la Potenza in Alscia — a deliberate pun on her surname).
The memoirs adopted a unique, haughty yet matter-of-fact tone. They gave only a cursory treatment of her early life and focused on her life in Alscia. They described in great detail both her machinations, quoting from specific documents and publications to illustrate, and the worldview that motivated them.
Somewhat to her surprise, the memoirs became a best-seller during the Liberation War. They were widely distributed and read in the Free Territories, and received enthusiastic praise. The anarchist newspaper The Social Times praised the memoirs' polished, clear writing, "proud forthrightness", and valuable insight into the methods and beliefs of "one of the upper class' most formidable and hidden champions".
Death
Valentina died in her sleep in her Etra home on 10 December 1947, aged 75.
Private life
Valentina married Massimo Del Ponte, a Megelanese nobleman, in 1892. They merged their family names, thus making her full name "Valentina Graziella Beatrice Lucrezia Potenza dell'Aquila i Lorenzi del Ponte". It was a happy marriage, which lasted until her death. They had three children, who would remain in the Free Territories and ultimately establish a political family in Gylias.
Valentina's main passion was equestrianism, and she was a staunch supporter of animal welfare. She dressed exclusively in 19th century riding coats, which gave her an air of eccentricity. Due to her appearance, Maria Caracciolo nicknamed her l'ottocentista ("the one from the 1800s").
Legacy
Valentina enjoyed great influence in Alscia as the creator of il palazzo, and is now seen as the foremost representative of The Establishment. Her advocacy of political particularism and public manipulation complimented Donatella's creation of a democracy underpinned by a strong social state. The tandem is thus given significant credit for Alscia's stability and the success of its nation-building project.
Valentina's memoirs gave her a "wicked" reputation during the Liberation War. Her candid discussion of her machinations and her worldview garnered respect even among her opponents, who acknowledged her as an imposing adversary. She was cited as an inspiration by the "minimum faction" in the Free Territories and Golden Revolution, and her memoirs have sustained a Gylian fascination for similarly influential and cohesive groups seeking to influence public opinion, such as the ferroses, Tessai, Mişeyáqueens, Tetramazones, aristerokratia, and the "minimum faction".
Valentina's reputation was further bolstered by the release of the 1962 film La Camerlenga (The Chamberlain), directed by and starring Silvana Perriello. In it, Valentina was the main character and narrator, breaking the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience, and the film used ironic humour to make the audience sympathise and identify with Valentina, even as it portrayed her unabashed elitism and manipulation. The key to the film's success was Silvana, who "played Valentina to swaggering perfection" (as L'Petit Écho's review put it) and drew on her existing character type to portray Valentina as "an irresistibly charming rascal" and "a seductive representative of power in itself".
Several historians and biographers noted the similarity of Valentina's worldview to that of the Ossorian elite's paternalistic conservatism, especially the ideology of the Crown Nationalist Party. One of Róisín Ní Bradáin's biographers remarked on the irony that Valentina's worldview was "more purely Ossorian" than Róisín's, whose beliefs were considered bizarre by mainstream Ossorian politicians.