RIP Terence Stamp (1938-2025)
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unfortunately this video's got blocked in many countries, but I just wanted to wish a happy pride month to everybody! π watch video on watch page
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I'm just going to upload a bunch of stuff today
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I'm quite happy with this video I made. I hope you find it entertaining, thought-provoking and a bit worrying. watch video on watch page
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Today, in Italy, is Liberation Day, a national holiday that commemorates the victory of the Italian resistance movement against Nazi Germany and the Italian fascists. What follows is the account of the liberation of Padua, which took place three days later, on 28 April 1945. It was written by novelist Luigi Meneghello, who took part to the Resistance and moved to England in 1947-1948, where he taught Italian Literature at the University of Reading for many years, before returning to Italy in 2004 and spending there the latter part of his life. Meneghello chose this particular event as the ending of his autobiographical novel 'I piccoli maestri' ('The Little Teachers'), which was translated in English as 'The Outlaws'.
I went personally to meet the Allied Eighth Army when it finally made up its mind to enter Padua. I was on a patrol between the Santo and the Bassanello, a little before midnight. Curious scenes occured at the roadblocks. The passwords were all different, and strictly speaking we ought to have been firing at one another every thirty yards; only the sense of general euphoria I believe prevented a universal slaughter. They say that euphoria usually makes people start firing; but it doesn't make them aim straight.
I had passed the last roadblock, with my patrol (Simonetta was with us, with her tommy gun), and we walked into the deep dark on the periphery of the town, down a long road between houses and heading south from Padua. Naturally nobody was on the road; I knew that the Allies were close, but German units were continually passing nearby. This, then, is how a war ends, I said to myself. First an army leaves, then another arrives. Yet it's not really the end. The war ends in people's minds, it happens a little earlier for some than it does for others; this is why there are still these senseless shootings.
At the far end of the main road we heard the groaning of powerful motors; it was something compact, intense.
"The British," I said to Simonetta, just for luck, for I was wondering what the odds were against its being the last German column. I decided less than 30 per cent.
"Are you sure it's the British?" she asked.
"Absolutely sure," I said, and she murmured: "It's like a dream."
In fact it did literally seem like a dream. We had been waiting only two years, but now it seemed much, much longer.
We walked down the middle of the road, going toward the Eighth Army, or at least 70 per cent of it, but I didn't worry about percentages any more. The noise became louder, and we felt smaller and smaller, in the middle of that dark road. Confusedly we began to distinguish the dark shapes of tanks: they were enormous. When we were fifty yards away I made the patrol stop; we had two flashlights, and I began to make signals. Then I went ahead a little, with Simonetta.
How strange life is, I thought. The British have arrived. Welcome. These tanks are our allies. With their hunched backs, their vast armored plating, their guns. They want what we want. Europe is full of these enormous allies of ours; how insignificant we must seem from the top of one of those tanks! Just people in rags; bands. Bandits. Foreigners have always thought of Italy as being a land of bandits.
The first tank stopped; there was an officer up on top with a soldier. I would have liked to say something historic, but I was feeling a bit emotional.
"You aren't Germans then?" I asked.
"Not really," said the officer, in English.
"Welcome," I said. "The city is already ours."
"May we come up?" asked Simonetta, impulsive as ever.
Now the patrol didn't matter any longer; we heard the column beginning to pile up behind the first tank, for hundreds and hundreds of yards; the rumbling of the engines was magnificent. So we re-entered the city, sitting on a tank and shouting at the British.
"And who are you?" said the officer after a bit.
"Fucking bandits," I replied without thinking. But suddenly I realised I shouldn't say such things in front of Simonetta, and I blushed; however, it was dark, and no one noticed. The officer shouted: "I beg your pardon?" and I shouted back: "I said we are Freedom Volunteers."
"Freedom?" shouted back the officer, and I confirmed this.
Then I added: "Now I'll sing a song. About you. Do you mind?"
"Sing away," he said, so I started:
Years have passed,
Months have passed,
The English are here
At last, at last.*
Simonetta joined in the refrain. I'm always out of tune, but she never is; at any rate the uproar drowned everything.
Our country is the world entire,
Our faith is liberty.
Our only thought - to save humanity!**
"What do those words mean?" asked the officer.
"That the war is over," I said. Then I added: "And that what interests us most is the salvation of humanity."
"You a poet?" asked the officer, with some suspicion.
I put my hand around his ear and shouted: "Just a fucking bandit."
Thus we entered Padua with the Eighth Army, then Simonetta and I went to sleep, and we left them there between Piazza Cavour and Piazza Garibaldi.
* in the original the last line is in Venetian dialect:
Sono passati gli anni,
Sono passati i mesi,
Sono passati i giorni
E ze rivΓ i inglesi.
Years have passed,
Months have passed,
Days have passed
And the English have come.
** a variation on 'Stornelli d'esilio', a famous anarchist anthem written by Pietro Gori in 1895.
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:-P