On Wednesday 8 May at 6.30 pm in the Zazie bookshop in Corso Umberto I 269, the historian Giovanni Criscione will present a preview of his book “The Modica massacre (29 May 1921). An unsolved case from over a hundred years ago” (Edizioni Sicilia punto L, Ragusa). The event will not be a traditional presentation, but an informal meeting and dialogue with readers, introduced by the bookseller Paola Contino and followed by the signing of the copies by the author.
The book, which has only been distributed for a few days, already promises to be one of the most interesting novelties in the panorama of historiography on the massacres committed in the black two years (1921-1922).
The essay sheds light on a dark episode in Italian history: the massacre that took place on 29 May 1921 in Passogatta, on the outskirts of Modica, when a procession of socialists, communists and anarchists clashed with the police and some fascists. Nine victims, all of socialist faith. Between misdirections, intimidation of witnesses, contamination of evidence and theft of documents, justice was never able to put a face to those responsible. Over a hundred years later, the author reopens the Passogatta dossier and, making use of unpublished archive documents and judicial papers, illuminates the political context of those tumultuous months and reveals the motives for the massacre. A story of mysteries and silences that the author brings out of the darkness of a forgotten time. But not for this reason out of date.
«In a historical period like the current one – wrote Pippo Gurrieri, reviewing the volume in the monthly “Sicilia Libertaria” – in which many parties, including ministerial benches, are trying to give prestige to the twenty-year […] Books like this represent the bricks of the wall that anti-fascism today must raise against the growing dogma that is a harbinger of other and always possible authoritarian adventures.”
Giovanni Criscione (Ragusa, 1972), PhD in Contemporary History, has worked on anti-fascism, emigration and business history. Among his main works: The Roots and the Wings. Niccolò Curella and the Banca Popolare Sant’Angelo, (Kalòs, Palermo, 2017); For a history of tourism and trade, in History of Syracuse. Economy, politics, society (1946-2000), Donzelli, Rome, 2014; The Bonajuto Dolceria. History of the oldest chocolate shop in Sicily (Kalòs, Palermo, 2013).
