In this book the author declares right from the cover that he belongs to Mestre, and at the same time his attention and love for his city. Claudio Pasqual transforms from historian into reporter, combining texts that report historical essays (third section, Research) and reports on public occasions (second section, Interventions) with a sort of diary: short notes in chronological order (first section: In the city) laid between 2012 and 2020.
Mestrini also on the cover
Mestre is the protagonist, therefore, this “home sweet home” which stands out in the colorful street painting or mural, whatever you want, chosen as the cover image.
Those who know Pasqual’s activity as a scholar know that he has long worked on the history of agriculture and rural society in the modern age, even if the city where he was born and continues to live and work has always been, at the same time, object of interest, especially regarding its urban origins prior to the advent of the great industry of Porto Marghera.
What it means to be Mestre
His fellow citizens, in this new book of his which is pleasant to read, will find themselves in Through the streets of the centre: things seen 2012-2017 (pp.31-95) events and situations of public life in Mestre that have had the author as an observer or participant in the first person: concerts, shops that open or no longer exist, advertising posters, electoral committees for the administrative take over commercial spaces. And exhibitions, the construction site of the nascent Museum of the 20th century M9, ceremonies for civil anniversaries, animal sightings in the city, fitness centers, “political” spritzes offered in Piazza Ferretto, flashmob and events, panevinexceptional sales, antagonistic collectives, everything is reported with an attentive, lucid gaze and sober and measured comments, but the result of never banal reflection.
In his Urban anthropology discourse Pasqual aims to answer the question, made explicit in the title: How do you become a Mestre?, speech prepared for a meeting that addressed the theme: “A psychoanalytic gaze. The city of Mestre in the ’50s-’60s” in which he analyzed the city community in a period of rapid demographic development.
In the short text In the city. In the days of quarantine (spring 2020) the author allows us to accompany him during a walk through the deserted streets of those nightmarish days, when life stopped and we seemed to live in a dystopian film.
The “old”
Greetings from Mestre, through a collection of historical postcards of the city it takes us back to a recent past and helps us not to forget it. And the songs also refer to a few decades ago Go looking for stickers on Rio Cimetto And Piazza Ferretto as it was, as it is, which take us back to a more personal but never nostalgic vision. Events of international scope such as the attack against the editorial offices of the satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” (7 January 2015) burst into the author’s daily life, as in that of all of us: everyone certainly remembers where they were and what they were doing when they received at the news, Pasqual tells us about it “between home and school”.
And narratives also arise from closer events, such as the road blockade of 15 February 2006 against traffic in the city, a source of pollution, or that in favor of the Sinti of Via Vallenari (11 June 2008), or that of 13 August 2015 against the Vallenari bis in front of the Town Hall.
Mestrini inside
Claudio Pasqual’s participation in the life of the city is therefore perceived very strongly from the pages of this book: an overview, also accompanied by some black and white images, which brings together different aspects to give an account and testify to its evolution over the course of the latter years. A book that all Mestres should read.
The author
Claudio Pasqual taught literary subjects in secondary school. He has been a member of StoriAmestre for years, of which he was president in the two-year period 2008-2009 and in 2020. With Mauro Pitteri he published Mestre between the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesTreviso, Canova, 2003. He collaborated on Research on the Treviso countryside in the modern age promoted by the Benetton Foundation (Treviso) with the essay Piave district. Landscape, ownership and production in a Venetian foothill countryside in the 15th and 16th centuries, Treviso, Benetton Studies and Research Foundation-Canova, 2007.
Claudio Pasqual, Mestre notes. Things seen, interventions, researchVerona, Cierre editions, 2022 (Quaderni di StoriAmestre n. 18).
