Moving, cataloguing and preserving Gramsci\u27s Prison Notebooks

This essay reconstructs some of the events which, even though not directly concerning either the content or the chronology of the composition of Antonio Gramsci’s Notebooks, crucially marked their existence. The relevant events may be listed in four groups: 1) the January 1934 shipment of some of the notebooks Gramsci had had in the prison in Turi to the clinic in Formia where he was hospitalized and of some others to Rome, to the home address of his sister-in-law Tat’jana (Tatiana) Schucht; 2) the numbering and cataloguing of the Notebooks that Tat’jana Schucht did a few weeks after Gramsci’s death. Special attention will be paid to the results of the skilful analyses carried out by the Istituto centrale per il restauro e la conservazione del patrimonio archivistico e librario on some of the labels that Tat’jana pasted on the notebooks she catalogued; 3) their shipment to Moscow, between 1937 and 1938, and their preservation until they were returned to Rome after the end of the Second World War; 4) the differences in the ways Gramsci’s Notebooks were counted and the different total number that they were said to consist of. The proposed reconstruction will stress the importance of often underestimated data: the presence of a sketchbook among those normally referred to as notebooks; the fact that Tat’jana herself, while numbering thirty-one of Gramsci’s notebooks, did not number two large-format notebooks, which can be assumed to have remained separate from the others for quite some time; and the existence of two other large-format notebooks on which Tat’jana began to prepare, without completing them, a catalogue of the topics and a complete transcription of the notebooks written by Gramsci. It will moreover become clear that the hypotheses put forward by those who have supported the thesis that one or more of the notebooks were subtracted lack solid foundations and are unnecessary

I quaderni di Gramsci furono visti da Mussolini?

A sentence contained in an interview by the journalist Yvon De Begnac with Mussolini suggests that Mussolini may have read some parts of the Notebooks written by Gramsci while in prison in Turi. The article, in Italian, considers on what occasions Mussolini’s interest in Gramsci’s notebooks might have been aroused and when some of them could have been more easily taken from Turi, brought to Rome and returned to Turi, leaving Gramsci unaware of it

I quaderni di Gramsci furono visti da Mussolini?

A sentence contained in an interview by the journalist Yvon De Begnac with Mussolini suggests that Mussolini may have read some parts of the Notebooks written by Gramsci while in prison in Turi. The article, in Italian, considers on what occasions Mussolini’s interest in Gramsci’s notebooks might have been aroused and when some of them could have been more easily taken from Turi, brought to Rome and returned to Turi, leaving Gramsci unaware of it

Giancarlo de Vivo: Nella bufera del Novecento: Antonio Gramsci e Piero Sraffa tra lotta politica e teoria critica [In the Storm of the Twentieth Century. Antonio Gramsci and Piero Sraffa between Political Struggle and Critical Theory] (in English)

This book review discusses the recent volume of Giancarlo de Vivo, which offers a documented reconstruction of the role of the economist Piero Sraffa as the link between the prisoner Gramsci and the Italian Communist Party leadership in exile. Sraffa is shown to have acted autonomously of the party when Gramsci’s wishes, as expressed in two letters in particular to his sister-in-law, Tat’jana, were for caution to be adopted in regard to the leadership’s positions. There is also an analysis and defence of Sraffa’s position in regard to the controversial 1928 letter from a party leader abroad (Grieco), before Gramsci was sentenced, which the prisoner considered to have worsened his position. This seems not to be true, but what did worsen attempts to ameliorate his position was publication in translation in L’Humanité of Professor Aracangeli’s medical report on him. The stances of Sraffa and Gramsci on questions regarding the nature of historical materialism and the philosophy of praxis are taken into consideration, as are the first steps taken by Sraffa in formulating his challenge to the dominant neo-classical school in economics, an opposition which found its greatest expression in Sraffa’s 1960 volume, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (Produzione di merci a mezzo di merci)

Some Notes on Piero Sraffa's Biography, 1917-1927

This paper examines the early years of Piero Sraffa's career. Its purpose is to present new information that may improve our undersranding of his life and work and to integrate or rectify what is already contained in the biographical essays published during the fast two decades with new data emerging from his personal papers at the Wren Library of Trinity College and from other—often related—sources.

The friendship between Piero Sraffa and Antonio Gramsci in the years 1919-1927

This paper is part of a research on Piero Sraffa's biography and studies the relationship between Piero Sraffa and the Italian Communist leader and political theoretician Antonio Gramsci during the years 1919-1927. This period extends from the beginning of their friendship to the first year of Gramsci's imprisonment (he was arrested in November 1926), which was also the year of Sraffa's departure for England, where he settled as a lecturer at the University of Cambridge.Sraffa Gramsci Biography Fascism Anti-FASCISM,

Le lettere di Gramsci che Sraffa non consegnò al centro estero del Partito comunista

Il saggio considera le fonti che permettono di affermare che Sraffa, nel 1933, non consegnò al Centro estero del Partito comunista italiano un numero significativo di copie di lettere di Gramsci e, distinguendo gruppi specifici di lettere, illustrerà le loro caratteristiche e le possibili motivazioni alla base della loro mancata trasmissione al Centro estero.The article considers the sources which allow us to state that Sraffa, in 1933, did not forward to the Italian communist party a large number of letters written by Gramsci and, separating specific groups of letters, illustrates their features and the reasons which may explain Staffa's decision not to forward them

Infanzia, adolescenza e prima giovinezza di Piero Sraffa: 1898 - 1916

Il saggio ricostruisce la storia della famiglia Sraffa-Tivoli e gli eventi essenziali della biografia di Piero Sraffa negli anni della sua formazione primaria