The larger world imposes itself briefly on Elena in volume 1, in Pasquale and Lila’s conversations about the Fascists, Monarchists, and camorristi in the rione. At Pisa, she allows herself to be carried along on her Communist boyfriend Franco’s passion for revolution, but has no real feeling about it. Early on in the third volume, Nino irrupts into Elena’s life, bringing politics and current events with him (Those Who Leave, p. 30-32), and from there they impose themselves on her life.
Elena marries Pietro in May of 1967 or 1968. In 1968, known as Il Sessantotto, the student and worker revolt began in earnest. It had started in fall 1967 in Turin and spread to Milan, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Naples (“Italian Students in Revolt against Universities,” NYT, 2/9/1968). Autunno caldo of 1969–70 followed.
Students rose up because, with Italy’s economic miracle, many students from a peasant or working class background (Elena would not have been the only one) had entered university (Those Who Leave, p. 26-7, 54), and they were responsible for the beginnings of a revolt against an antiquated, rigid educational system and a capitalist, patriarchal society.
I am posting a few photographs (and an excerpt from a blog) for those who are too young to remember, and for myself, to remind myself, young as I was when it was happening, what those years were like. I had no idea then that young people and workers were protesting not only in the United States but also in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and other countries.
“Fu in un’università degli Stati Uniti, a Berkeley in California, che ebbe inizio la contestazione giovanile, una sorta di virus destinato presto a diffondersi in tutto il mondo. La protesta investì i valori di una società individualista e conformista, negando la presunta neutralità della scienza e delle istituzioni sociali; si rifiutò la repressione e l’autoritarismo delle vecchie generazioni in nome di un mondo più libero” (Il Sessantotto).
