War, Massacre, and Recovery in Central Italy, 1943-1948examines this transitional period in the province of Arezzo by detailing the daily experiences of civilians through the traumas of war and the ...difficulties of recovery.
The fall of fascism and disruption of World War II made rapid change to the mezzadria (sharecropping) system of central Italy seem possible and timely. Similar efforts to improve the sharecroppers' ...position in the years immediately after World War I were terminated by the rise of fascism and fascist agricultural policies. More politically astute attempts failed after World War II as well, frustrated by landowner refusal to allow interference with private property and related traditions, and by De Gasperi's 'Judgment' that barely modified the system. Rather than fundamental change to make a 'fairer', more beneficial system for the sharecropper in the postwar years, the mezzadria system died out slowly during the subsequent decades as sharecropper youth chose to leave the land.
The fall of fascism and disruption of World War II made rapid change to the mezzadria (sharecropping) system of central Italy seem possible and timely. Similar efforts to improve the sharecroppers' ...position in the years immediately after World War I were terminated by the rise of fascism and fascist agricultural policies. More politically astute attempts failed after World War II as well, frustrated by landowner refusal to allow interference with private property and related traditions, and by De Gasperi's 'Judgment' that barely modified the system. Rather than fundamental change to make a 'fairer', more beneficial system for the sharecropper in the postwar years, the mezzadria system died out slowly during the subsequent decades as sharecropper youth chose to leave the land. (Author abstract)
Introduction Belco, Victoria
War, Massacre, and Recovery in Central Italy, 1943-1948,
05/2010
Book Chapter
This is a story of everyday life during war and in its aftermath. The setting is the small place that is the Tuscan province of Arezzo between 1943 and 1948, within the larger place that is wartime ...and postwar Italy, within the still larger place that is society at war. It begins with the country at war and with civilians who soon found themselves in the war’s ruinous path. It ends with individuals, families, communities, and society recovering from the traumas of war, and with the process of rebuilding society well along on the course it would take for the
Conclusion Belco, Victoria
War, Massacre, and Recovery in Central Italy, 1943-1948,
05/2010
Book Chapter
On an otherwise ‘beautiful morning for the grape harvest’ in late September 1944, Father Polvani considered how the suffering of so many families all around him moved him to tears. In particular, the ...previous Monday he had met a group of women – widows seeking food and assistance – walking the eight kilometres from Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni to the communal seat of Cavriglia. ‘How can they go on,’ he asked himself.¹ The priest was not wondering how the widows could walk so far over ruined roads through the post-battlefront rubble, but how they could go on with life, how they would carry
