The interrupted liberation. Letters from prison of an Ethiopian partisan

Through the analysis of both judicial and epistolary sources, the author reconstructs the trial started by the Italian Republic against Abbagirù Abbauagi, an Ethiopian young man who was taken to Naples in 1940, on the occasion of a colonial fair, was then moved to Marche and joined the Resistance together with some other Africans after September 8th, 1943. Accused of having shot a suspected spy, he was arrested in March 1945 and kept in jail until 1947, when the trial began. While in prison, Abbagirù wrote some letters to the comrades he had met during the days of partisan fighting in the mountains, asking for their support and comfort. This correspondence is the main subject of this article and its main source. It is also a particularly precious one because the experiences and feelings it comprises are contemporary to the course of events, differently from those expressed in later memories of other Ethiopians commenting on Italian Colonialism or the second world war. The latter, in fact, tend to reappraise those experiences after many years, in light of changed social, political and cultural contexts and influenced by later events.

Keywords: Italian Colonialism, colonial fairs, Second World War, Resistance, Internationalism, epistolary sources

Matteo Petracci, La liberazione interrotta. Lettere dal carcere di un partigiano etiopico in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 1/2017, pp 69-96, DOI: 10.3280/MON2017-001002