A Ticket to Read

A Ticket to Read

Stefano Tatai, October 19, 2015

When in 1966 Mario Pannunzio, founder and director of Il Mondo (The World) returned from a visit to Hungary, where he had been travelling also because his wife was a Magyar, I asked him what had impressed him most of all. I expected him to respond by commenting on the beauties of Budapest, but to my great surprise he answered me: “All those young people who always have a book in their hands and continue to read even when they travel in the trams”.
The worst things can be said about the countries of real socialism, but surely one cannot say that they did not provide the means for young people to pursue their study desires. The price of books was negligible compared to its cost in Western countries.

A Will and a Way

An article signed by Pier Franco Quaglieni, entitled “Thus a nephew-in-law betrayed the memory of Pannunzio”, has lately appeared in Il Giornale of April 16, 2022, recounting the story of how the library of Mario Pannunzio was blown away from the Pannunzio Centre — incidentally chaired by Quaglieni himself — and ended up being owned by the Italian Chamber of Deputies. To be sure, Quaglieni himself admits that the Chamber of Deputies is in itself a worthy final destination for such a legacy, but he also claims that the will of Pannunzio’s Hungarian wife, Mary (Maria) Malina, was to donate her husband’s library and documents to the Pannunzio Centre. It did not take him long to discover that the executor of the deceased’s legacy was a nephew of her’s of Hungarian descent, and thus a nephew-in-law of Pannunzio, named Stefano Tatai, a twelve-time Italian Champion and international Master of chess. And he, apparently, was the one who, in disregard of his aunt’s last will, decided to sell his uncle’s library and documents to the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Curiously enough, neither all Pannunzio’s friends, nor Mary, ever said anything to him about Tatai, that Quaglieni saw, at the time of his own university studies, only once “at a tavern in the Prati rione of Rome”. Tatai, who fled Hungary as a refugee in 1956, very much relied upon the help of Mary and Mario Pannunzio in dealing with the needs of his being a chess professional in Italy. And thus Quaglieni writes: “It would be interesting to know what Tatai got in return and if other Italian hands were behind him”. And yet the lack of a question mark does suggest the awareness that the answer may never come.

Stanzas

FURTHER STANZAS When, at your gesture, the last shreds of tobacco are extinguished in the glass plate, slowly rising to the ceiling are the coils of smoke at which the bishops and the knights gaze astounded from their chequered board; and other rings are following that are still lighter than those on your fingers. The mirage which sketches towers and bridges in the sky has vanished at the first breeze; the unseen window opens and the smoke is stirred. Down there below, another flock is on the move; a horde of men who do not recognize your incense, of whose chess board you alone compose the pattern. It was my former doubt that even to you the game might be unknown which transpires on the squares and now is cloud outside your doors: not cheaply to be soothed is mortal madness, if your eye’s flash is weak; it asks for other fires beyond the heavy curtains, which the god of chance foments for you when helpful. Today I know what you desire; subdued, the Martinella tolls, terrifying the ivory figurines with the spectral light of snows. But wins the prize of the lonely vigil he who can oppose, before the burning glass that blinds the pawns, your eyes of steel. Eugenio Montale, Le Occasioni, 1939 English translation by Edith Farnsworth

Will Barnet, Chess Game, 1973. Courtesy of Wichita Art Museum.

Meanwhile in Arcovazzia

Stupidity has made enormous progress. It is a sun that one can no longer gaze at without blinking. Thanks to mass communications, it isn’t even the same thing any longer, it feeds on other myths, it sells at an extremely high price, it has turned good sense into something ridiculous, it spreads terror all around itself. Ennio Flaiano, “The Via Veneto Papers”, 1973

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

One day fascism will be treated with psychoanalysis. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario Notturno”, 1956

