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Bella Ciao (popularly translated into Portuguese as Darling bye) is an anonymous song, and there are no data that definitively explain its origin. There are only textual and musical similarities to old compositions. It is the result of a long journey, which went from defining this hymn to freedom to the version known to all and sung in some 40 languages. In Italy, its chords not only resonate in the demonstrations of the “sardines”, the heterogeneous group that until a few months ago protested in the squares across the country, mainly against Matteo Salvini’s rhetoric; They are also present every April 25, the day that the liberation of fascism is celebrated in 1945.
“It is a hymn of the partisans [membros da resistência]”Carlo Ghezzi, from the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI), says with certainty. The resistance was formed by the various currents of anti-fascism: there were Christian Democrats, Communists, Socialists, monarchists and republicans, among others. A conglomerate of ideas different who overcame their discrepancies in view of the need to fight “the invader.” “The commander of the resistance was Raffaele Cadorna, a monarchist, and his subcommander Luigi Longo, a communist. Antifascism represented the most important page in this country , and Bella Ciao it gives voice to all this, ”says Ghezzi.
For that reason, Bella Ciao It ended up becoming the music of resistance, the song celebrating the combined heterogeneity that led Italy to liberation. In fact, in his letter there is no ideological reference, unlike Fischia Il Vento (The Wind Blows), sung mainly by Garibaldine and communist supporters. The melody, which today is often considered a leftist song in the country, was sung on several public occasions by Christian Democrat (DC) politicians such as Benigno Zaccagnini and Franco Marini. Also, during the protests of 1968, the protesters did not sing it, as explained by Carlo Pestelli, author of the book. Bella Ciao: La canzone Della Libertà (Bella Ciao: the song of freedom): “They considered it a song for those who did not want to get their hands dirty”. Instead, they preferred other claimant hymns such as Per i morti di Reggio Emilia (For the dead of Reggio Emilia), Fausto Amodei, born during the protests against the Government formed by the DC in 1960 with the votes of the extreme right, or Contessa (Countess), by Paolo Pietrangeli, dedicated to Paolo Rossi, a student killed in 1966 after a confrontation with a group of young extremists.
Pestelli believes that there was a musical module in which the text of Bella Ciao. The most recognizable ancestors are two popular songs from northern Italy in the 19th century: Fior di tomba (Flower of the grave) and The bevanda sonnifera (The drink to sleep). The second, among other aspects, proceeds to reiterate the “bye”; but the first, heir to
Complainte de la Dame a la Tour et du Prisonnier, a French song from 1536, in the versions of Novara (Piedmont) and Venice (Veneto), begins and ends exactly as Bella Ciao. In both compositions, the central theme is love.
According to some reports compiled by Cesare Bermani, a specialist in Italian popular music, one of the first Bella Ciao dates back to the First World War. It was a kind of protest against the military system after the failure of the Battle of Caporetto, which ended with a victory for the Austro-Hungarian and German armies in 1917. In fact, the word “invader” is replaced by “deserter”.
But the two most important variants extended during the period of the second world conflict. One of them, although the letter appeared only in 1951, is narrated by the voice of mondine (rice fields), women who temporarily worked in rice crops. The other, that is, the partisan, has likely intoned curiously in three distant Italian regions: Montefiorino (Emilia-Romagna), where a doctor known as Fiore might have written the original handwriting; Abruzzo, where the Maiella Brigade could also have sung the version mondina thanks to the return of local women who had harvested rice in the north; and Alba (Piemonte), according to a person who told Pestelli that he sang it in 1944, when he was 11 years old. All three locations experienced a situation of stagnation and isolation from combat. This would explain, according to Pestelli’s theory, the fact that a song was transmitted that transmitted joy, and that for the children of Alba it served as a counterpoint to the adult world.
These two souls finally met at the Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds), in Espoleto (Umbria) in 1964, where former rice farmer Giovanna Daffini presented the feminine handwriting (“This morning, I woke up / I must go to the rice field […] And between insects and mosquitoes, we must do hard work ”), followed by partisans. The show, which is named after Beautiful bye, was repeated 10 times between June 21 and 29 and marked the starting point for the rebirth of popular song. The success was so great that there were also attempts to appropriate its authorship, as in the case of a military man, Rinaldo Salvatori, who claimed to have written Bella Ciao inspired by another composition, which he dedicated to a French singer with whom he fell in love.
But no one could solve the mystery surrounding this famous hymn. “Bella Ciao It has been used in different ways because it is a popular song. He is against an invader and he is in favor of something that everyone likes, freedom, “says Pestelli. Each year is heard in a different context, as in the demonstrations after the Charlie Hebdo, in 2015, in stadiums in the form of songs and series like The paper house. In addition, several artists have done it, such as Manu Chão, Woody Allen and Tom Waits.
It is the consequence of an international success that never ended. And it probably started when a group of young people from the Emilia-Romagna region performed the song at the 1947 Youth Festival in Prague, then crowned with the 1963 album by Yves Montand (pseudonym Ivo Livi), an Italian with a French spirit . singing Bella Ciao with the title of Chant des Partisans changing the original pronunciation.
In the past two decades, Bella Ciao it became a symbol of the communist left, especially from the point of view of the right. League leader Matteo Salvini and his coalition partner Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy party often criticize his representation. For example, when some socialists sang it in the Parliament of the European Union. Meloni wrote on Twitter that it was “scandalous” and “ridiculous”, and spoke of “the Soviet Union”. There is no doubt on this subject for Ghezzi. “It is clear that the right does not like the values of anti-fascism, but these controversies began the day after liberation. We have not discussed it since April 25, 1945. ”
The stake
Pestelli finds many similarities between Bella Ciao and The stake, Catalan anti-Francoist song by Lluís Llach, composed in 1968. It was used by the Solidarity Union in Poland and also translated into Occitan (a language spoken in southern France) by the musical group Lou Dalfin, among others. “Bella Ciao and The stake They share a certain melodic joy and are popular songs. In addition, both have to do with an element of nature: on the one hand, the flower; on the other, a tree. They are symbols of a new life through memory ”, he explains.
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