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Luciana Castellina answers the phone -when the line is finally free- with a child’s voice: “I saw Rossana the day before yesterday for the last time. She often happened to tell him the news, she was sick in her body but very lucid. I still wanted to read, get information, talk to young people ”. Communist leftist political activist, former parliamentarian, co-founder of the “Manifesto”, writer and journalist, wife of Alfredo Reichlin, self-defined for her ninety years “still a communist rebel”, Castellina shared almost seventy years with Rossanda years of political struggles and a great friendship .
What has Rossana Rossanda left us and what will we miss about her?
She was one of the protagonists of Italian communism, which was an important and very particular phenomenon, different from similar experiences that have passed through other countries. Togliatti said that Italian communism was a giraffe, in the sense of an anomalous animal. Rossana was a giraffe within communism, for her dissent from a line that in our opinion contained many errors. She was a big part of this story and I think that’s the first thing to remember.
She has been described as a strict, curious and scathing person. How was it in everyday life?
She was a woman who led a battle for women, for the feminist movement that she frequented a lot. She wrote, conversed with the other protagonists, she in turn embodied a feminist idea without resembling men. It has never been a woman who disguises herself as a man. She had a great love and great passion, Karol (writer and journalist KS Karol, died 2014, ed), for fifty years of her life. I cooked very well and criticized myself for not being so capable. She kept the house in perfect order. She was wearing makeup and combing her hair.
However, in an interview she said that she does not feel feminine and does not like seduction.
But it wasn’t true (laughs, ed). In a sober and very elegant way, she was feminine. The differences between men and women must be affirmed and valued.
Rossanda was an intellectual figure who worked for a better society in many fields: writer, journalist, politician, pro-European. Two days ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, famous for civil commitment and social struggles, died. Are they girls from the last century who don’t leave heirs?
No, it wouldn’t be so pessimistic. The women’s movement is the only thing that is gaining in a very bad world situation in many ways. Women are at the forefront, but no revolution is made without bloodshed. I am not referring only to Me too, but in general to the struggle of women inside and outside the movements.
How much did the break in 2012 with the “Manifesto”, the creature that you founded and watched grow, make you suffer?
It was not a real breakup. Rossana continued writing until a few months ago. There have been generational disagreements, things that happen within a collective.
Compared to the party, Rossanda has always been a movement and innovator. With the awareness, long before the others, of the dark side of the Soviet Union and the CPSU. And in 1978 with the denunciation of the weakness of the PCI and the “family album” of fr.
The “family album” was a point of disagreement between the two. I did not share her position. Communism has never taken that path except where there were dictatorships. And in Italy there was a fragile regime, of course, but not a dictatorship. But we’ve stayed connected our entire lives, despite the arguments. I saw her the day before yesterday for the last time. On my return from Ancona, where I participated in a demonstration in the square, I went to her house. I went to visit her regularly, I told her the latest news. She was very ill in body but very lucid. She kept reading books and newspapers, updating herself.
Some time ago he said: “I will regret dying for the books I have not read and for the places I have not visited.” Isn’t that a nice farewell?
Yes. Rossana still wanted to see, meet, meet young people and talk with them. Not everyone has it, much less at their age.
Around ’68 he said: after the rebellion, the ebb was very fast, and today only individualism remains. Disappointment or realism?
Consciousness, I would say. 1968 represented the positive discovery of politics: participation, community, the we that takes the place of the self. In recent years, it is true, there has been a return to the navel.
Back in Italy after the years in Paris, Rossanda had found “an unrecognizable Italy”: “Salvini scares me, the Cinquestelle have nothing left.” No signs of hope?
He was very saddened to see Italy reduced like this. I see symptoms of recovery in Italian society, which, however, do not affect. At least we have separated Salvini from the Cinquestelle.
Rossanda, a declared atheist, accompanied Lucio Magri to die in Switzerland. He had never regretted it, except to say in one of his last interviews: “I would not do it again.” Had his idea of death changed?
Your words must be interpreted. She said that she would not do it again because she had discovered her pain, how deep the suffering was and how heavy that memory was. There have been between us, and also between the two of them, many broken arguments, fights. But Lucio asked her to accompany him and she accompanied him. It was a good test of friendship that prevailed over dissent, which in the end was marginal.
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