Maurizio Rava

Maurizio Rava was an Italian-Jewish painter, journalist, writer, soldier and politician. He was a general in the Royal Italian Army, and served as the governor of Italian Somaliland from 1 July 1931 to 6 March 1935.

Biography

Rava's political career began in 1919, when he was co-founder of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in Rome. Previously he was a lieutenant during World War I, and received the Medal of Military Valor three times. After 1920 he began a military career in the fascist militias.
In the Italian colonies he became secretary general of the governor's office of Italian Tripolitania with Emilio De Bono in March 1927. He then assumed the governorship of Italian Somaliland from 1931 to 1935. In those years he gave dynamic impetus to agriculture, roads and railways with emphasis on all types of construction in Somalia. In 1933 he promoted the urban remodeling of Mogadishu, which since then began to be called "the white pearl of the Indian Ocean" and became populated with a large minority of Italian settlers.
He was appointed as Senator of the Kingdom upon his return to Italy in 1936.
He became politically marginalized in 1938, after Fascist Italy's alliance with Nazi Germany, due to his Jewish background.
He was also a Blackshirt brigadier general of the Royal Italian Army and died in Rome on 22 January 1941, as a result of wounds received in the Battle of Bardia during Operation Compass, the British offensive of the Western Desert campaign.

Maurizio Rava wrote several books, including:Al lago Tsana . l'Eritrea; la nostra colonia primogenita. Somalia; Parole ai Coloniali.

Other minor works are: "Ingiustizia delle sanzioni: l’Italia stato aggredito", Rome 1936; "Il problema della mano d’opera in Somalia", Rome 1937; "Ovest etiopico: nei paesi del platino e dell’oro", Rome 1938; "Politica sociale verso gli indigeni e modi di collaborazione con essi", Rome 1938; "Diario di un secondo viaggio nell’ovest etiopico", Rome 1939.