The famous 1977 “Biennial of Dissent” of Venice was preceded and followed by a high number of contrasts and controversies. Carlo Ripa di Meana, by then president of the Biennial, has recently published (together with Gabriella Mecucci) the book L’ordine di Mosca. Fermate la Biennale del Dissenso [The Order from Moscow: Stop the Biennial of Dissent]. It shows specific dynamics of the Italian politics of the time, particularly the contrasts between the newborn Socialist Party headed by Bettino Craxi (main political sponsor of the Biennial) and the Communist Party headed by Enrico Berlinguer, by then striving for finding a way to the so-called ‘Euro-communism’. Moreover, it sheds light on the International political scenarios and on the many initiatives required by Moscow in order to stop the Biennial of Dissent. One of the chapters, whose title is particularly significant (“The Cowardice of the Intellectuals”), is dedicated to the absence of many Italian intellectuals, both politically engaged and not. Half of this chapter is dedicated to the brief but venomous controversy between Vittorio Strada, Italian scholar of Russian Studies, and the future Nobel Prize laureate Iosif Brodsky. It took place in December 1977 on the pages of two Italian newspapers, La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera. The absence of Strada, who was then professor of Russian Literature at the University of Venice and also an Italian Communist Party member, was particularly remarkable. Moreover, Strada was famous for his sympathy towards the dissidents, as shown by his 1977 book Dissenso e socialismo. Una voce marxista del Samizdat sovietico (Dissent and Socialism. A Marxist Voice from Soviet Samizdat). Strada intervened on behalf of the Biennial during the odious attacks by Giulio Carlo Argan, who in an article on the magazine “Espresso” (27 February 1977) defined the Biennial as “a sort of odd Solgenitsin-parade” inspired by “Red-Cross nurse like zeal”. The refusal by the Soviet state to admit Strada and the publisher Giulio Einaudi to the first International Book Fair of Moscow (opened on the 6th of September, 1977) added tension to the whole situation. This paper aims at analyzing, through the articles published on the press of the time, the “Strada case” (and his contrasts with Brodsky, Indro Montanelli, Paolo Flores D’Arcais, Alberto Moravia and others), seen as the emblem of the position of Italian intellectuals towards Dissent in the countries of the Eastern bloc.
Rane, elefanti e cavalli. Vittorio Strada e la Biennale del 1977
GUAGNELLI, Simone
2011-01-01
Abstract
The famous 1977 “Biennial of Dissent” of Venice was preceded and followed by a high number of contrasts and controversies. Carlo Ripa di Meana, by then president of the Biennial, has recently published (together with Gabriella Mecucci) the book L’ordine di Mosca. Fermate la Biennale del Dissenso [The Order from Moscow: Stop the Biennial of Dissent]. It shows specific dynamics of the Italian politics of the time, particularly the contrasts between the newborn Socialist Party headed by Bettino Craxi (main political sponsor of the Biennial) and the Communist Party headed by Enrico Berlinguer, by then striving for finding a way to the so-called ‘Euro-communism’. Moreover, it sheds light on the International political scenarios and on the many initiatives required by Moscow in order to stop the Biennial of Dissent. One of the chapters, whose title is particularly significant (“The Cowardice of the Intellectuals”), is dedicated to the absence of many Italian intellectuals, both politically engaged and not. Half of this chapter is dedicated to the brief but venomous controversy between Vittorio Strada, Italian scholar of Russian Studies, and the future Nobel Prize laureate Iosif Brodsky. It took place in December 1977 on the pages of two Italian newspapers, La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera. The absence of Strada, who was then professor of Russian Literature at the University of Venice and also an Italian Communist Party member, was particularly remarkable. Moreover, Strada was famous for his sympathy towards the dissidents, as shown by his 1977 book Dissenso e socialismo. Una voce marxista del Samizdat sovietico (Dissent and Socialism. A Marxist Voice from Soviet Samizdat). Strada intervened on behalf of the Biennial during the odious attacks by Giulio Carlo Argan, who in an article on the magazine “Espresso” (27 February 1977) defined the Biennial as “a sort of odd Solgenitsin-parade” inspired by “Red-Cross nurse like zeal”. The refusal by the Soviet state to admit Strada and the publisher Giulio Einaudi to the first International Book Fair of Moscow (opened on the 6th of September, 1977) added tension to the whole situation. This paper aims at analyzing, through the articles published on the press of the time, the “Strada case” (and his contrasts with Brodsky, Indro Montanelli, Paolo Flores D’Arcais, Alberto Moravia and others), seen as the emblem of the position of Italian intellectuals towards Dissent in the countries of the Eastern bloc.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
