The Grecanici of Southern Italy. Stavroula Pipyrou
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1971 n. 1102—appeared as the most important legal structure of the time toward the development of the mountainous zones as well as the “internal zones” indicated by article 4 of the Italian constitution. The new law was intended to stimulate economic development and protect the environment of the mountainous zones. A new “mountainous economy” was to be based on the professional and cultural preparation of the populations. Among the main objectives, Comunità Montana was set up to provide mountainous populations with the proper services, aspiring to “compensate them for their disadvantage of living in the mountains” (Foti and Suraci 1983:19–20).
Despite the high publicity of Comunità Montana as a promising autonomous structure that could possibly alleviate the economic and social problems of the mountainous and rural Italian periphery (Foti and Suraci 1983), the Calabrian countryside continued to be abandoned. In the national census of 1971—just prior to the publication of the Comunità Montana bill—the resident population of the mountainous Aspromonte region was 121,702, while that population in the city of Reggio Calabria was 165,822. When the next census was produced in 1981 the resident populations were 110,397 and 173,486 respectively. Not only had the population of the mountains fallen while that of the city had risen, but the difference between the resident populations had grown by approximately 50 percent in only ten years. When coupled with the relatively high internal Calabrian migration rate, it is clear that the results of the Comunità Montana bill in keeping the population in the highlands and ameliorating their lives are questionable. It is interesting to note that in the 2001 national census the resident population of Aspromonte was 97,209, with 180,353 in Reggio Calabria.24 While these statistics do not necessarily suggest that the larger corpus of the Aspromonte population moved to Reggio Calabria, it is clear the Comunità Montana bill did not provide the impetus for people to remain in their place of origin over the past thirty years.
Relocating Populations: Farewell Beloved Village
After the landslides of 1951 severely damaged the Calabrian Ionian coast, the Christian Democrat government decided to relocate the stricken populations as a matter of urgency. People from the Grecanico village of Galliciano were relocated to the fortress of Gaeta in Lazio (Petropoulou 1997; Pipyrou 2016), while villagers from Amendolea and Roghudi were relocated to a military camp in L’Aquila, Abruzzo. Some people, very young at the time of relocation, recollect their time in L’Aquila as “very pleasant.” Mario, sixty-four, a teacher of mathematics at a high school in Reggio Calabria, vividly, and somewhat nostalgically, remembers the years he lived in Abruzzo as “some of the best years as we were attending a very nice local school and our parents were working in local jobs. A lot of families decided to stay in Abruzzo but my family eventually returned to Reggio after some years.” For people like Mario, relocation is part of a “romanzo of the ruins” (Teti 2008), yet for others it was a deeply emotional experience of forced expatriation. Echoing discourses of genocide and forced relocation as documented in various other European contexts, actors recite deeply experiential stories that irrevocably changed their sociopolitical trajectories (Hirschon 1989; Ballinger 2003; Bryant 2010; Danforth and van Boeschoten 2012).
The Gallicianesi were relocated to the fortress town of Gaeta in Lazio where they stayed until 1954, apart from fifteen families who remained in Galliciano. According to Leo, seventy-six, “the first months in Gaeta passed very quickly since we did not have anything to worry about and they were giving us a small amount of money for our needs. But we wanted to return.” Antonia also remembers that “some women got married there with local men but the rest of us returned.” She goes on to say that “we left the village (Galliciano) because it was declared non-habitable and we were evacuated. Our sindaco (mayor) evacuated us” (in Nucera 1984/5:144). During their time in Gaeta, testimonies account for physical confrontation between locals, police, and Gallicianesi as protests erupted due to the squalid living conditions. At one point the administrative authorities only provided the detainees with stale bread, which was duly turned into makeshift weapons and hurled back at police.
The relocations are still a highly emotive, distressing, and sometimes exasperating topic of conversation. Memories remain raw and conflict is easily reignited. Reflecting on the events of the relocations, informants criticized their own compatriots—local Christian Democrat politicians—who complied with central government demands and ultimately persuaded their co-villagers of the need to relocate, thus avoiding further friction. Hints that point to the corruption of the people in question and their immediate profiteering from the promised reconstruction of their villages are evident. One research participant criticized a fellow villager: “now he discusses the landslides as if it is something outside of his family and he seems to forget that it was his father (a DC councilor) who collaborated with the mayor in order to persuade us all of the vital need for the relocation.” Similarly, there is also heavy criticism related to the favoritism of the same local councilors who distributed assets to the stricken populations on their return to the villages. Houses and livestock were allocated to relatives of councilors and people of the same political disposition.
Domenico was eighteen when his family, together with more than thirty other families from Condofuri, Brancaleone, Roghudi, Chorio di Roghudi, Amendolea, San Carlo, and Rocaforte, were transferred to a colonia grande (large colony) in L’Aquila.
From Condofuri to Rome we took the train. From Rome to L’Aquila we took the bus. In L’Aquila we stayed seven to eight months. It was nice for us youths. We had a cinema. I remember the first time that my beloved grandmother ever saw a train on the big screen. Poor woman, she closed her eyes and fell to her knees because she was afraid that the train would dash out of the screen and crush her. We were eating on metal army plates. I will show you. I brought mine with me when we left. After L’Aquila they transferred us to Messina where we stayed for two months. We were living in a school building. We had a priest as director. He had given instructions that the women should sleep separately from their husbands. The women were sleeping on one floor, the men on another. We did not like that and started protesting. We were given 2.50 lira per head every day. When we returned to Roghudi we were given new houses. My father did not like the new house. My father had a very beautiful house and he preferred us to stay in the house that we were living in before the evacuation. Other houses were destroyed though.
The Gallicianesi returned to their village in 1954. Due to the aid provided by “the great benefactor” Umberto Zanotti Bianco,25 whose love for Calabria was renowned (Lombardi Satriani 1985:39), the stricken populations were given assistance in order to restart their lives in the village. Nevertheless, internal aid was tarnished due to scandals of mismanagement (Stajano 1979). Domenico, sixty-seven, bitterly notes, “we were given livestock as compensation for the animals lost in the landslides. The distribution was supervised by the then consigliere communale (communal councilor) of the DC and he was deciding on allocation according to the political disposition of the Gallicianesi. The ones who were voting for DC were given livestock while the communists and socialists were not.”
As the above narratives testify, actors very often convey mixed feelings about the relocations. Overall, the texture of memory is rough and regrets regarding the level of exploitation and violence sweep into the narratives, as well as feelings of lost opportunities for further political manipulation and compensation claims (Petropoulou 1997). Nevertheless, there is another string of narratives that point to a completely different direction, albeit slightly conspiratorial. A small group of Grecanici leftist intellectuals approach the decision of the Christian Democrat government to relocate the populations so far away from Reggio Calabria with overt suspicion. Drawing from similar narratives of population relocation, such as implemented in Greece during the 1946–1949 civil war (known as “dead zones”; Clogg 1992), leftist intellectuals go to great lengths to speculate as to the real motives of the government. “We were trouble makers,” Leonardo argues, “and they [the DC government] wanted to smoothly get rid of us. We were always a pain in the ass for the government after the unification. They knew that in our area they could not pretend that they were the bearers of the law” (see Astarita 1999:4). The informant does not explicitly clarify why the Grecanici were viewed as troublemakers, even though he admits that historically “in our villages there was no such thing as state tax collection.” So the “anarchic fearless nature” of the Grecanici, as these informants put it, and the governance