Camillo Berneri

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Camillo Berneri

Camillo Berneri (actually Camillo Luigi Berneri , also written Luigi Camillo Berneri ; * July 20, 1897 in Lodi (northern Italy); † May 6, 1937 in Barcelona ) was an Italian author, philosopher , anti-militarist , anarchist and active in the Spanish Civil War .

Life

Camillo Berneri's childhood was marked by physical suffering. Only a few months old, he developed malnutrition . In 1904 he got typhoid and later enteritis . His parents, his father was a local civil servant, his mother a primary school teacher, moved from Lodi to Milan, later to Palermo and Forlì .

In 1912, Berneri was already a member of the Italian Socialist Youth Association (FGS) and later became the association's local secretary. He was a staunch socialist at the time . After intensive discussions with, among others, the bookbinder and member of the “International Anarchist Action Committee”, Torquato Gobbi, he left the FGS. In an open letter, Berneri criticized the youth association for bureaucratism and “a lack of willingness to give in”. Berneri joined the Italian anarchist movement. He described his departure from socialism with the words:

“The ideal worker of Marxism or socialism is a mythical figure. It comes from the metaphysics of socialist romanticism and has not been historically proven "

After three years of military service, he had to leave military school as a " subversiver " because of anti-militarist activities. He was sent to the front under guard and tried twice before the military tribunal. In 1919 he was exiled to the island of Pianosa . In 1920 he was actively involved in factory occupations in northern Italy. As a staunch anti-militarist, he wrote: “Slaughter, looting, rape, that's what war is about! In order to satisfy his lust, the wicked one takes the courage that he otherwise lacks when he is to rescue his neighbor from danger or to begin a painful and dangerous undertaking. In the smoke and blood-laden atmosphere of war, the average person falls back into barbarism, and sometimes even becomes savage in it ”.

After studying at the University of Florence , Berneri went into exile after being placed under the supervision of the fascist regime . He was expelled from France, Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. On February 1, 1914, he published his first article in the magazine l'Avanguardia , entitled "The Lies of the Old Testament". This was followed by contributions to various anarchist publications, such as: La Protesta , Tiempos Nuevos , Tierra y Libertad , Rivista Blanca and Estudios . He also published essays and monographs.

In 1936, when the Spanish Revolution broke out, Berneri traveled to Barcelona, ​​founded the magazine Guerra di classe and became a delegate of the " Francisco Ascaso Column ". He took an active part in the fighting on the Aragonese front . During clashes between communists and anarchists in Barcelona in 1937, Berneri and the anarchist Francesco Barbieri were fetched from the apartment by civilian agents working for the GPU . Berneri's body was found on the night of May 5th to 6th, 1937. He had been shot by Stalinists.

Luigi Camillo Berneri was married to Giovanna Caleffi and had two daughters, Giliane Berneri and Marie-Louise Berneri .

Works (selection)

  • Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas . Freedom Press , London 1943.
  • Memoria antologica, saggi critici e appunti biografici in recordo di Camillo Berneri nel cinquantesimo della morte . Archivio Famiglia Berneri, 1986
  • Le tre città: la città antica, la città odierna, la città futura . I. Funghi & C.
  • Compiti nuovi del movimento anarchico . L'Impulso, 1955

further reading

  • Renzo De Felice :  Berneri, Camillo Luigi. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 9:  Berengario – Biagini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1967.
  • Kathy E. Ferguson, " Emma Goldman : Political Thinking in the Streets" (20th Century Political Thinkers). Among others about: Gilana Berneri, Giovanna Berneri and Marie-Louise Berneri. Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (April 2011). ISBN 978-0-7425-2300-5
  • Massimo Granchi: Camillo Berneri ei totalitarismi . Istituto Ugo Arcuri per la storia dell'antifascismo e dell'Italia contemporanea in provincia di Reggio Calabria, 2006
  • Felix Morrow, Revolution & counter-revolution in Spain, including The civil war in Spain . Google Books . Pp. 157, 215, 227 about C. Berneri.
  • George Richard Esenwein: The Spanish Civil War a modern tragedy . Routledge, 2005 Google Books . P. 194
  • George Woodcock : Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements . University of Toronto Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1-55111-629-7 . Google Books . Page 290.
  • Helen Graham, The Spanish republic at war, 1936-1939 . University of London. London 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-45932-7 . Google Books . P. 294.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Luigi Camillo Berneri - Biography of the Italian anarchist. In: struggle.ws. May 25, 2011, accessed April 20, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Cf. on this: Die Aktion , No. 170/174, July 1997
  3. ↑ Camillo Berneri: The Worker Cult . 1934, accessed on April 23, 2019 (published in: Die Aktion , 170/174, July 1997).
  4. ^ Camillo Berneri: The war as a collective crime. In: Germinal (Chicago). September 1, 1928, accessed on April 23, 2019 (published in: Die Aktion , 170/174, July 1997).
  5. ↑ See: Die Aktion, No. 170/174, July 1997. In memory of Camillo Berneri and the events in Spain 1936–37 . From: Umberto Marzocchi: Camillo Berneri nel cinquantesimo della morte. Archivio Famiglia Berneri, July 1964.
personal data
SURNAME Berneri, Camillo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berneri, Camillo Luigi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian author and anarchist
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Lodi (Italy)
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1937
Place of death Barcelona (Spain)