THE ITALIAN "RESISTENZA": WOMEN WRITINGS

(by Myriam Trevisan,

PhD student in Women studies at "La Sapienza" University of Rome)

 

In between history and literature

During the Italian "resistenza" the role of women changes radically. The Italian woman is abruptly involved in politics, social and cultural issues. To this purpose the war acts as triggering agent. It is, in fact, the war to create a space for women on a public front: women get the chance to be productive, to bear public responsibilities and to be brave; they make their own way through those social roles which were once restricted to men alone. At the same time women keep their traditional positions as mothers, wives and sisters.

As the war comes to a close most of the women directly involved in the liberation movement take a step back, returning to their private lives without receiving any medals or acknowledgements. A few of them, though, become aware of the singularity of their experience and choose to leave behind a recording of what they lived through. Some write as events take place, others wait decades before going over their experience. The memoirs and autobiographies which came as a result of such recordings are, today, a precious source of insight on the history and evolution of women in our century.

These writings are far more than the documentation of events from an objective point of view. They portray an interesting field of investigation in terms of literary studies, as they offer a key to approach different types of writing and the different angles from which the writer portrays herself within the story she is narrating. Moreover they offer a chance to reflect on the diversities in selfawareness and the thought pattern the writer conveys on the art of writing in itself.

The memoirs on the resistenza thus become an important and vast field to research in terms of history and poetic imagery; of factual references and selfportraits.

A first approach to the writings from the period of the resistenza comes across a striking contradiction: if on the one hand there is a large quantity of material, on the other there is a total lack of names in the Italian literary horizon[1].

This conspicuous production has, in fact, been overlooked as it did not fall within the boundaries of the Italian neorealismo’s literary parameters. In not being easily definable through the traditional categories of literary interpretation, and in its not falling smoothly within the male/neutral universal models, it was left on the outskirts of the "official" literature. Consequently, to approach such materials entails an effort to review the traditional critical parameters and to propose a new analytical methodology which should take into account the subjective reality experienced by each individual writer.

If we start from a scientific hypothesis which considers such writings as essential sources to diagnose the void existing between the image of women portrayed by tradition and the self-awareness developed by individual women, it is possible to reconstruct a different point of view on history which may take into account women’s role. At the same time, in considering such writings in relation to the existing literary tradition, we may reconstruct the cultural horizon of those years, and thereby offer a multilevel perspective, which will result interesting in its variety.

The striking lack of names within the literary storiography’s recordings, may be completed by a thorough work of research and study in the archives to find those personal writings (such as letters, diaries and autobiographies) and public writings (novels and short stories) which, as voices rising out of silence, may tell the story of women during the struggle for liberation.

The most important samples of literary history name a single woman writer among twentieth century authors- Renata Viganò- as author of a novel on the resistenza L’Agnese va a morire[2].

Other names or titles only appear in specific critical essays, written by scholars who, starting in the seventies, worked to try to bring into the light and place within the literary criticism’s horizon such women and such writings[3]. Still today, many works are forgotten, many pieces of the "grande catalogo delle assenze e del silenzio"[4], that should slowly be reconstructed.

This essays doesn’t mean to trace a complete profile of women’s writings during the Resistenza. The intention is that of creating a first step of a journey which is all to be discovered. The essay will point out some of the many writings found to this day, to trace a number of lines of analysis and highlight a few troublesome spots. In order to keep the field of analysis narrow the essay will leave out novels and short stories.

 

Beyond literary genres

The first element to come to attention from reading the material is the difference in the techniques of writing each woman chooses to exploit. On the one hand, it is possible to draw a line between private and public writings, and further, between women who chose to make writing a career and others who published solely to record their experience. On the other hand, one must necessarily acknowledge the difficulty of placing such writers within the literary tradition’s genre-schemes.

The line separating diaries from memoirs and autobiographies is frequently as quaint as that which parts documentative writing from creative writing. As a consequence of the singularity of the historical period, characterised by the constant threat of being arrested or spotted, it is rare to find  true diaries from the period, diaries intended as daily annotations of events and emotions, although many of the writings are labelled as such.

An unusual case is that of Bandiera rossa e borsa nera[5] by Gloria Chilanti. The author, a thirteen year old girl at the time of the narrated events, keeps a diary of the police’s prosecutions in 1944, as she is hidden in a secret place on a terrace. These thoughts will remain hidden in a drawer for fifty years, after the end of the war. They will be published, under the insistence of two friends, Carla Capponi and Saverio Tutino, in 1998.

Although Gloria Chilanti is not sure she was in herself aware of the singularity of the months of hiding during their time, her father certainly was as it was he to give her the diary as a Christmas gift in 1943[6].

The diary, originally called Diario 1944, follows the daily history of an adolescent girl coping with Italian "resistenza" from "the 1st of January, Saturday", to "the 16th of September, Saturday". As a form of historical loyalty, the writer chose not to edit the original version, keeping everything as it was, errors included.

With few exceptions, which narrate the events as they are taking place, writings about the "resistenza" usually retrace the events after their end. The writings sprout from notes taken during the war. Amoungst the many writings of these kinds we can point out Diario partigiano[7] by Ada Gobetti and I giorni veri[8] by Giovanna Zangrandi.

