ALTRE RECENSIONI | TORNA


La storia dell’Italia nella vita di un paese agricolo del Mantovano

                                                          di Bruno Cartosio

 

Quando Bosio morì, nel 1971, lasciò incompleto e privo delle revisioni finali il libro cui aveva già dato il titolo II trattore ad Acquanegra e al quale aveva lavorato in modo discontinuo per oltre dieci anni. Alcune parti erano già state pubblicate negli anni precedenti su varie riviste storiche ma è solo ora che, grazie alla cura e alla passione di Cesare Bermani, il libro ha potuto vedere la luce presso l’editore De Donato. Non si tratta dl un avvenimento di poco conto.

Il Trattore è importante per almeno due ordini di motivi: come storia di una comunità contadina all'interno delle più generali trasformazioni economico- sociali dell'agricoltura padana e come sintesio più che paradigmatica di tutto quello che Bosio riteneva dovesse riassumersi nel mestiere di storico.

La storia di Acquanegra sul Chiese, paese agricolo del mantovano, si snoda tra gli ultimi decenni dell’ottocento e la seconda guerra mondiale, sempre compresa tra i due estremi rappresentati dai grandi avvenimenti che investono l’Italia intera e dai piccoli eventi che caratterizzano più da vicino i rapporti sociali, i luoghi fisici, la cultura materiale e le vicende politiche locali. Un esempio: «Nell’ottobre del 1922 Vasco Grazioli portava ad Acquanegra il primo trattore che era poi il secondo della provincia di Mantova. Si trattava di un Ford da lire ventunomila…». Questo l’attacco del terzo capitolo. Dal trattore al cavallo, in cui il fatto fondamentale della meccanizzazione delle campagne viene prima ridotto alla dimensione acquanegrese (per dieci anni ancora «nelle stalle, per le strade, l’elemento predominante restavano i buoi e i cavalli») poi diventa l’occasione per l’esame del resistente sapere contadino (dalla caccia e dalla pesca alle erbe curative e all’ «intelligenza delle bestie nel secondo racconto di Belòchio»). Infine, per distinguere il filo sottile della «sopravvivenza di una comunità prevalentemente basata su un’economia naturale» e per ritrovare «il proprio di questa civiltà», il capitolo risalirà al «periodo che va dalla riforma teresiana del catasto al ’59, cioè all’unità d’Italia».

Negli altri capitoli il percorso non sarà all’indietro come qui. In tutti, però, Bosio proporrà una sintesi analoga di piccola e grande storia, di fonti orali e scritte, di sapere folkloristico e filologico. Nei modi di ricostruire i soggetti e le dinamiche che presiedono all’«evolversi e […] al frantumarsi della cultura e della comunità contadina di Acquanegra» si caratterizza la sua proposta metodologica.

Il progressivo superamento degli steccati disciplinari verificabile nella stesura del Trattore documenta il percorso compiuto da Bosio stesso nel corso degli anni ’60. La sua prospettiva dal basso di storico del movimento operaio e socialista si arricchisce prima nelle attività di ricerca e riproposizione del canto sociale attraverso il Nuovo canzoniere italiano, poi nell’iniziativa ambiziosa di un centro per la raccolta e la sistemazione della cultura delle classi non egemoni. Sarà questo l’Istituto Ernesto de Martino, il cui primo fondo è costituito proprio dal blocco di materiali orali fin lì raccolti da Bosio ad Acquanegra. L’evolversi della scrittura nel Trattore, ripercorso da Bermani nella sua nota, è guidato da una logica che Bosio sintetizzerà in un saggio del 1966, Elogio del magnetofono, che doveva fungere da traccia di lavoro per l’appena sorto istituto. Se le divisioni tra le discipline, scriveva Bosio, sono state funzionali al rafforzamento del potere, la loro negazione dovrà essere attuata e volta alla lotta per il socialismo.

«Il contrasto fra campo dell’etnologia e campo della storia e, all’interno della storia, tra storia vera cioè grande e trapassata, e non storia cioè piccola e presente, è una speciosa suddivisione derivata dall’accettazione della società divisa in classi».

Nel libro, però. Questo schematismo da bozza programmatica non esiste, il rapporto tra il piano delle istituzioni economico-politiche e quello del «popolo» e delle classi è ricco e articolato. Bosio emerge come grande storico sociale. Insieme agli Scritti dal 1942 al 1948, anch’essi raccolti da Bermani per G. Arcari editore e la Lega di cultura di Piàdena nell’inverno scorso, il Trattore ripropone però anche, tutt’intera, la figura di militante e ricercatore di Gianni Bosio, rendendo infine giustizia a una delle figure più vive della cultura socialista italiana del dopoguerra.

(«Il globo», Milano, 25 ottobre 1982

 

Il trattore ad Acquanegra. Piccola e grande storia in una comunità by Gianni Bosio. Bari: De Donato, 1981. liv, 284 pp. Lit. l3.000.

 

Italian oral history experienced its first era of growth from the end of the 1940s to the late 1960s. A second period of productivity, beginning with the 1970s, has thus far been characterized by an emphasis on cultural rather than political issues. In contrast, the first period of oral history was marked by a close relationship between ethno-anthropological disciplines and an interest by intellectuals in the struggles of the labor movement. Contributions to the collection and analysis of oral sources came mainly from folklorists and ethno-musicologists, while historians (especially contemporary historians) hardly noticed the world of popular culture. A second aspect of this early flowering of oral history, linked with the first, was an attention to the theoretical implications of the study of folklore in industrial societies. The hope of founding a new culture with strong roots in popular traditions was encouraged by the influence of Antonio Gramsci's 0sservazioni sul folclore (in his Quaderni del carcere), but clearly it had its origin in the enthusiasm for social innovation which followed the liberation from Fascism.

