Gramsci Commemorations In Rome, April 1997

John M. Cammett

The 60th anniversary of the death of Antonio Gramsci was also observed in Rome. On Sunday, April 27, two commemorative events were held. The first took place in front of the building at via G. Battista Morgagni 25, near the Porta Pia. It was there that a stone plaque was installed in Gramsci's honor. It reads as follows:

About 100 persons were present including Fausto Bertinotti, general secretary of the Rifondazione comunista political party, Francesco Rutelli, the major of Rome, Lucio Manisco, RC delegate to the European Parliament, and Gianni Borgna, Rome's assessor of culture, who organized the days' events. Some of you will recall that Gramsci's first "letter from prison" was directed to Clara Passarge who had an apartment here where he lived as a "pensionante" at the time of his arrest on November 8, 1926.

The second commemoration took place at 11:30am in the "Cimitero degli inglesi," also known at the "Cimitero acattolico," next to the Piramide di Caio Cesto. Gramsci's ashes were laid to rest here at the end of 1938. The general secretary of the Partito democratico di sinistra, Massimo [END PAGE 22] D'Alema, who had just returned from Brussels, was present with Giuseppe Vacca, the Director of the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci and its President Renato Zangheri, as well as the other persons mentioned above. Bertinotti and D'Alema also visited the grave in this cemetery of Antonio Labriola (1843-1904), the philosopher and principal founder of Marxism in Italy.

On Sunday afternoon, in the auditorium of the Università dei Valdesi, near Piazza Cavour, another Gramscian conference was held. It was hosted by the A.I.A.S.P. (Associazione Internazionale di Amicizia e Solidarietà con i Popoli) and by the Centro di Informazione e Documentazione 'Majakovski.'" Most of the audience consisted of students who were clearly on the Left. Interesting speeches were given by Michele Capuano, one of their leaders and an author of the booklet Il partito necessario: Noterelle provocatorie per un dibattito sul Partito della Rifondazione Comunista in Italia (Albano-RM: Edizioni Solara, 1995), and by Prof. Arcangelo Leone de Castris of the University of Bari, author of many writings on Gramsci including his very recent book Sulle ceneri di Gramsci: Pasolini, i comunisti e il '68 (Rome: Datanews, 1997).

The entire day of Monday, April 29, was devoted by the Comune di Roma and the "Sistema biblioteche centri culturali" to the celebration of Gramsci. In the morning, at the Nuovo Sacher School, before a very large audience including many young people from several Roman high schools, no less a person than Bernardo Bertolucci presented the film by Gianni Amico and Giorgio Baratta called "Gramsci l'ho visto così." Bertolucci spoke at length on Gianni Amico, who died a few years ago, as one of the major inspirations of his work, and of this film itself as "very simple, very clear. And which has taught us how we can make a film on Gramsci in a Gramscian way." Laura Betti, the splendid actress, also participated in the meeting. She spoke of the affinity of the poet-writer Pier Paolo Pasolini for Antonio Gramsci, of their love of life and of their "disperata vitalità." She concluded by reading a number of Gramsci's letters on the theme of "roses" and life. Tullio De Mauro, the well-known linguist, gave a most appropriate paper on the importance of various themes of education for Gramsci.

From a scholarly point of view, perhaps the high point of these events occurred on Monday afternoon. It took place on the highest reaches of the Campidoglio--the site of the capitol of ancient Rome--and consisted of the presentation of some ten papers, mostly on the theme of "Gramsci and Rome." Two to three hundred attended including a considerable number of young people.

Domenico Losurdo opened the event with his paper on "L'Urss, l'America e il fascismo: Gramsci e la grande politica," which perhaps anticipates his forthcoming book centered on the idea of Gramsci's "critical communism." Renato Zangheri discussed Gramsci's leadership of the Pc d'Italia during and after the Aventine secession. Michele Pistillo, in a clear and successful attempt to overcome current efforts to homogenize Gramsci and Mussolini, demonstrated the chasm separating the Sardinian leader from all forms of "maximalism." Emma Fattorini showed his [END PAGE 23] originality in analyzing the politics of the Vatican and of Luigi Sturzo's Ppi. Francesco Biscione, from Gramsci's "southern" perspective, outlined the nature of his anti-Giolittianism. Aldo Natoli evoked the quality of the Communist leader's life in Rome in 1924-26, especially with regard to his relation to his wife and sister-in-law. Giuseppe Vacca reexamined the famous correspondence between Gramsci and Togliatti in October 1926 on the "Russian question." He showed that Togliatti's supposed "Stalinism" was a misinterpretation of his realism and he promises a complete reevaluation in the near future.

The celebrations were completed in the evening with a recitation and a musical performance in the Teatro Flaiano, via S. Stefano del Cacco n. 15. The undersigned was unfortunately unable to attend. In the interests of completeness, I present the outline of this part of the program: