Emilio Lussu

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Emilio Lussu

Emilio Lussu (born December 4, 1890 in Armungia , Cagliari Province , Sardinia , † March 5, 1975 in Rome ) was an Italian officer , writer and politician .

Life

Childhood in Sardinia and experiences at the front in the First World War

Lussu came from a wealthy, politically liberal-minded family and grew up on the edge of the Sardinian mountain region of Barbagia . In 1914 Lussu completed his law studies in Cagliari and, at the time of the outbreak of the First World War, advocated the Italian entry into the war on the side of the Entente . After Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, 1915, he moved to the front as a reserve lieutenant with the Sassari infantry brigade . Lussus Brigade fought in the Karst in Trieste in 1916 and was then relocated to the Sette Comuni plateau near Asiago in the same year , where it had to prevent an Austrian breakthrough into the Italian lowlands near Vicenza under all circumstances . In July 1917, the Sassari infantry brigade was finally relocated to the Isonzo Front after losing battles, where it took part in the battles for the Bainsizza Plateau and the Battle of Good Freit (Caporetto). After the end of the fighting, Lussu served as a punitive military service on the Yugoslav border until 1919 ; However, he ended his military career with four awards for bravery as captain of the 151 regiment.

Founding of the Partito Sardo d'Azione , resistance against Italian fascism

After his return to Sardinia, Lussu founded the autonomist - separatist group Partito Sardo d'Azione together with Camillo Bellieni in 1921 , which campaigned for the social and economic progress of the agriculturally underdeveloped Mediterranean island. At the same time, the party turned against the rising, strongly centralized fascism . On the list of the Sardinian Action Party, Lussu was elected to the parliament of the Kingdom of Italy in 1921 and 1924 , where, after the murder of the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti , he took part in the secession of the Aventine as a declared anti-fascist - a last joint protest action by the democratic parliamentarians against the gradual consolidation of the authoritarian regime of Benito Mussolini .

Exile, exile, resistance struggle in Spain and Italy

As an opponent of the fascist regime, Lussu was assaulted several times in the 1920s. On October 3, 1926, he had used gun violence to defend himself against an attack by fascist thugs, killing an attacker. Lussu was then acquitted in the first instance, but shortly afterwards sentenced to five years' exile on the island of Lipari near Sicily by a special fascist court .

In 1929, after four unsuccessful attempts to escape, Lussu finally escaped to Tunis with Carlo Rosselli and Fausto Nitti . From there he went to Paris , where he founded the anti-fascist movement Giustizia e Libertà together with Gaetano Salvemini and Carlo Rosselli . He recovered from the consequences of his several years imprisonment and the rigors of exile (Lussu was, among other things, suffering from tuberculosis ) in the lung sanatorium of Clavadel near Davos . In 1938 Lussu briefly took part in the ranks of the international brigades in the Spanish Civil War , despite his poor health . After the fall of Mussolini in 1943, Lussu immediately returned to Italy, where he was involved in the ranks of the Italian resistance ( Resistancea ) in the struggle against National Socialist Germany and the fascist Repubblica di Saló .

Member of the Italian Parliament and political writer

After the end of World War II, Lussu resumed his political activities as a parliamentarian. As a representative of the Partito Sardo d'Azione, he held a brief ministerial post in the first Italian interim government under Alcide De Gasperi ; later - after the Sardinian Action Party had become part of the spectrum of socialist parties - Lussu was several times a representative of socialist groups in the Italian Senate . Lussu gained importance in the post-war period, however, above all through the reception of his literary works, in which he deals intensively with the history of Italy. Above all in the two books Un anno sull'Altipiano (A year on the plateau) and Marcia su Roma e dintorni (March on Rome and the surrounding area) Lussu impressively describes his own war experiences from the First World War and the takeover of power by the Italian fascists in the year 1922.

Importance of the literary work

Lussu's work focuses primarily on the socio-political developments in Italy at the time of fascism - largely on the basis of the description of personal experiences, which are, however, strongly integrated into the historical and regional context, whereby the author succeeds in presenting the social and political changes in a concise manner.

In addition, Lussu provides comprehensive insights into his political awareness raising from a war interventionist to a staunch pacifist and anti-fascist . His later works primarily reflect his commitment to building a democratic civil society in Italy after the end of the Second World War.

Publications (first editions)

  • La catena , Paris, 1929.
  • Marcia su Roma e dintorni , Paris 1932.
  • Teoria dell'insurrezione , Paris 1936.
  • Per l'Italia dall'esilio , Cagliari 1936.
  • Un anno sull'Altipiano , Paris 1938.
  • La clericalizzazione dello Stato e l'arcivescovo di Cagliari , Rome 1958.
  • Sul Partito d'azione e gli altri , Milan 1968.
  • Il cinghiale del diavolo e altri scritti sulla Sardegna , Turin 1976.
  • Essere a sinistra: democrazia, autonomia e socialismo in cinquant'anni di lotte , Milan 1976.
  • Lettere a Carlo Rosselli e altri scritti di Giustizia e libertà , Sassari 1979.
  • Discorsi parliamentari , Rome 1986.
  • La difesa di Roma , Cagliari 1987.
  • Alba Rossa. Un libro di Joyce ed Emilio Lussu , Ancona 1991.

Translations into German (first editions)

  • One year on the plateau , Volksbuchverlag, Vienna 1968 (translated by Claus Gatterer ).
  • March on Rome and the surrounding area , Europaverlag, Vienna / Frankfurt / Zurich 1971 (translated by Claus Gatterer).
  • Theory of the uprising , Europaverlag, Vienna / Frankfurt / Zurich 1974 (translated by Anton Zahorsky-Suchodolsky and Gertraud Kanda).

literature

  • Emilio Lussu: A year on the plateau . Vienna / Bozen: Folio Verlag ²2017, ISBN 978-3-85256-730-3
  • Emilio Lussu: March on Rome and the surrounding area . Vienna / Bozen: Folio Verlag 2007, ISBN 978-3-85256-365-7
  • GG Ortu, Manlio Brigaglia (Ed.): Emilio Lussu. Tutte le opere. Two volumes , Aisara, Cagliari 2008.
  • Giulio Angioni : Emilio Lussu ei sardi , in: Il dito alzato , Sellerio, Palermo 2012.

Film adaptations

  • Francesco Rosi : Battalion of the lost , Italy / Yugoslavia 1970. Original Italian title: Uomini contro. The film is based on Lussu's book A Year on the Plateau (Un anno sull'Altipiano), Paris 1938.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Carlo Minoi: Nota introduttiva. Introduction to Emilio Lussu: Un anno sull'altipiano , 1990 edition, Einaudi Scuola, Milano, ISBN 88-286-0319-4 .