“I have not relied on my imagination but on my historical memory”. How Emilio Lussu Acquired Individual Awareness and Turned his Experience into a Collective Consciousness Cover Image

“Non alla fantasia ho fatto appello, ma alla mia memoria”. Emilio Lussu: la presa di coscienza individuale che diventa cultura comune
“I have not relied on my imagination but on my historical memory”. How Emilio Lussu Acquired Individual Awareness and Turned his Experience into a Collective Consciousness

Author(s): Daniele Mannu
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Cultural history, Political history, Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), Italian literature
Published by: Universitatea de Vest din Timişoara
Keywords: Antifascism; Confinement; Historical memory; Individual awareness; Collective consciousness;

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this speech is to analyze the circumstances that led Sardinian writer Emilio Lussu to convey his experience across his writing. At the very beginning, Lussu was an interventionist, and he strongly supported the Italian military intervention against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary during World War I. After the war, he founded the political party Partito Șardo d’Azione (“Șardinian Action Party”), a social-democratic movement that promoted autonomy towards the ideal of independence. He considered himself an antifascist activist. Due to his radical political views, in 1927 he was sentenced to 5 years of confinement on the island of Lipari. However, he managed to escape two years later. Together with Carlo Rosselli, he founded <<Giustizia e Libertà>> (“Justice and Freedom”), an antifascist resistance movement. These events largely influenced Lussu’s subjects in literature. He could elaborate and turn them into a collective consciousness, without setting aside the importance of each individual’s experience. Lussu’s bibliography becomes thus a way to understand the tragedy of the war in Italy and Europe. The first part of this lecture will introduce these subjects and their correlation to Lussu’s historical memory. Then, we’ll analyze the major works that best reflect his literary legacy, such as La catena, Marcia su Roma e dintorni (Road to exile. The story of a Sardinian Patriot), Un anno sull’altipiano (Sardinian Brigade) and Un bombardamento notturno.

  • Issue Year: IX/2022
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 269-285
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Italian