Editing: The Double Reason to Celebrate the South

We have trusted, rightly, that on the 25th of April this year, the first anniversary of the liberation of Italy from Nazi fascism which sees the direct heirs of that unfortunate dictatorship in government, the squares of all Italian cities will be as crowded, as they are, with citizens as they were seventy-eight years ago to celebrate the end of war and tyranny. It was therefore a strong signal of forgetful national politics that inevitably speaks to other European nations watching Italian development anxiously, fearing a contagion that would wipe out civilizations’ hard-won achievements during the post-war period.

In recent years, historical research has also been able to document the role and importance of the southerners in the war of liberation, fighting in the central and northern regions occupied by the Germans thanks to the complicity of the fascists.

It was Barbato’s commander, the Sicilian Pompeo Colagani, who made a mistake He ordered the English Colonel John Stephens, who was in charge of the special force in Piedmont, to reach Turin first with his men to liberate it after three days of intense battle. and his vice-president, Petralia, also Sicilian, was given the honor of carrying the flag in Piazza Vittorio Veneto at the last parade of the partisan experiment on May 6, 1945. Not an isolated case, though of fundamental importance. In Emilia in July 1944, it was Polian Achille Pellizzari, nicknamed Bo, who became ruler of the Free Territory of Taro, one of the first republics founded by the revolutionaries; While the Sicilian Giacomo di Crollalanza, Pablo was in the partisan war, military commander of the square of Parma, who then fell into an ambush in October. In Val Sangoni, the resistance movement was initiated by Luigi Milano of Abruzzo and led until liberation by the Calabrian brothers Franco and Giulio Nicoletta who would have two Calabrian leaders, Antonio and Federico Tallarico, on their side.

But in eastern Liguria, there were two SardiniansPiero Boruzzo and Franco Coni, to play a crucial role in organizing the resistance, and the first of the two will fall as a true hero in a small inland village, surrendering himself to the enemy to prevent revenge on the civilian population.

They are just examples of a story that the South experienced as a hero, but still struggled to fit because it had for so long subscribed to the model that resistance was an all-Northern affair. For this reason, it was desirable that yesterday, April 25, the towns of the south should take to the streets, claiming to belong to a history which was common to all Italians and gave rise to the Republic and the Constitution.

Southerners, too, have more reasons to do so. They must thwart another threat, a differentiated regional autonomy that would lead to a new division of the country.

They cannot allow it because, also thanks to the sacrifices of many southern partisans, Italy has rediscovered its national unity by defeating fascism and the ancestors of the patriots who call themselves today, the founders of another republic, the Republic of Salò.