Severino di giovanni
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Severino Di Giovanni (1901-1931), Italian anarchist, moved to Argentina and became the most well-know Argentinian anarchist figure, mostly because of his violent actions.
Giovanni was born on March 17th 1901 in Abruzzos, Italy. He was raised in a post-war era (World War I) of hunger, poverty and wounded soldiers in the streets, and that had a huge impact in his ideals. Di Giovanni started rebelling against authority at a very young age. He was self-taught person, and learned of anarchism from the writings of Bakunin, Malatesta, Proudhon, and Eliseo Reclus.
In Italy, Di Giovanni worked as an unofficial teacher and typewriter. At the age of 19 he was orphaned, and at the age of twenty (1921), fully embraced the anarchist movement. In 1922, Mussolini's fascist party took power, and it became dangerous for militant anarchists. Di Giovanni and his family went into exile in Argentina.
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[edit] Argentina
Di Giovanni arrived at Buenos Aires in the last big wave of Italian immigrants, mostly poor people with little education. He directed his political propaganda and writings particularly to these people, particularly through his newspaper Culmine. Di Giovanni worked on Culmine at nighttime, supporting his activism and family by working in factories and as a typesetter.
Many Italian anarchists had already immigrated to Argentina. To this day, Argentina has the largest anarchist contingent of any South American country.
The events pictured in La Patagonia Rebelde, which is also a movie based in the book written by Osvaldo Bayer, show the Argentinan government's response to its anarchists and rebels: massacre.
In Argentina Di Giovanni took part in the international protests against the arrest and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in the United States in 1920.
Much of Di Giovanni's time in Argentina was spent as a fugitive, moving, with his family, from one city to the other.
[edit] Culmine
Culmine was Di Giovanni's anarchist newspaper, a practice followed by numerous other anarchists who started newspapers to disseminate both news and political education. Di Giovanni started Culmine in August 1925. He summarized its objectives:
- To spread anarchist ideals among Italian workers;
- To fight the propaganda of pseudo-revolutionary political parties, which use fake anti-fascism as a tool for winning political elections;
- To start anarchist agitation among Italian workers and keep anti-fascism alive;
- To interest Italian workers in Argentina in protest and expropriation;
- To establish an intense and active collaboration between anarchist groups, isolated partners and the regional anarchist movement.
[edit] Direct action and bombs
Di Giovanni is less known for his theoretical positions and propaganda, and better known for his violent direct action. He believed that a violent revolution was needed to destroy the government once and for all. He writes about it in his last known message, written just a few hours before his execution:
"[...] I didn't want social acceptance, neither a comfortable and quiet life. For me I chose fighting. Spending the monotonous hours of the common people, the resigned, the conveniences; that isn't living, that's being vegetative, just carrying among one a mass of flesh and bones. Life needs the exquisite rebellion of the mind and the arm. I fought society with its own weapons, without looking down, and thats why they consider me, and I am, a dangerous man."
Some of the "terrorist" attacks associated with Di Giovanni went wrong and took civilian innocent life -- such as his protests against the murders of Sacco and Vanetti, which involved a protest at a USA embassy, and a bomb in an American bank. Di Giovanni also participated in robberies. His most significant robbery was a bank truck hit, where he took 286,000 pesos -- which he used to open a press to print books and his newspaper. Di Giovanni also took revenge on a policeman known for torturing people, shooting the man in the face and disfiguring him. These actions provoked other anarchist associations to abandon him, and newspapers to label him as simply a vandal.
[edit] Capture and death
In his last political flyer Di Giovannni wrote "Be warned Uriburu (Jose Felix Uriburu, Argentine dictator) and his assassins that our bullets will seek their bodies. Let the bourgeoisie, the industry, the bankers and the landlords that your possessions and lifes will be destroyed and burned." He wrote this after the government killed hundreds of pacific workers in the funeral of other pacific workers that were also killed by the government a week before during a strike. A couple of hours after his arrest (where a little girl got killed by the police in the process) he was sentenced to die, and was executed 24 hours later.
Just a few hours before his death he asked for a sweet coffee to be taken to his cell. He gave it back after tasting it, saying humorously, "I asked for one with a lot of sugar... It doesn't matter, maybe next time."
Severino Di Giovanni died on February 1st, 1931 screaming Evviva l'Anarchia! (Long live Anarchy!).
[edit] Bibliography
- Bayer, Osvaldo. Severino Di Giovanni, El idealista de la violencia. Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1970.
- Noble, Cristina. Severino Di Giovanni, Pasión Anarquista. Buenos Aires: Ed. Capital Intellectual, 2006.
