THE LIFE OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI

See also: Can Gramsci's theory of hegemony help us to understand the representation of racial minorities in western television and cinema? by Reena Mistry

THE LIFE OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI

"Telling the truth is always revolutionary"

1891 – (January 22^nd.) Born at Ales in Cagliary, Italy. Antonio was the fourth son of Francesco Gramsci, a clerk in the local registrar's office.

1897-1898 – His father is sentenced to serve five years in prison on charges of maladministration. On his release he has no job, so his seven children grow up in difficult circumstances and deep financial insecurity. Antonio G. suffered ill health throughout his life, and from a deformity which left him a hunchback.

1903 – After completing his elementary education, Gramsci has to work in the registry office of Ghilarza, Italy, where the family moved after his father's imprisonment.

1911 – Gramsci wins a scholarship to study at Turin University.

1913 – Participates in the first universal suffrage elections and makes his first contacts with the socialist movement in Turin.

1916 – Starts working as a journalist for the Socialist Party paper.

1917 – Gramsci is elected to the Provisional Committee of the Socialist Party.

1921 – (January) The Italian Communist Party is founded and Antonio Gramsci is elected as a member of the central committee.

1922 – (from May to November 1923) Gramsci goes to Moscow as a member of the Communist International and spends more than a year in this country. In a local clinic he meets his future wife, Giulia Schucht, and later he returns to his country as a leader of the Communist Party.

It is said that the concept of hegemony (gegemoniya) was first used as part of a slogan of the Russian Social-Democratic movement from 1890 to 1917.

1926 – (November) Because of his opposition to Mussolini, Gramsci is arrested in Rome, and sent to a camp for political prisoners. He was 35 years old.

During the trial, Mussolini said about Gramsci: "We have to prevent that this mind continue thinking."

1927 – He was transferred to a prison in Milan, and then to Rome. He was condemned to twenty years imprisonment.

In a letter to his family he says that he is plagued by the idea of accomplishing something forever, and he sets out a systematic plan of study.

1929 – Gramsci receives permission to write, and February the 8^th is the first date stated in his "Prison Notebooks" (Quaderni di carcere). During these years he studied Italian and European history, linguistics and historiography.

Gramsci had a prodigious memory; in his years in prison obviously he was not allowed to read communist books, so every quotation he made, especially about Marx, are the words (almost always exact) that he could remember.

1930 – He begins a series of discussions with other communists in prison, but his thoughts about the compulsion of a democratic approach were not shared with the rest of the political prisoners

1937 – (April 27^th.) Gramsci died after several years of suffering and Tatiana (his sister in law) manages to smuggle the 33 books out of prison and send them via diplomatic bag to Moscow to be published. He was 46 years old.

"Historical-academic gossip": As far as I know, every important letter that Gramsci wrote (especially those telling about his feelings and political ideas) was addressed to Tatiana, the sister of his wife Giulia. Finally, she was the person who recovered his papers to posterity. You have to draw your own conclusions.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 874