Giampaolo Pansa

Giampaolo Pansa in 2010

Giampaolo Pansa (1935–2020) was an Italian journalist, writer, and historian.

Quotes

• There is a shy Ciriaco De Mita. And also a grumpy De Mita. And then there is the introverted De Mita. He is not easy to get along with. And sometimes he is suspicious, very suspicious. [...] He is someone who does not mold himself to those he is dealing with in order to gain their approval, but who likes to speak plainly and tell you what he thinks to your face. In short, he is tough. Cunning and tough. And sometimes mean.
  • De Mita è bello perché è vario, L'Espresso, 20 June 1982

• With your departure, that world has ended completely. For a week now, I have been trying not to think that you, dear Alessandro, have gone who knows where. And I confess that I am terrified of dreaming about you. But, my beautiful son, my beautiful boy, I will always welcome you with open arms. [...] I love you. Giampaolo, your dad.
  • From the letter addressed to his son Alessandro Pansa, published by La Verità; quoted in La verità. Citato in:
    
    • Marianna Di Piazza "Ti voglio bene mio bel fieu". La lettera di Giampaolo Pansa al figlio Alessandro, ilgiornale.it, 19 November 2017;
    • «Addio al mio bel fieu»: la lettera di Giampaolo Pansa al figlio Alessandro, Corriere.it, 19 November 2017;
    • Pansa, la lettera straziante per il figlio Alessandro morto d'infarto: "Come in guerra, te ne sei andato e io...", Liberoquotidiano.it, 19 November 2017

• The hardest [defeat] came in 2014 when Matteo Renzi's government, which had been in office for a few weeks, dismissed the heads of all state-owned companies. At that time, you were the CEO of the large Finmeccanica group. You knew everything about that group because you had been working there for 12 years, climbing the ladder step by step. And, together with a small group of young executives, you had steered it with a steady hand. You never talked to me about your downfall, but I could sense your bitterness mixed with anger.
  • From the letter addressed to his son Alessandro Pansa, published by La Verità

• Giorgio Bocca can be summed up in a few words. He was a great journalist, but also highly partisan and prone to serious errors. We worked together at the same newspapers, starting with Il Giorno and then spending many years at La Repubblica and L'Espresso, but we were never friends. Bocca was a complex man: he did not like competitors or people who contradicted him. We fought many battles against each other, but there is no point in dwelling on them. Today, Giorgio is gone. I don't know if Italy will miss him, as some of his colleagues at La Repubblica say, but he will certainly leave a void... which I, however, do not regret.
  • During the television program “TG2,” Rai 2, in memory of Giorgio Bocca the day after his death, December 26, 2011. Quoted in News.centrodiascolto.it

• The left wing party has always told lies, starting with the invasion of Hungary and continuing through the Popular Front campaign. All parties lie, but some more than others. The Italian Communist Party, however, has always lied.
  • «Ora la teppaglia è dentro Rifondazione», il Giornale.it, 22 October 2006.

• A yellow-green government? It is not a trivial center-right government, but a government of terrorists. A terrorist government that wants to destroy everything, wipe out Italy and its democracy. We are on the brink of an abyss.
  • From the TV program Piazzapulita, La7; quoted in Gisella Ruccia, Pansa: "È un governo di terroristi. Ne serve uno di tecnici sostenuto da militari. Di Maio e Di Battista non sanno un c...", ilFattoQuotidiano.it, 8 February 2019

• Reporter: If you waited a little longer to write, everything would have disappeared. Some say that oblivion is better... Giampaolo Pansa: Trouble, trouble. What is the point of living if you give up on the truth? The history of a country is made up of those who fought wrong wars and sought absurd goals. We must accept this and honor those who suffered, not necessarily sharing their memory, but accepting it, giving it citizenship. [...] The left always brings up this anti-fascism. Berlusconi like Mussolini, the authoritarian state imposed by Mediaset... Sovereign lies. From the right, you can reflect on that yourselves. We should start again from this mutual recognition of the public right to one's own memory.
  • Libero, 7 October 2005.