In the first of the two the author tells, in a footnote which is separate from the rest of the text and in italics, that she has edited formerly written material[9]. Similarly, in the beginning of chapter three she says there is something missing, due to the impossibility of taking note of all the specific events as they happened, although being engraved in memory, they may be told, with a four year delay.

Thus elements which are deeply rooted in memory are rearranged in a later stage, and placed in an articulate structure which binds together the daily annotations- which are headed with day, month and at times place- in thirteen independent narrative sections.

Similarly, I giorni veri are written as a diary of the period, in which events are told with indications of place, date and year, sometimes indicated precisely, sometimes hinted at in general terms (by naming the season). The diary is born, as the other, from material collected during the years of hiding, that are edited after almost twenty years[10].

The notes- which cover a time span running from autumn 1942 to the 2nd of May 1945- are, in this case as well, divided in three partitions (Quasi un prologo, Parte prima, Parte seconda), signs of the acknowledged presence of a writer arranging the objective documents in a more ample narrative structure.

We may thus indicate as a type of writing frequently used a peculiar form of diary in which the chronological running of the daily entries, while guarantying the objective nature of what is being told, is inserted in an authentically narrative structure. The author is, then, endeavouring to edit the data accumulated in memory and contemporaneously  to follow the path of the construction of an identity.

A specific case in which the bonding of pages written at the time of the events, and pages developed with the aide of memory is L’attesa nell’ombra (Pagine di un diario antifascista)[11] by Mirelia Tamassia. The work is formed by three parts (Prefazione, Parte prima. Crepuscolo and Parte seconda. Notte, hinting at the passing from light to shadow during the occupation), split in forty short and numbered chapters. Within the narration of events in the past tense are entwined fragments of a diary from the period[12] that, during a prosecution by the SS, Tamassia destroys almost completely, keeping only a few pages[13].

A different case from the diaries are the memoirs of the partisans, writings in themselves characterised by a separation of the information in sections by themes, unhooked to the temporal alignments. Written years after the events narrated, these works achieve the goal of narrating was has been experienced in first person during the "resistenza", with the outward intention of making events rise above forgetfulness. The narration, therefore, follows the path lead by memory - that, by definition, may not be precise- and is generally shaped in a past tense that eludes specific chronological divisions.

One of such books is Carla Capponi’s Con cuore di donna[14]. The author writes her autobiography by following memory’s pace and getting to the years of her youth after her older years. The time of the "resistenza" overlaps with the present over a span of ten chapters. The chapters’ titles bear mention of the salient events.

A second example is that of Croce sulla schiena[15] by Ida D’Este, written soon after the war’s end, in which the memoir is divided in three sections (Una staffetta ricorda, Palazzo Giusti, Triangoli rossi) - that trace different moments: combatant, prison and exile. The three sections, in turn, are formed by short chapters with titles which summarise their content.

Similarly, Elsa Oliva, in Ragazza Partigiana[16], collects her memories of what she lived between 1943 and 1945, connecting them with the different partisan groups or brigades with whom she participated: Bande irregolari in Alto Adige, in the beginning, Brigata partigiana "Franco Abrami" "Divisione Valtoce", in the end.

 

Different examples of memoirs are those written by women that didn’t have the intention of documenting their presence in history, but to testify, by placing themselves in the shadow, the heroic deeds of a partisan (a husband, a son or a brother), who died in the struggle for freedom. Works which fall in this partition have been published, for example, by Zanocco in Padova in the "Collana della Cospirazione". Such writings - which usually evoke in their title the partisan they wish to remember- display themselves as complex works that, in order to document the historical events narrated, collect different kinds of materials, such as letters, documents, contributions.

Giovanni Carli e l’altipiano di Asiago[17] by Lia Carli, wife of a partisan who was a commissary in the Divisione Alpina M. Ortigara and who was murdered along with Giacomo Chilesotti in Asiago, constitutes an example of this kind of writings. The information, which consists in the wife’s memoirs, in those of his partisan compagni, and in that gained from letters and documents collected at the time, is divided in ten sections that narrate the partisan’s story and celebrate his death.

In Giacomo Chilesotti[18], Anna Chilesotti arranges the material in four parts: in the first (Nettuno the protagonist’s war name), there is a portrayal of the personality of the hero with memories of Anna and his partisan compagni; the second (Al comando dell’Ortigara) follows his doings as a conspirator, combining notes and comments on the Battaglione Thiene, which he himself collected and wrote with material of different kinds (worded, documentary); the third section (E nella cellula M.R.S.) talks about the creation of "la prima e più efficente cellula radio clandestina del Veneto"; in the final section (Si eleva fino al sacrificio) the hero is celebrated and mourned, in short writings and poems.

In opposition to the previous ones, these works are written by women who deliberately erase their role as women partisans and women writers, taking away from the story the relativity of their point of view, so as to give the book objective credibility.