The Last Emperor

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the death of Enrico Berlinguer, General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1972 to 1984, a man who took over the TIME cover without the help of anyone, and, in fact, the leader of the largest communist party in Western Europe — just keep in mind he always earned his votes in free elections. With respect to his political heirs, he was a giant. Among his countless merits, in 1976, in a historic speech before 5,000 Communist delegates at the 25th CPSU Congress in Moscow, Berlinguer passionately vindicated the autonomy and dignity of the Italian Communist Party as a “pluralistic” outpost towards Eurocommunism, an alternative model of socialism distinct from both the Soviet Bloc and the capitalism practiced by Western countries. In the early ’80s, the Italian Communist Party’s split with the Soviet Communist Party became definitive and irrevocable. Over a million people — including world’s conductors such as the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and the third Premier of the People’s Republic of China 赵紫阳 (Zhào Zǐyáng) — attended Berlinguer’s funeral in Rome on June 13, 1984 making it one of the biggest funerals in Italy’s history.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

Fascism is demagogic but master-like, rhetorical, xenophobic, culture-hating, despiser of freedom and justice, oppressor of the weaker, servant of the stronger, always ready to point at the “others” as the reason of its own impotence or defeat. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario degli errori”, Milano, Rizzoli, 1976 English translation by Andrea Gaddini

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Thirty-four years ago tomorrow Enrico Berlinguer, the Last Emperor of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), died. The General Secretary of the biggest communist party in Western Europe – don’t forget he always earned his votes in free and fair elections – distinguished himself for his irreducible ethics as a leader who preferred not to win power for painting his ideal of Eurocommunism, firmly opposing to Soviet repression in Eastern Europe and inspiring from behind the only valuable democratic changes ever happened in Italy. In 1976, before 5,000 Communist delegates at the 25th CPSU Congress in Moscow, in a passionate speech Berlinguer vindicated the right of the Italian Communist Party to be a part of a “pluralistic system”, even arriving to declare – in an interview to Il Corriere della Sera – that he felt “safer under NATO’s umbrella”. He died six days before Italy’s elections for the European Parliament when, for the first time in Italian history, the PCI won the most votes nationwide. More than a million people attended Enrico Berlinguer’s funeral in Rome on June 13, 1984, making it one of the biggest funerals in Italy’s history.

Actor, director, and Academy Award winner Roberto Benigni pulling Enrico Berlinguer up into his arms in Rome, June 16, 1983. Photo: Attilio Cristini.

Darwinian Archaeology

Fascists are a negligible majority. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario Notturno”, 1956

One Day

One day fascism will be treated with psychoanalysis. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario Notturno”, 1956

Out of Date

Fascists are a negligible majority. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario Notturno”, 1956

One should not want to be anything but what one is

There are many ways to arrive; the best is not to leave. Ennio Flaiano, “Il gioco e il massacro”, 1970

A sea turtle swims in the water off the shore of Naqoura, a small town south of Lebanon’s capital Beirut. Photo: AFP/Joseph Eid.

Arcovazzia algorithm

They fight for the idea, not having one. Ennio Flaiano

Intelligence Is Overrated

Stupidity has made enormous progress. It is a sun that one can no longer gaze at without blinking. Thanks to mass communications, it isn’t even the same thing any longer, it feeds on other myths, it sells at an extremely high price, it has turned good sense into something ridiculous, it spreads terror all around itself. Ennio Flaiano, “The Via Veneto Papers”, 1973

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party Enrico Berlinguer’s last speech four days before his death. More than a million people attended his funeral in Rome on June 13, 1984, making it one of the biggest funerals in Italy’s history.

Out of Fashion

Fascists are a negligible majority. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario Notturno”, 1956

Hopefully, one day

One day fascism will be treated with psychoanalysis. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario Notturno”, 1956

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Fascism is demagogic but master-like, rhetorical, xenophobic, culture-hating, despiser of freedom and justice, oppressor of the weaker, servant of the stronger, always ready to point at the “others” as the reason of its own impotence or defeat. Ennio Flaiano, “Diario degli errori”, Milano, Rizzoli, 1976 English translation by Andrea Gaddini