This volume by Gianni Bosio seems to be both representative of the earlier approach to oral history in Italy and the forerunner of later trends. The book is published posthumously, although some parts have already appeared as articles. The author worked at it intermittently from the end of the l950s to his death in 197l. In spite of its unfinished nature, Il trattore shows a remarkable unity of style; the complexity of the plot does not obscure the intentions of the general plan. The reader is also aided by the introduction and notes of its editor, Cesare Bermani, a friend and collaborator of Bosio.

Il trattore is a work of local history, reconstructing periods in the life of the community of Acquanegra sul Chiese (near Mantova), where Bosio was born in 1923, during the years between 1868 and World War II. The last two chapters, on the Resistance and the subsequent integration of the community into a mass society, remain in an unfinished state.

The novelty of this book for Italian scholarship consists in the importance given to oral sources. They are considered not only as complementary to the information found in written sources, but as revelatory of an autonomous reality-oral culture. Indeed, in this book we see the triumph of orality, reconstructed in social places such as the inn and the piazza. Some of its characters are already “figures of memory”, since their adventures are retold to Bosio in the form of anecdotes and legends. In other cases, the author himself acts as informer and remembers elements of the community's history.

The result of this collection of memories is the historical picture of a system of oral communication, albeit sometimes deformed by written translation. The picture includes anecdotes, songs, witty remarks repeated from generation to generation, poems, political hymns. preachings from the pulpit, records of trials, minutes of the societies established by local workers, and stories and tales told on summer evenings. Also included are war memories of extraordinary storytellers such as Belòchio, and episodes contrasting Fascist songs on the one hand with anarchist and socialist songs on the other. And there are still other forms of orality: rhymes, proverbs, riddles, quarrels, discussions. and testimonies of men and women on their own lives and on the community, preserved by Bosio's notes or taperecorder. (Let us not forget that Bosio is the author of that remarkable 1966 essay "Elogio del magnetofono" - "In Praise of the Taperecorder" - where the instrument is given a place in history comparable to the invention of the printing press, and is described as essential for the expression and consciousness-raising of oral cultures which were repressed.)

The culture revealed by these forms of oral communication is set against the background of the history of Acquanegra, from its existence as a rather progressive village at the turn of the century (a few factories, flourishing artisans, a socialist club) to the decline of its economy, accompanied by a growing separation between the agricultural and the industrial spheres under the Fascist administration between the wars. The tractor is the symbol of the lost occasion, a possible means of integrating mechanization and rural development. The first tractor (a Ford) had been purchased in 1922; in 1930 there were only twelve, not enough to change significantly the economy of Acquanegra. Here Bosio makes a long digression on the economic history of the area since 1700, but the following chapter is again based on oral sources and describes the year's cycle, with its monthly agricultural tasks, rites, and stories. To give an idea of the wealth of the material under consideration, one must notice that a number of written sources are employed-newspapers, diaries, official inquiries, documents from the parish. and the Municipal Council, along with secondary sources. Throughout, the image is given of a rural society increasingly deprived of the advantages of the old rural world and "conquered by the contradictions of industrial capitalism. "

In his research on the culture of the people, Bosio produces his own testimony as an intellectual. His effort to understand the meaning of the apparently irrelevant ("what is small, particular, precise") is the basis of a rediscovered "philologism"- a lesson to be learned over and over again. There is considerable attention to and respect for the spoken word, the rhythms and the dialects in their finest nuances. This effort coincides with the search for a meaning in the work of engaged intellectuals, indeed for cultural work as such. Bosio believed that it was necessary to conceive of cultural work according to a strategic plan. He had begun a plan for the creation of a federation of leghe di cultura (cultural leagues), with the purpose of understanding and making known to the working class the culture it already has. This is why he was such a leading force in the creation of the "Istituto Ernesto De Martino" in 1965-66. Bosio wanted it to be a free institution, aimed at the "critical knowledge and the alternative presence of a popular and proletarian world. "

Nevertheless, Il trattore is not directly concerned with the theoretical and political aspects of Bosio's research. In it oral sources are dominant and orality becomes the expression of a people's culture -"to speak was what united, it was the link and the means of transmission." In his recovery of oral culture, Bosio is sometimes too rigid in dividing it from "learned culture," which he considers a "foreign body." But my only major criticism of this volume has to do with the creation of a historical critique for oral sources. I agree with Bosio - although we use different formulations - that oral sources can help us to interpret cultural phenomena, work and production, and social relations. My own experience, however, shows that three different procedures are required to use oral sources for these different levels of reality. In Bosio's work the differentiation between the various levels, as well as between historical procedures, is insufficient; therefore, the history of tradition is stretched to become social history and forms of communication are superimposed upon forms of life and social relations.

Despite this weakness, Bosio's book is extremely valuable. An analysis must still be done of the limitations and strengths of what I have called the first period of Italian oral history. Some of its achievements we should recognize, and we should not forget that some of that era's unsolved problems are still implicit in our own work, setting traps in our path. For instance, there is often insufficient differentiation between levels of memory, which results in the transformation of traditions into facts and thereby denies tradition its true form of existence. Lack of interest in these subtleties sometimes derives from the best intentions. In the case of Gianni Bosio, I am convinced that one of the reasons for him not going further (and I have implied that he went a long way) was his belief in an intimate connection between culture and politics. But a full examination of this point will require a reassessment of such a relationship in the Italian New Left and its forerunners. It may well be that oral history will help us to understand whether it is possible to define the political meaning of culture in a way which does not threaten its autonomy.

 

(Luisa Passerini Università di Torino Turin, Italy. Da <<International Journal of Oral History>>, London,vol. 3, n. 3,  nov. 1982)

ALTRE RECENSIONI | TORNA