TRENT. How do you write, exactly one hundred years after his death, about a figure like Giacomo Matteotti?
That’s what he asked himself journalist of the newspaper la Repubblica Concetto Vecchiowho has been reporting on Italian politics for years and has been in bookstores with his for a month latest book “I accuse you. Giacomo Matteotti and us” (Utet), which will be the protagonist – Friday 17 May at 8.30 pm in Trento, at the Trentina Cooperation room (reservation recommended [email protected]) – of the “Giacomo Matteotti, a memory that accuses” in dialogue with the journalist Paolo Ghezzi.
During the meeting, promoted by the National Coordination of the Reception Community of Trentino Alto Adige/Sudtirol and in which the president will also participate Claudio Bassettithey will come the various aspects of an important historical event explored in depth – the most serious political crime of the twenty years – and of a figure who, as he explains Old Concept, “today he asks us directly”.
Returning to the work, its distinctive trait is precisely wanting connect past and present using “the tools of the journalist’s trade”: the result is one real investigation in which Old – who worked for eleven years in Trentino Alto Adige and winner of the Capalbio Prize and the Pannunzio Prize with the essay on 1968 at the Faculty of Sociology of Trento “Vietato obeye” – traces not only the biography of the PSU secretary born in Fratta Polesine and whose family was of Trentino origin, and that was killed by the fascist secret police on 10 June 1924but also the struggle of those who over the years have tried to safeguard his memory.
Concetto Vecchio, beyond the centenary anniversary, is there a reason why you chose to dedicate yourself to the figure of Matteotti now?
Because Matteotti has never been as necessary as he is now: he is a very modern figure as he was a concrete man of the left who also managed to change the fate of the last, of the farmers of his Polesine, a land of absolute poverty. And this represents a lesson for the left on how it should be in the political field, since this is precisely its founding reason: to fight against inequalities. At the same time, Matteotti transmits a lesson to all of us: he was the staunchest opponent of fascism, the most determined defender of parliament, democracy and the rule of law and in a time, the current one, in which the presence of democracies is at risk authoritarian and plebiscitarian, in which there is only one figure in command, its history challenges us directly.
His is a literary operation that stands out from the others dedicated to Matteotti, a work that could be defined as purely journalistic. How did he move?
I have wondered for many months about how we should write about Matteotti today. I collected a lot of material and, despite starting from a good basis of content, I did not feel satisfied: I am not a historian, and I have no ambition to try to be one, and I therefore understood that I had to write a book as a reporter, which is my work, using the tools of my trade: I brought all that material into the present, going to Polesine, to Rome to the place where a plaque in his memory was placed, I spoke with Franco Nero – the only face of Italian cinema who dedicated, in one hundred years, a film to Matteotti – and I also met Laura, his niece. In short, I took a journey into his history, into his memory and places: the result was an investigation into a figure, I repeat, very relevant to our present.
Looking at today, what is the greatest lesson that a character of this caliber leaves us?
That in politics it is necessary to have a vision, in fact Matteotti had understood the danger of fascism before the others, and that it is also necessary to have the courage to face opponents: fascism was a system and he instead was alone, and his act can be defined heroic, since he would have had many ways to escape that challenge. As a wealthy man, he could have gone abroad or aligned himself with fascism as many did, but instead he was firm and intransigent. This is the aspect that should be most respected and admired, without however making the mistake of transforming Matteotti into a “holy saint”: he was a man with his contradictions and his weaknesses, very complex, and this makes his figure very “true”, and I wanted to convey precisely this aspect.
In the book he chooses to give particular space to Matteotti’s wife, Velia. What is the importance of her?
Velia is a fundamental figure for his story: their relationship of great love, but also of constant absences, is interesting. They never live together and see each other very little, but at the same time they feel the need to write to each other continuously: this is an aspect that escapes patterns, making everything much more “real”. Velia is also a woman of great dignity: when her husband disappeared, she asked for an audience with Mussolini who, despite knowing that Matteotti was already dead, told her that she would do everything possible. And here a frame of her emerges, the one in which he held out his hand and she refused to shake it, choosing to leave that place unaccompanied by her: she had understood that Mussolini was the moral instigator of what would later be discovered .
Broadening the focus, his work has a peculiarity: it gives great importance to the people who chose, and choose, to commit themselves to preserving the memory of Giacomo Matteotti.
It is precisely this trait that makes it different from others published over the years, mainly historical and political biographies: I was fascinated by how Matteotti has been ‘forgotten’ over the years, and so I wanted to meet those, few, people who have dedicated their lives to he. I’m talking about Professor Carretti, Matteotti’s greatest biographer and who, in addition to his publications, cataloged Velia’s letters to Giacomo and vice versa, carrying out a job of inestimable value. I was then fascinated by the story of an architect who in Rome, in the total indifference of the institutions, including those on the left, chose to put up a plaque in his home, the same one where Matteotti lived and from which he left the day he was killed. Just as Lodovica Mutterle, the director of the house museum dedicated to Matteotti in Fratta Polesine, who with great tenacity restored the original plaque in the town square and which had been censored in 1950, she too can be considered a ‘resistance’ who deserves great consideration.
Returning to the oblivion into which Matteotti fell, what are the causes that led to this “attitude” over the years?
The main motivation is the fact that Matteotti, politically, was the son of a minor god because he came from a political culture that in those years was not a majority and therefore, in a panorama with a predominantly communist Italian left and in which the PCI exercised cultural hegemony, it could only be otherwise. In this respect, the fact that Matteotti had been strongly anti-communist and, at the same time, that his socialist political world had split, effectively making him an only child of the small social democratic party, also had an impact. All these things have meant that Matteotti has always been considered out of time, while today his reasons and ideas prove to be necessary, interesting and popular and we find ourselves faced with a rediscovery of him.
From oblivion, therefore, to rediscovery. This passage deserves further study: what has changed?
Now on the left there is a unifying figure to cling to, and Matteotti is a profile that can ‘speak’ to all those who generally consider themselves anti-fascists, and it is a very broad spectrum. Another fundamental element is that, in a political landscape that is moving towards the right, as is happening in Italy where the Prime Minister is unable to declare herself anti-fascist, this figure is very striking. Then there is a third reason, which I was talking about just now: the fact that his ideas are incredibly modern and this, considering how much time has passed, is an extraordinary thing.
One last line, which is a game of imagination: during your research on Matteotti, have you ever thought about how his thoughts would fit into today’s political context?
I think that Matteotti would certainly be decidedly against the war, in favor of public health and support for education. And he would certainly be in the front row to denounce the political structures of this right.