• Words can turn into stones, stones into bullets. It has already happened: Italy was held captive by terrorism for almost twenty years. It is a danger that could return, and I would not want Grillo, even against his plans and programs, to become the vehicle for this terrible evil.
  • Tg1, Rai 1, 23 September 2007

• Someone said of Sergio Mattarella: in politics, he is tenacious and persistent, like a falling drop of water.
  • L'ultimo dei morotei contro i re delle tessere, la Repubblica, 7 February 1989

• When I hear Grillo shouting, Italians, it sends a chill down my spine, because it reminds me of someone who shouted the same word with the same emphasis from a balcony in Palazzo Venezia.
  • Tg1, Rai 1, 23 September 2007

• (About Mario Capanna) In short, a leader of protest: without restraint, but also without the protection of party apparatus, always forced to be at the forefront, to make mistakes, and to pay the price personally.
  • Capanna, "buon figliolo", La Stampa, 10 February 1970

• (To q:it:Angelo D'Orsi who criticized him for the absence of any footnotes in his revisionist texts on Fascism) You sell 2,000 copies and I sell 40,000... do you want footnotes too?
  • Tomaso Montanari, Pansa, la sconcertante santificazione di un falsario, MicroMega, Repubblica.it, 15 January 2020.

Il bestiario

• Fabio Fazio}} He too is red, a cherry red that is unmatched even on the vermilion Rai Tre. But he loves to play the opposite role. That of the innocent little priest without a parish, friend to all and enemy to none. In reality, in today's Rai, fragmented into sultanates, there is no one more partisan than him. His hand is wrapped in gray velvet, but inside he hides a poisoned stiletto. It is with this blade that Fazio practices inflexible censorship. [...] Fazio had invited Pietro Ingrao [...]. In a moment of memory loss, the old communist leader claimed that the Italian Communist Party had strongly distanced itself from the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. A complete falsehood, as history teaches us. But Fazio and the invited audience were careful not to object. Not even a murmur, a cough, or a sidelong glance. Why? Edmondo Berselli, a free-thinking intellectual who recently passed away, explained it this way in L'Espresso: “Because at that moment, they were celebrating the apotheosis of an impossible communism, a utopia, a great dream, an assault on heaven. And so much the worse for the facts, if the facts interrupt the emotions.” Fazio is not interested in the truth of the facts. Especially when he paints a picture of Italian history and reality that clashes with his narrow political horizon.
  • Saviano non fidarti di Fazio, 30 October 2010

• Satire is banned on Rai, except when it is directed against Il Caimano, hated by the red sultans. These are the masters of the many talk shows controlled by the guerrilla left. Those who, with public money, taxes and license fees paid by us foolish taxpayers, have given themselves a fanatical mission: to send Berlusconi and the center-right to hell. [...] They know they have a militant audience behind them and they excite them in many ways. [...] They move like the Khmer Rouge in Pol Pot's Cambodia. They don't cut off their opponents' heads, but they attack with the same rapid brazenness, provoking the enemy and launching surprise attacks. “Come away with me” is the clearest example of this tactic. [...] The story is an example of what Italy has become. A Babel where only the destroyers are in charge. While the Casta fills its mouth with the word “legality” and at the same time destroys it. Like the double-dealing Fini. He will have the kiss of Fazio and Saviano, even though he is glued to a chair he no longer deserves.
  • La suocera (e i cognati) di Zapatero, 13 November 2010

• I was outraged and frightened by the assault on the Senate, which saw a team of hooded men break through the first entrance. The Senate, like the Chamber of Deputies, belongs to all Italians. And I am appalled by the question posed by La Stampa on Thursday. It said: “Must we respect the Senate? Even if Schifani is there?” This small, not very ironic detail is enough to suggest that the left is no longer playing with fire, but with death.
  • La sinistra scherza col morto, 27 November 2010.

• Today's street protests are not being led by students. They are being led by another privileged class: university professors and researchers. They do not want to lose their privileges, which are considerable for the former and modest for the latter. That is what matters to them, not the comatose state of Italian universities.
  • La sinistra scherza col morto, 27 November 2010.

• There are no valid reasons for such chaos, which has a very clear political objective: to bring down the Berlusconi government. Perhaps this will not be a difficult task, given the comatose state of the executive. But even if it succeeds, it will not erase the hypocrisy of too many media outlets. Newspapers and television are mostly on the side of the protesters.
  • La sinistra scherza col morto, 27 November 2010.

• (About the daily newspaper la Repubblica}} A guerrilla paper that goes into battle every day to destroy Berlusconi.
  • La sinistra scherza col morto, 27 November 2010.

• The news program Sky TG24 is sick with anti-Cav sectarianism. It seems to me that it has become Murdoch's Telekabul. A twin of Tg3, Rai's red news program. Strange? Not really. The owner of Sky, the Australian Rupert Murdoch, the Shark, does not like Berlusconi at all. And since the beginning of time, the donkey has always been tied where the master wants. Especially if it is a television donkey.
  • La sinistra scherza col morto, 27 November 2010.

