Nuto Revelli

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Benvenuto "Nuto" Revelli (born July 21, 1919 in Cuneo , † February 5, 2004 in Cuneo) was an Italian partisan in the Resistance of Piedmont , after he had been a supporter of the fascists and participant in the Russian campaign until 1943 . He later became a writer and historian who published numerous reports by contemporary witnesses of the two world wars and the post-war period, then extensive surveys of men and women from the marginalized high mountain valleys of the Alps. In doing so, he created an extensive collection of sources from the perspective of the poor and marginalized in the Alpine valleys west of his hometown.

life and work

Revelli initially took the path of a land surveyor, but at the age of 20 he joined the military academy in Modena , which he graduated two years later with the rank of sottotenente , comparable to a sub-lieutenant .

In 1942 he volunteered for the Russian campaign and joined the battalion of the 5th Reggimento Alpini . His arm was injured on September 19, 1942 and was later promoted to lieutenant . After recovery, he went from Dnepropetrovsk to the Don. From January 16 to February 4, 1943, he took part in the loss-making retreat from Russia at the Battle of Nikolaevka . In March 1943 he returned to Italy with pleurisy .

On July 26th, Fascism was overthrown in Cuneo, as it was in all of Italy, but on September 8th the German fascists took power in his hometown. Revelli was determined to resist, but did not believe in the possibility of doing it from the mountains. Finally, he came into contact with the Banda Italia Libera , which he joined on February 7, 1944. Revelli was given command of the IV Banda , which initially operated in the Vallone dell'Arma above Demonte . It survived the Tübingen campaign of the German occupiers (April 20-29, 1944) without losses. But it shifted its focus to the Valle Vermenagna. There Revelli was in August the commander of the Brigata Valle Stura "Carlo Rosselli" , which opposed the German units on the way to the Colle della Maddalena and made contact with the French allies. On October 2, Revelli was seriously injured in the face, whereupon he had to undergo multiple operations in Nice and Paris . On April 26, 1945 he returned to Italy via the Mairatal and participated in the liberation of Cuneo.

In the mid-1940s he married Anna Delfino, with whom he had their son Marco , who would later become a sociologist and historian. He left the army with a major . While he was trading in iron goods, he maintained contacts with former alpinists, partisans and country people, whose testimony he began to collect. He was convinced that without freedom one only vegetates, but in his opinion the prerequisites for freedom were knowledge, understanding, learning.

Revelli's first publications, all of which were published by Einaudi , dealt with his experiences on the Russian front and his time in the Resistance. His second thematic focus was the precarious situation of the Contadini , the rural population in the valleys around Cuneo, with their mass migration to the urban industrial centers. He prepared this topic in the form of detailed surveys, so that he is also considered a pioneer of oral history . With Il mondo dei vinti (The world of the vanquished) and L'anello forte (in which he interviewed women in analogy to the men this time), with their 270 shorthand interviews that were later typed down, Revelli gave these marginalized people a voice in a barely perceived world .

With Il disperso di Marburg (which also appeared in German), Il prete giusto and Le due guerre , he returned to his earlier themes.

At the University of Turin , he held a cycle of lectures from 1984 to 1985 that influenced a number of historians and intellectuals. After a long illness, Revelli died on February 5, 2004 and was buried next to his wife in Spinetta , a fraction of Cuneo.

In 2006 heirs and friends founded the Fondazione "Nuto Revelli" onlus , based in Revelli's house in Cuneo.

Honors

  • In 1986 Revelli received the Premio Grinzane Cavour , and in 1999 he was given an honorary doctorate from the University of Turin . He also received awards for his war achievements and his achievements in the resistance as well as for his advocacy for the interests of freedom (Distintivo d'onore per i patrioti "Volontari della libertà").

Works (selection)

  • May tardi. Diario di un alpino in Russia , Panfili, Cuneo 1946; Einaudi, Turin 1967.
  • La guerra dei poveri , Einaudi , Turin 1962.
  • La strada del Davai , Einaudi, Turin 1966.
  • L'ultimo fronte. Lettere di soldati caduti o dispersi nella seconda guerra mondiale , Einaudi, Turin 1971.
  • Il mondo dei vinti. Testimonianze di vita contadina , Einaudi, Turin 1977.
  • L'anello forte. La donna. Storie di vita contadina , Einaudi, Turin 1985.
  • Il disperso di Marburg , Einaudi, 1994
  • Il prete giusto , Einaudi, Turin 1998 (the focus is on Raimondo Viale (1907–1984) and his help for the Jews who fled France).
  • Le due guerre. Guerra fascista e guerra partigiana , Einaudi, Turin 2003.
  • Il popolo che manca , Einaudi, Turin 2013.

literature

  • Il presente e la Storia , volume 55 (June 1999), edition dedicated to Revelli
  • Bodo Guthmüller : Nuto Revelli and the story of the "good German". In: text, interpretation, comparison. Festschrift for Manfred Lentzen on his 65th birthday. Schmidt, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-503-07940-7 , pp. 266-277.
  • Gianluca Cinelli: Nuto Revelli: La scrittura e l'impegno civile dalla testimonianza della Seconda Guerra Mondiale alla critica dell'Italia repubblicana , Aragno, Turin 2011.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ P. Servetti: L'operazione Tübingen e la battaglia del Viridìo , in: Il presente e la Storia 84 (2013), pp. 277ff.
  2. ↑ Mai tardi, diario di un alpino in Russia was about his own life, La guerra dei poveri and L'ultimo fronte, lettere di soldati caduti o dispersi nelle II guerra mondiale and La strada del Davai were more of an indictment against the political and military Guide.
personal data
SURNAME Revelli, Nuto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Revelli, Benvenuto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian partisan, writer and historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Cuneo
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 2004
Place of death Cuneo