Leone Ginzburg
Encyclopedia
Leone Ginzburg was an Italian
editor, writer, journalist and teacher, as well as an important anti-fascist political activist and a hero of the resistance movement
. He was the husband of the renowned author Natalia Ginzburg
and the father of the historian Carlo Ginzburg
.
(Russia) to a Jewish family, and moved with them, first to Berlin and later to Turin
at a very young age. He studied at the Massimo d’Azeglio liceo
in Turin :it: Liceo classico Vincenzo Gioberti (Torino). This school molded a group of intellectuals and political activists who would fight Benito Mussolini
's Fascist regime
and, eventually, help create the post-war democratic Italy
. His classmates included such notable intellectuals as Norberto Bobbio
, Piero Gobetti
, Cesare Pavese
, Giulio Einaudi
, Massimo Mila, Vittorio Foa
, Giancarlo Pajetta
and Felice Balbo.
In the early 1930s, Ginzburg taught Slavic Languages
and Russian Literature
at the University of Turin
, and was credited with helping to introduce Russian authors to the Italian public. In 1933, Ginzburg co-founded, with Giulio Einaudi
, the publishing house Einaudi
. He lost his teaching position in 1934, having refused to swear an oath of allegiance
imposed by the Fascist regime.
Affair" (they were carrying anti-fascist literature over the border from Switzerland
), but Ginzburg's sentence was light. He was arrested again in 1935 for his activities as leader (with Carlo Levi
) of the Italian branch of Giustizia e Libertà
, the Justice and Freedom Party, which Carlo Rosselli
had founded in Paris in 1929.
In 1938 he married Natalia Ginzburg. The same year he lost his Italian citizenship when the Fascist regime introduced antisemitic racial laws. In 1940, the Ginzburgs received the fascist punishment known as confino, or internal exile, to a remote, impoverished village, in their case Pizzoli
in the Abruzzi, where they stayed from 1940-1943.
Somehow, Leone was able to continue his work as head of the Einaudi publishing house throughout the period. In 1942, he co-founded the clandestine Partito d'Azione
or "Action Party", a party of the democratic resistance. He also edited their newspaper L'Italia Libera
.
invasion of Sicily
and the fall of Mussolini, Leone went to Rome, leaving his family in the Abruzzi. When Nazi Germany
invaded in September, Natalia Ginzburg and their three children fled Pizzoli, simply climbing aboard a German truck and telling the driver that they were war refugees who had lost their papers. They met with Leone and went into hiding in the capital.
On 20 November 1943, Leone – who now used the false name Leonida Gianturco – was arrested by the Italian police in a clandestine printshop of the newspaper L'Italia Libera. He was taken to the German section of the Regina Coeli prison. They subjected him to severe torture. On 5 February 1944 he died there from the injuries he received; he was just thirty-four.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
editor, writer, journalist and teacher, as well as an important anti-fascist political activist and a hero of the resistance movement
Italian resistance movement
The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...
. He was the husband of the renowned author Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg née Levi was an award-winning Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize...
and the father of the historian Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg is a noted historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for his Il formaggio e I vermi which examined the beliefs of an Italian heretic, Menocchio, from Montereale Valcellina.- Biography :The son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg, he was born...
.
Early life and career
Ginzburg was born in OdessaOdessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
(Russia) to a Jewish family, and moved with them, first to Berlin and later to Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
at a very young age. He studied at the Massimo d’Azeglio liceo
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...
in Turin :it: Liceo classico Vincenzo Gioberti (Torino). This school molded a group of intellectuals and political activists who would fight Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Fascist regime
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
and, eventually, help create the post-war democratic Italy
Birth of the Italian Republic
The Italian constitutional referendum which officially took place on 2 June 1946, is a key event of Italian contemporary history. Until 1946, Italy was a kingdom ruled by the House of Savoy, kings of Italy since the Risorgimento and previously rulers of Savoy...
. His classmates included such notable intellectuals as Norberto Bobbio
Norberto Bobbio
Norberto Bobbio was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa....
, Piero Gobetti
Piero Gobetti
Piero Gobetti was an Italian journalist, intellectual and radical liberal and anti-fascist. He was an exceptionally active campaigner and critic in the crisis years in Italy after the First World War and into the early years of Fascist rule.-Biography:...
, Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator; he is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.- Early life and education :...
, Giulio Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi was one of the most important publishers in Italian history.-Biography:Giulio Einaudi was born in Dogliani in 1912, the son of Luigi Einaudi, future president of the Italian Republic, and his wife Ida.He attended the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, and became a student of noted...
, Massimo Mila, Vittorio Foa
Vittorio Foa
Vittorio Foa was an Italian politician, trade unionist, journalist and writer.-Biography:Foa was born in Turin in 1910 into a middle-class Jewish family....
