In his literary magazine Il Politecnico (1945-1947), Elio Vittorini wrote: “I condemn those distant poets who watched the violence unfold from their ivory towers, come down I say!”
Vittorini was an incredibly influential writer pertaining to the Italian neorealist movement. He recounted the horrors of the war in his work, incorporating his experience as a member of the resistance. In this quote, he is denouncing the failure of the intellectuals of Italy in curbing the cultural degradation brought by fascism. He blamed the hard-to-read, langue d’oc type of poetry that dominated the scene before the start of the war for not putting an end to the senseless violence created by the regime. “From now on, we write about what is real, we write for what is real. We as intellectuals shape culture, ergo society.”
Between 1925 and 1926, The Fascistissime Laws officially put an end to freedom of expression and press in all of Italy. During these times, anti-fascist intellectuals took two separate ways to protest their oppression. Either they directly opposed Fascism or they ceased to write altogether.
Amongst those who protested through veiled publications, we can find Eugenio Montale. Because of his refusal to join the Fascist party, the author lost his job and lived in restricted freedom. Through his works, he appealed to the remnants of Italian humanity by putting into perspective the pain caused by the horrible regime. In his poem “Dora Markus”, he tells the tale of his Jewish lover, Irma Brandeis, longingly gazing into the distance towards the home she can no longer reach. After the fall of the fascist party, he published a collection entitled La Bufera e altro (1956) where he rips the shameful actions of Italian fascists to shreds. In his poem “La Bufera” (“the storm”) he compares Hitler to a satanic envoy and the fanatic crowd surrounding him as a storm of moths. His words are chosen deliberately, raw and guttural. The seething disgust and anger of the author seeps into every single publication.
On the other hand, intellectuals such as Salvatore Quasimodo made a conscious decision not to write at all for the whole duration of the regime. This is an act of protest, the need to save art from a time of cruelty and irrationality. In his 1946 poem “Alle Fronde dei Salici” (“On the Branches of the Willows”), he famously states “how could we bear to write with the enemies’ foot upon our heart?” In their own way these authors also silently demonstrate their disdain, mouths sealed and spirits ablaze.
I suppose the question to be answered is: what side made the right choice?