It was 1971

It was 1971, I was approaching my sixteenth birthday when I heard about the "Paris Commune" for the first time and in a bookstore I bought Lenin's "The Paris Commune", series "Le Idee" by Editori Riuniti. I was very impressed, the text certainly played its part in my political culture at the time. The history of the insurrection, Lenin's evaluation of the merits and errors, together with those of Marx and Engels had a great effect on me, I felt like one of them, a communard I mean, an animated acerbic revolutionary of 1971.

Now, 50 years later, rivers of water have passed under the bridge, and rather than being inflamed by the memory of that experience, I am moved by the immolation of those women, young people and men. In the second half of last year I wanted to study those months of 1871, it was like a debt to pay. To whom? To no one, if not to my conscience that still retains a space for "La Commune de Paris." I am not a historian, but I still feel like talking about it and remembering it with notes. It is not an operation for a historian, I repeat, it is rather a poetic action that goes along with an artistic production that I started with Lia. Both will continue in the coming months.