• Gianfranco Fini, the most surprising chameleon in the national political zoo. He owed everything to Berlusconi, starting with his escape from the post-fascist ghetto. Yet he tried to kill him. With a continuous guerrilla war, which began immediately after he joined the People of Freedom party. It is pointless for Fini's squires to keep repeating that Gianfry was expelled by Berlusconi. Italians are not stupid.
  • Il film noir di martedì 14 dicembre, 11 December 2010.

• We are used to saying that we must defend ourselves in trials and not from trials. Yet I would like to see how the many politicians who preach this would behave.
  • Il film noir di martedì 14 dicembre, 11 December 2010.

• We are a patient and hardworking people. Yet it is wise not to forget the old adage: sometimes even ants, in their own small way, get pissed off.
  • Il film noir di martedì 14 dicembre, 11 December 2010.

• I have learned that judges should not be criticized. They are a very powerful force and jealous of their autonomy.
  • La minestra non scende dal cielo, 18 December 2010.

I gendarmi della memoria

Incipit

I didn't expect the trouble that befell me in Reggio Emilia. Over the years, I had presented dozens and dozens of books, both my own and those of others, in public. And I had never, ever been attacked: for no reason whatsoever, let alone for reasons of political hostility.

Quotes

• How does a police officer act? When he encounters someone breaking the law, he catches them and throws them in jail. So that they dare not disobey the law again. The Gendarmes of Memory behave in the same way. They consider themselves the sole guardians of the only authorized and legitimate account of the internal conflict that bloodied Italy between the fall of 1943 and April 1945. This then led to a harsh reckoning with the defeated fascists. And anything that contradicts the narrative they defend must be refuted. Or, better still, silenced, ignored, erased. (p. VII)
• There is no doubt that without the PCI there would have been no partisan war. And the Resistance would have been a modest undertaking. But with the PCI, the war of liberation also became a revolutionary war for the conquest of power in Italy. And this subversive project authorized a succession of errors, lies, intrigues, abuses, crimes, and mysteries: all rubbish hidden by a historiography subservient to the interests of that party. (p. IX)
• Italy these days is no longer a normal country. In normal countries, acts of violence such as those committed against the bookshop in Bassano [the locks on the three entrances were sabotaged and blocked] do not happen. And if they do, they are usually severely punished. As deserved by those who arrogate to themselves the right to do anything in the name of a totalitarian perversion that authorizes them to be arrogant towards those who think differently. But in our country, the number one rule, which states that those who offend must be punished, is hardly ever applied anymore. (pp. 54-55)
• Many red partisan bands emerged with the aim of suppressing members of the resistance front parties. The reason for this is clear: those who were not communists but were active in parties such as the Christian Democrats, for example, could become new adversaries. And this new enemy would certainly have opposed the PCI's revolutionary strategy and its plan to seize power in newly liberated Italy. These were, therefore, targeted political crimes. Aimed at terrorizing opponents within the anti-fascist alliance and destroying their ability to resist the communists' plans. (pp. 200-201)
• [According to the left] Revisionism is as dangerous as cyanide. But if it is practiced by the left, it becomes an aspirin that must be swallowed because it will only give us good health. This is the fake revisionism of the usual suspects. It certainly has not won. And I don't think it ever will. (p. 328)
• A friend asked me, “Do you have any regrets?” I replied, “Absolutely not. Also because I have discovered a humanity I did not know. What's more, I have understood what disease is undermining the Oak.” The evil, which is no longer obscure to me, is the fear of having to reflect on oneself and re-read one's political history. And, consequently, the refusal to discuss with those who force you to show your cards and stop playing a reticent and timid game. (p. 342)
• Istria, Dalmatia, Fiume, Pola, Zara, the exodus of 300,000 who did not want to live under Tito, their arrival in Italy amid insults and spittle from activists organized by the PCI... It is useless to talk about these tragedies to the ‘guardians of memory’. They only give the green light to memories that suit them. Instead, they prefer to keep the memory that causes them difficulty locked away in the guardhouse of silence, to silence it, to pretend it does not exist. (p. 365)

Carte false

Incipit

We were naive. Naive and prisoners of a myth and a dream. The myth of fresh ink at dawn. The dream of starting “the job” at a major newspaper.

