Umberto Terracini

Umberto Elia Terracini (born July 27, 1895 in Genoa , † December 6, 1983 in Rome ) was an Italian lawyer, politician, member of the Communist Party of Italy , parliamentarian and president of the Constituent Assembly of the Italian Republic.

Life

Umberto Terracini came from a Jewish family from Piedmont who had set up a textile business in Genoa. After the early death of his father, Umberto Terracini moved to Turin with his mother and two siblings . In 1911 he joined the youth organization of the socialists. In 1913 he began to study law, in the course of which he met the later communist party leaders Palmiro Togliatti and Antonio Gramsci . With them he stood against Italy's entry into the First World War and was briefly imprisoned for it. From 1917 he had to do military service, which is why he did not complete his studies until 1919. He then worked as a journalist and organized demonstrations. In 1921 he supported the separation of the communists from the socialists. In the following years he was several times in Moscow, including as a participant in the III. Congress of the Communist International . From 1924 he was arrested several times, among other things for subversive agitation and because he was considered a leading member of the now banned Communist Party. In June 1928 he was sentenced to almost 23 years in prison by a special court.

In August 1943 Terracini was able to flee to Switzerland . A little later he returned to Italy and joined the Resistancea . In September 1945 he became a member of the national advisory body Consulta Nazionale and in June 1946 of the Constituent Assembly. He was Vice President of the Assembly until February 8, 1947, and its President until January 31, 1948. At the end of December 1947 he signed the constitution of the Italian Republic in the Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome together with the provisional head of state Enrico De Nicola and with Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi . In 1948 Terracini was appointed senator on the basis of a transitional provision of the constitution (members of the Constituent Assembly who had been sentenced to at least five years in prison by the fascist state security courts). Until his death he remained a member of the Senate, in which he was, among other things, chairman of the communist faction. Terracini was known to openly and decisively criticize his party's political line when necessary.

literature

• Mauro Cerutti: Umberto Terracini. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . July 11, 2011 , accessed March 9, 2020 .

Web links

• Entry on senato.it
• Curriculum vitae in the history portal of the Chamber of Deputies (Constituent Assembly)
• Christoph Nix: Gramsci, Antonio et. al , in: Kurt Groenewold , Alexander Ignor, Arnd Koch (Hrsg.): Lexicon of Political Criminal Processes , online, as of May 2019.