 

Types of self-portraits

In the diaries and partisan memoirs two types of self portraits combine, one bound to the past, that places the woman as a protagonist in history, the other bound to the present, which confirms her as writer. The sole case in which the time setting of the events coincides with that of the writing, bringing together the two images, is that of the diaries.

This duplicity shadows the twofold significance of writings which are important both as historical recordings and as autobiographical works.

The two portraits- that of the writer as a partisan, and that of the woman as a writer- although belonging to different times and in themselves different, entwine and blend in the effort made to bring back memory by narrating a story. In this sense the woman partisan is made real through the writer’s pen.

The self-portraits the writers draw for us of their role as conspirators in the struggle for liberation, reveal the fundamental changes that the war had imposed on society and the separation from the original female model which could no longer be followed. In most cases, and especially in those cases where the women were taking part in the mountain militia, the perception they have of themselves as women and their physical awareness is extremely peculiar.

A primary effect of the war was a state of self denial and the parallel loss of all those material goods- cosmetics, clothes- which had formerly been used by women to enhance their femininity. During the war, all the clothes were home made by patching together old bits of other clothing: every choice depends on need as opposed to aesthetics. Furthermore, survival during the "resistenza" implies the use of typically male qualities: physical strength; agility; quickness, endurance to travelling long and rough distances by foot or bike. Consequently women describe themselves by highlighting the male traits in their bodies and behaviour and by demeaning their female qualities, which are seen as signs of weakness and possible loss. On the other hand, in situations of peril, a woman’s body becomes a useful tool. In such cases the belly can be used to conceal weapons, revolutionary material and food, by faking pregnancy.

Thus the picture drawn is in most cases asexual. In some cases it goes as far as being the portrait of a male figure. Elisa Oliva, for example, speaks of herself as a true partisan and adds to that, that amongst the group she is not addressed as a woman, but as "one of them"; Giovanna Zangrandi praises her own muscular tone and her physical capacity with adjectives and verbs which portray strength, power, endurance.

Such traits, typical of the mountain militia, are also found in Ida D'Este's descriptions. Ida D'Este was captured for her anti-fascist activity and imprisoned in Palazzo Giusti in Padova, where she was tortured. She was then put in a concentration camp: Ida appeared as a tom boy, and hated her femininity, which she was forced to face while she was being tortured and scorned.

The portrait she draws of herself in her early days, therefore, shows the role that a woman covered: her activity as a conspirator and her necessity to fit in models that in  not being womanly, had necessarily to be masculine.

This portrait of herself in the past entwines with one of herself in the present, as a writer, tying together, as is evident through the analysis of the different devices used in the narration: its documentative value and autobiographical weight; its being story and personal confession.

In the foreword to the texts the author reveals the motivation behind what is being told; here the outward and inward representation are openly acknowledged. This statement gives the book an aura of authenticity, and at the same time the awareness of the exceptionality of the experience lived through reveals an individual seek of the self which sprouts in the moment of writing. Mirelia Tamassia, for example, begins her diary by openly stating that the story she tells is true[19] - in her words, the only merit of the work- but, at the same time, shows signs of an individual search which both the war and writing contribute to outline.

The diary is presented as an act of faith, written on the spur of the moment, a few months after the Liberation and published in 1946 as a tribute to the victory of light and belief over darkness and scepticism and to celebrate those values which the fascist theories wanted to erase. Writing therefore follows history's tragedy, but also takes notice of the author's moods: moments of bitterness and anguish alternate to others of hope and belief; the joy of working together with the other conspirators is sided with "un’impressione oscura di sgomento". The narration of events is therefore constantly cut by small lyrical pauses, from the thoughts of the author who plunges into nature to forget the present and ask herself questions which rest unanswered[20].

Similarly in Zangrandi's Giorni veri, along the side of the reconstruction of the facts which took place in the mountains of the Cadore during the "resistenza" is the narration of the author's individual evolution, which outbursts in an exceptional experience which, with almost twenty years' delay, becomes writing. Historical truth and intimate truth are, therefore, as Zangrandi herself outwardly states[21], bound together.

In many of the authors their role as writers is perceived very clearly. Almost so as to explain an act which would otherwise remain inexplicable: the urgency to narrate is in fact moved by the necessity to leave a trace of those events that, in the passing of the years, some people wish to forget.

Carla Capponi, for example, dedicates herself in her old age, to writing the memoirs of her life and, in particular, of those years that saw her starring in the Roman "resistenza", as combatant with the degree of captain. On the other hand, the author puts in parallel, in the dedication, the historical importance of passing on memory of those years and the smallness of her role[22].

Going over the past in her memory, the writer becomes aware of the entwined nature of history and individual experience, between public and private and thinks that translating that into writing is impossible. Only gradually, the role of the writer manages to let the one of the militant surface, creating then the portrait which her written pages carry on.

Thus the act of writing comes across, in all of these works as a solitary struggle to re-read the past, an intimate journey in which the individual experience is questioned, a search which can be heavy with anguish and fear.

The reconstruction of past experiences which have marked an individual life is also the attempt to give a coherent asset to all that has been experienced, to give meaning to the present through the past, to blend together collective and individual history.