La “religione della libertà” di Croce nella biografia di Gustaw Herling

ABSTRACT. The path leading Gustaw Herling to the Soviet gulag and to his pilgrimage as soldier, exile and witness to totalitarianism has its symbolic prologue in Herling reading of Croce’s Storia d’Europa during the summer of 1939. The publication of this text in Poland after the fall of communism represented instead its symbolic landing. Through fragments of memories, the article retraces this path, focusing on the secular “religion of freedom” as one of the pivotal keys of Herling’s life and work.