Vendetta originates from the same word in Italian which means vengeance. It relates to feuds between families which last for generations. Once one member of a family has been dishonoured in some way or killed, it is the duty of the family to retaliate. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare made the fight between the Capulet and Montague families the most famous vendetta. Here the vendetta achieved revenge when there is no real legal system to enforce a standard punishment.
The word came into the English language quite late. Then all of a sudden in 1855 the Edinburgh Review prints an article in which the word vendetta is used the word seven times. The first time it appears it is without an explanation. Describing the history of Corsica, it mentions that a hero dies in a “private vendetta”. A couple of pages later it states that the “bloody vendetta is transmitted from one age to another”. The word came to stay and is used generally for blood feeds, whether in Wales, Corsica or Papua.
It became an ideal theme for the film industry with eight films of this title being shot over the last 100 years. But the most influential artistic vendetta was in V for Vendetta written by Alan Moore followed by the film of the same name in 2006 (not one of the eight). It started off as an unsuccessful comic in 1982 but became a successful call against a police system. When Anonymous – a network of internet activities – first used the Guy Fawkes in a demonstration against the Church of Scientology in 2008 it hit a nerve. The V for Vendetta mask suddenly became the symbol of an attack against a totalitarian state.