Quotes

• This applies to young journalists. Not all of them, of course, but many. They are ignorant. They may be intelligent, but they are ignorant. In the sense that school has taught them little in recent years. And they have learned even less on their own. (p. 28)
• Ah, objective journalism! How many times have we deceived readers by waving this phantom flag. (p. 49)
• Not all Italian journalists lie. But some of us, in different eras, have always lied. We lied on behalf of the newspaper owner, especially when the owner's number one interest was not to sell news. We lied out of deference to the ruling political power. We lied to favour the opposition. (p. 51)

Incipit of some Pansa's works

Carta straccia

One Sunday in January 2011, I called Livia Bianchi. My readers will certainly remember her: the librarian from Florence who had assisted me in my research for books on the civil war. Starting with the first, Il sangue dei vinti (The Blood of the Vanquished), up to the last one published in 2010, I vinti non dimenticano (The Vanquished Do Not Forget). Livia knew everything about me, except for the project I had just completed. I asked her, “Dear Livia, first of all, how are you?”. “Very well,” she replied cheerfully. “But I don't think you called me to ask how I am. I can't imagine Pansa calling me without an ulterior motive. Are you thinking of writing another book and want my help again? 'No, I'm not planning any books. For the simple reason that I've already written one. And on my own.”

I bugiardi

‘Infamous! That guy is truly infamous. If I see him, I'll slap him!’
He was distraught, Bettino Craxi. He was seething with anger. Reading a few newspapers, rags full of gossip about his opening speech at the 46th Socialist Congress in Bari, had made him fly off the handle. And now, on the morning of Friday, 28 June 1991, back on stage, the father-master of the PSI was letting off steam. He growled at a reporter from Il Manifesto: "You wrote that Craxi is naked... Remember: he who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind'. The infamous one, however, the one who deserved to be slapped, was me, Pansa from La Repubblica.

Il revisionista

My grandmother Caterina was not a communist. And she would sing mockingly: “The red flag will triumph / over the city's public toilets”. My grandmother was not a Christian Democrat either. She didn't like priests, she only got along with the Franciscan friars from a nearby convent. She saw them walking around in sandals and without socks, even in winter. And that made them look poor, as she had always been.

Il sangue dei vinti

She was a beautiful woman in her forties, tall, more plump than slim, with black hair falling loosely over her shoulders. She wore a dark-coloured dress that mischievously outlined her curves. Her face was dominated by a slender nose, just the right length. And by two eyes that scrutinised you with a courteous, almost sweet expression.

Quotes about

• Well, I must confess that I haven't read all of Giampaolo Pansa's books thoroughly because I feel nauseous when I pick them up, but I know more or less how they are perceived by those who read them. We cannot get inside Giampaolo Pansa's head, so we cannot know whether this man, who used to be a left-winger, had a change of heart at some point and really said to himself: the defeated deserve to be remembered... an injustice has been done in Italy... Whether he realised the effect his books were having, or whether he realised it but cynically carried on because they made him a lot of money. We can no longer say; certainly the books are despicable, not because they may contain inaccuracies [...]. But I would not be at all surprised if these books only reported authentic episodes, because it has always been known in Italy that obviously anything could have happened in the Resistance. These are things that even in the 1950s the fascists, who incidentally were perfectly free in a democracy to publish books in which they recounted these things, so everyone already knew about them even before. [...] So, dramatic episodes? Tragic? Crimes? Crimes committed by partisans with the authorisation of the Allied authorities, who generally told the partisans to “clean up”? Who can say it doesn't matter? Of course, it is always a tragedy, but if we look at the crimes committed by the liberators, then what? The armies that marched up the peninsula committed crimes against the civilian population, against prisoners of war... Ever since they landed in Sicily, and yet the people of Italian cities welcomed them jubilantly, happy that they had arrived. So, the problem is that you can always find individual episodes in any context to put anyone in a good or bad light: what matters is who was on the right side and who was on the wrong side. And I challenge anyone today who turns up their nose at the partisans or has Pansa's books on their bookshelf in plain view to say: 'But would you have preferred the others to win? Would you want to live in a world where Hitler had won? And where the gas chambers would have continued to operate? Really? If you tell me that sincerely, I'm fine with it, okay. But I want to see which readers of Pansa's books would answer yes to that question.
  • Alessandro Barbero, Anna Credendino, Resistenze di ieri e di oggi, Funamboli - Saperi dal basso, 14 maggio 2021; citato in Barbero: "Pansa? Mi viene un rigurgito a vedere quei libri", vassallidibarbero.it

External links

Authority control: WorldCat search