EL ADOLESCENTE EN LA FAMILIA

When in Italy WWII came to an end, many women who had been combatants, did not simply experience sentiments of joy. Malavasi (but also Capponi and Oliva, as it will be discussed in the next chapter) admits she felt sadness and nostalgia when she realized it was time to go back home (Non ci è stato regalato niente). While, on the one hand, the end of the war brought peace, on the other hand, it meant in fact that staffette and female partisans, were expected to take on their prewar traditional, and domestic roles.

A further issue that Malavasi describes in Esser’s documentary, is the postwar criterion with which the country acknowledged (and awarded) former fighters of the underground movement. According to the Italian law of that time, an ex-combatant had to prove that he/she had used weapons in at least four actions, in order to be considered a partisan. It is clear how this sort of criterion supported official historiography, since it basically favored the armed

the staffette, who, as we know, often did not have the possibility to use weapons, was usually not acknowledged.

Addis Saba explains that, after WWII, most women sadly accepted to go back to their domestic life (XV). Nevertheless, some former combatants were undoubtedly affected by their Resistance experience, which had an impact on both their personal and public life: “[alcune] donne che hanno partecipato alla Resistenza … sono tornate a casa … rivendicando un loro ruolo pubblico e politico, al di là del ruolo delle casalinghe e delle madri a cui erano state abituate per secoli” (Proietti 32). Malavasi, for example, eventually became a union official. It is also helpful to mention the cases of the protagonists of Chapter 4. In the postwar decades, Oliva was

constantly involved in the political life of her town, Domodossola, and later on, she joined the city council. In Rome, in the 1950s, Capponi became a deputata, that is member of the Italian Parliament, as one of the delegates of the Communist Party. However, the war could also have consequences on the relationship between the two genders. Once again, Malavasi turns out to be a significant example. As it has been pointed out earlier in the chapter, when she joined the partisans’ brigades, Laila chose to interrupt the relationship with her fiancé. When her days as fighter then came to an end, she had not simply changed into a new, more resolute woman, but she also subconsciously decided to never get married:

Quando sono venuta a casa io ero un’ex-comandante, … avevo una personalità, … e intendevo manifestarla … Sono stata tre volte alla vigilia del matrimonio, ma non mi sono mai sposata, perché pensavo che a sposarmi avrei imposto ad altri le mie scelte perché non intendevo abbandonarle. (Non ci è stato regalato niente)

For other former combatants, the Resistance experience had an impact that didn’t necessarily affect their personal or political life, but it rather resulted in the urgency they felt to leave a memoir (Bandite). If we exclude well-known classics, such as Viganò’s L’Agnese va a morire (1949), or Gobetti’s Diario Partigiano (1956), both published by the famous publishing house

Einaudi,70 or later works like those by Oliva (1969) and Capponi (2000), also published by important publishing companies, La Nuova Italia and Il Saggiatore respectively, the majority of the female-authored Resistance writings are entrusted to smaller provincial publishers. Addis Saba illustrates this aspect very clearly:

[Le donne] non poterono … dimenticare i loro giorni di gloria … perciò ne hanno lasciato memoria pubblicando nei luoghi di residenza, spesso in provincia, presso piccoli editori locali, tutta una ‘letteratura minore’, poco nota e poco diffusa [rispetto alle opere maschili della letteratura tradizionale], da cui si possono attingere mille storie esemplari che solo oggi iniziano a essere oggetto di studio, e che attendono ancora la loro valorizzazione storiografica. (XV)

Several autobiographies that have been published in recent years still confirm Addis Saba’s point. Examples of such works, that are not included in my research but I encourage other

scholars to take into consideration, are: Malavasi’s previously mentioned Storia di una donna nel

‘900: La fatica della libertà (2005), published in Bologna by Editrice della Sicurezza Sociale;71

Staffetta per caso: 1943-1945, Diario di due anni difficili nell’alto vicentino (2014), written by Maddalena Lenti and published by Mimesis; or Lidia Menapace’s Io, partigiana: La mia Resistenza, that also appeared in 2014, published by Manni.

In addition to a later date of publication, in many cases then, the editorial circumstances have not favored the circulation of these secondary female-authored writings, which remain necessary to the achievement of a more accurate literary and historiographic overview.

70

Einaudi was founded in Turin in 1933 by Giulio Einaudi and his group of renowned friends, among whom Cesare Pavese, and Leone and Natalia Ginzburg.

71

It is not by chance that Malavasi is more known for her participation in several documentaries on the Resistance, rather than for her autobiography.