Memorie in conflitto. Autobiografie della lotta armata

In the history of the Italian republic the Seventies are a crucial decade, mostly identified in the public debate with political violence, conceived and practiced both in a revolutionary and anti-revolutionary perspective. Personal narratives of the terrorist, in their different forms – articles, autobiographies, interviews, and films – played a crucial role in the construction of public memory. The article examines a particular form of expression that played a significant role in the Italian debate: the autobiographies written by Italian terrorists and published by the major publishers. The essay discusses the ways through which these sources explained the political, cultural and existential motives of the authors' choice of the armed struggle, paying particular attention to continuity and discontinuity in the author's experience, the self-representation of individual political biography, and the politics of identity. The article shows how the public memory is dominated by the memorie

Nella storia dell’Italia repubblicana gli anni Settanta sono un decenni crucciale, identificato nello spazio pubblico soprattutto con la violenza politica, concepita e praticata sia nella prospettiva rivoluzionaria sia in quella contro-rivoluzionaria. Le narrazioni personali dei terroristi, in forme differenti – articoli, autobiografie, interviste, film – hanno giocato un ruolo cruciale nella costruzione di una memoria pubblica. L’articolo esamina una particolare forma di espressione che ha avuto una rilevanza significativa nel dibattito italiano: le autobiografie scritte da terroristi italiani e pubblicate dalle principali case editrici. Questo saggio discute il modo attraverso il quale queste fonti hanno spiegato i motivi politici, culturali ed esistenziali della scelta della lotta armata operata dagli autori, prestando particolare attenzione alle continuità e alle discontinuità nell’esperienza degli autori, alla autorappresentazione della biografia politica individuale e alla politica dell’identità promossa da questi testi. L’articolo mostra come la memoria pubblica sia dominata dalle memorie della violenza politica di sinistra e in particolare dall’esperienza delle Brigate Rosse. Le rappresentazioni proposte da queste memorie sono ancora segnate da un approccio ideologico sia alla storia della violenza politica italiana sia all’analisi della sconfitta del terrorismo italiano. Infine, il saggio analizza l’emergere della voce delle vittime della violenza politica, attraverso la pubblicazione delle loro memorie e discute come questo punto di vista stia interessando la memoria pubblica e la storiografia italiana sugli anni settanta. In the Italian republican history, the seventies are an important decade, mostly identified in the public debate as the period of political violence, practiced, conceived both in a revolutionary and anti-revolutionary perspective. In the construction of the public memory of this period, a special role has been played by the word of the terrorists themselves, which has been expressed in different forms: articles, autobiographies, interviews, films. This article examines a particular form of memories that played a significant circulation in the Italian debate: the autobiographies written by the Italian terrorists and published by the major publishing companies. The essay will discuss the way through which these sources explained the political, cultural and existential motives at the origin of the authors’ choice of political violence, with particular attention to the identification of continuity and discontinuity in the authors’ experience, the self-representation of personal political biography, and the politics of identity that guided those texts. The article will show that the public space of memories is dominated by the memories of the left political violence, and in particular by the experience of the Red Brigades. The reconstruction offered by these memories is still defined by an ideological approach both to the history of Italian political violence and to the analysis of the defeat of the Italian terrorism. The essay will also analyze the emergence of the voice of the victims of political violence, through the publication of memories, and it will discuss how this point of view has changed the public memory of the Italian history of the seventies.