, Giancarlo Pajetta
Giancarlo Pajetta
Giancarlo Pajetta was an Italian communist politician.Pajetta was born in Turin and become a member of the Italian Communist Party during his youth. In 1927 this caused him a condemn to two years of imprisonment...
and Felice Balbo.
In the early 1930s, Ginzburg taught Slavic Languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
and Russian Literature
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union...
at the University of Turin
University of Turin
The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy...
, and was credited with helping to introduce Russian authors to the Italian public. In 1933, Ginzburg co-founded, with Giulio Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi was one of the most important publishers in Italian history.-Biography:Giulio Einaudi was born in Dogliani in 1912, the son of Luigi Einaudi, future president of the Italian Republic, and his wife Ida.He attended the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, and became a student of noted...
, the publishing house Einaudi
Einaudi
Einaudi may refer to;*Giulio Einaudi , an Italian publisher**Giulio Einaudi editore, now an imprint of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore*Luigi Einaudi , an Italian politician*His son Mario Einaudi , an Italian political scientist...
. He lost his teaching position in 1934, having refused to swear an oath of allegiance
Oath of allegiance
An oath of allegiance is an oath whereby a subject or citizen acknowledges a duty of allegiance and swears loyalty to monarch or country. In republics, modern oaths specify allegiance to the country's constitution. For example, officials in the United States, a republic, take an oath of office that...
imposed by the Fascist regime.
Persecution and internal exile
Soon after this, he and 14 other young Turinese Jews, including Sion Segre Amar, were arrested for complicity in the so-called "Ponte TresaPonte Tresa
Ponte Tresa is a municipality in the district of Lugano in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.-History:Ponte Tresa is first mentioned in 818 as ad Tresiae Pontem, though this comes from a 12th Century copy of the earlier document. In 875 it was mentioned as Ponte Tretia...
Affair" (they were carrying anti-fascist literature over the border from Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
), but Ginzburg's sentence was light. He was arrested again in 1935 for his activities as leader (with Carlo Levi
Carlo Levi
Dr. Carlo Levi was an Italian-Jewish painter, writer, activist, anti-fascist, and doctor.He is best known for his book Cristo si è fermato a Eboli , published in 1945, a memoir of his time spent in exile in Lucania, Italy, after being arrested in connection with his political activism...
) of the Italian branch of Giustizia e Libertà
Giustizia e Libertà
Giustizia e Libertà was an Italian anti-fascist organization, active from 1929 to 1945.- Italian anti-fascist organization :The anti-fascist organization Giustizia e Libertà was founded in Paris in 1929 by the Italian refugees Carlo Rosselli, Emilio Lussu, Alberto Tarchiani, and Ernesto Rossi...
, the Justice and Freedom Party, which Carlo Rosselli
Carlo Rosselli
Carlo Rosselli was an Italian political leader, journalist, historian and anti-fascist activist, first in Italy then abroad...
had founded in Paris in 1929.
In 1938 he married Natalia Ginzburg. The same year he lost his Italian citizenship when the Fascist regime introduced antisemitic racial laws. In 1940, the Ginzburgs received the fascist punishment known as confino, or internal exile, to a remote, impoverished village, in their case Pizzoli
Pizzoli
Pizzoli is a comune and town in the Province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It is located in the natural park known as the "Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park"....
in the Abruzzi, where they stayed from 1940-1943.
Somehow, Leone was able to continue his work as head of the Einaudi publishing house throughout the period. In 1942, he co-founded the clandestine Partito d'Azione
Partito d'Azione
-History:It was an anti-fascist political party in the tradition of Giuseppe Mazzini and the Risorgimento. Founded in July 1942 by former militants of Giustizia e Libertà , liberal socialists, democrats...
or "Action Party", a party of the democratic resistance. He also edited their newspaper L'Italia Libera
L'Italia Libera
L'Italia Libera was the newspaper of the Italian anti-fascist organization and political party Partito d'Azione , which was founded in July 1942. The paper was published on a press in the basement of premises at Via Basento 55, in Rome, until it was raided in November 1943...
.
Capture and murder
In 1943, after the AlliedAllies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
invasion of Sicily
Allied invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...
and the fall of Mussolini, Leone went to Rome, leaving his family in the Abruzzi. When Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
invaded in September, Natalia Ginzburg and their three children fled Pizzoli, simply climbing aboard a German truck and telling the driver that they were war refugees who had lost their papers. They met with Leone and went into hiding in the capital.
On 20 November 1943, Leone – who now used the false name Leonida Gianturco – was arrested by the Italian police in a clandestine printshop of the newspaper L'Italia Libera. He was taken to the German section of the Regina Coeli prison. They subjected him to severe torture. On 5 February 1944 he died there from the injuries he received; he was just thirty-four.
External links
- Books of the Times; Richard Bernstein, "Telling the Bigger Story With the Small Details", The New York Times, August 4, 1999