Notable Women Writers and Diarists

Appendix Notable Women Writers and Diarists Lucia “Turco” Anziutti (1889–1956) Two drafts of her unpublished diary available at the Museo Provinciali, Borgo Castello, Gorizia. In her twenties during the war, Anziutti stayed behind when Austro- German forces conquered her village, Forna di Sopra (in the Friuli region). She worked with the Red Cross. Her unpublished diary has a strong patriotic tone. Mercedes Astuto (dates unknown) I vivi (diario di guerra) di Mercedes Astuto, infermiera volontaria di Croce Rossa. Roma: 1935. Astuto was a volunteer Red Cross nurse first working at home in Vicenza then at the Italian Front until the Caporetto retreat. She was single and served alongside two other women from her family. She published her war diary in 1935, and it won a prize for best monograph on the conflict. She received a Medal for Military Valor for her work in a surgical ambulance unit during the Great War. She later published adult and children’s fiction and wrote a spiritual guide for nurses (1938). Her fascist sympathies sur- face in her other publications, including The Letter to Mussolini (1938) and an article in the Almanacco della donna italiana from 1936 called “The Ital- ian Woman and Our Colonies.” Her body of work reflects her deep com- mitment to Catholicism and nationalism. Population estimates come from Baedeker’s guidebooks: Karl Baedeker, Handbook for Travellers: Northern Italy (Leipzig: Baedeker, 1913), and Karl Baedeker, Handbook for Travel- lers: Austria (Leipcig: Baedeker, 1900). 190 WOMEN AND THE GREAT WAR Valeria Bais (1900–1980) Diary published in Scritture di guerra, vol. 4, edited by Quinto Antonelli et al. 14–32. Trento: Museo Storico, 1996. Bais was a teenager during the war years and hailed from Rovereto, a town south of Trento of about nine thousand inhabitants. During the war, she followed orders to evacuate to Austria. She most likely wrote her diary after the war when she had returned home. It remained unpublished during her lifetime but is available in volume 4 of Quinto Antonelli’s Scritture di Guerra series. She married Giuseppe Versini, an agricultural worker, in 1921, and they had six children. Pina Bauzon (1887–1934) “Queste pagine saranno la storia della mia casa.” In La guerra in casa, 1914– 1918, Soldati e popolazione del Friuli Austraico nella Grande Guerra: Romans, edited by Lucio Fabi, 88–120. Monfalcone: Edizioni della Laguna, 1991. Bauzon was a young, single, well-off woman from Versa, a town in Fri- uli, where she lived during the war with her mother and brother (her father had died in 1913). Her diary includes a mix of personal and war news. She describes her interactions with soldiers, and she clearly enjoyed Italian occupation. After the war she married an Italian soldier, Dr. Dario Menestrini of Perugia, who had been stationed in Versa. They met in January 1917. Her diary, covering May 1915 through 1919, remained unpublished until 1991. Maria Borra (dates unknown) Nell’anno di cattività 28 ottobre 1917—3 novembre 1918: Ricordi di una maestra udinese. Udine: Del Bianco, 1919. Borra was an unmarried elementary school teacher during the war. Her diary provides ample description about the occupation of Udine, a city of about 23,300 inhabitants. She wrote daily entries in her diary (published in 1919) describing the conditions of her community: hunger, repression, and anxiety. She was overtly pro-Italian and resented the Austro-German occupiers who ruled Udine from 1917 to 1918. Argelia Butti (1856–1924) La donna e la guerra. Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1921. A vocal pacifist, Butti was an elderly artist when the war began. Her sister was the better-known writer Adele Butti. She also published poetry. NOTABLE WOMEN WRITERS AND DIARISTS 191 Laura Casartelli-Cabrini (dates unknown) Articles in Almanacco della donna italiana, 1920–1921. Casartelli was a prominent Socialist and feminist and the featured col- umnist on women’s issues for the Almanacco della donna italiana. Because of her noncompliance with Fascism, Casartelli was replaced by the ardent Fascist Esther Lombardo for the 1925 to 1926 edition. She is remembered as a pioneer of the Italian women’s movement and an anti-Fascist. Carla Lavelli Celesia (dates unknown) Editor of Assistenza civile. A baroness, Celesia directed the umbrella organization dedicated to civilian aid in Italy, the Federazione Comitati Assistenza, based in Milan. Her name appeared on the masthead of Assistenza civile, along with Renzo Sachetti of the Opera federate assistenza e propaganda based in Rome. In 1939, she published Pensieri, scritti, discorsi, opere di Carla Celesia, Baron- essa di Vegliasco in Lavelli de Capitani. A publication at that time signifies a strong possibility of collaboration with the Fascist regime. Maria Antoinetta Clerci (dates unknown) Al di là del Piave coi morti e coi vivi, ricordi di prigionia. Como: Vittorio Omarini, 1919. Clerici was a volunteer nurse who refused to leave her post during the Caporetto disaster. The invading Austrians sent her to Katzenau concen- tration camp two months later. Most of the diary (published in 1919) not only concerns her time in prison but also details life at the hospital during the retreat. She graduated from nursing school in 1914, but her age is unknown; she was probably young during the Great War. Gemma De Daninos (dates unknown) Impressioni di guerra 1915–1918. Milano: Coen, 1919. Published in 1919, De Daninos’s collection of poetry is held by the Bib- lioteca storico moderna e contemporanea in Rome. No other biographical information has been found. 192 WOMEN AND THE GREAT WAR Maria di Borio (dates unknown) La fede e la vittoria: Diario. Torino: S. Lattes, 1916. Di Borio was a countess from Turin; her full name was Maria Gauthier Panzoja di Borio. She was a famous author who published at least a dozen titles (besides Fede e Vittoria, her lengthy prowar tract) before and after the Great War. Her work reflects her conservative and spiritual worldview. She lost a son in the Great War. Donna Paola (1866–1954) La donna della nuova Italia: Documenti del contributo femminile alla guerra (maggio 1915–maggio 1917). Milano: Quintieri, 1917. La funziona della donna in tempo di guerra. Firenze: Bemporad, 1915. Articles in Assistenza civile. Paola Baronchelli Grosson, a noblewoman born in Bergamo, wrote under the pen name Donna Paola. A feminist and interventionist, she was a coeditor of the journal Scena Illustrata in Florence for 20 years and an established author before the war began. Baronchelli was a prolific author, writing articles, short stories, dramas, novels, and children’s books. During the war (when she was about 50), she wrote two important books examin- ing the roles of women in wartime. Her book from 1917, La donna della nuova Italia, is available on microfilm and is perhaps the most cited con- temporary source about Italian women and the Great War. Anna Franchi (1866–1954) A voi, soldati futuri, dico . Milano: A. Vallardi, 1916. Articles in Assistenza civile and propaganda pamphlets. Franchi was a well-known journalist, novelist, essayist, and critic. She was a leading feminist voice of the early twentieth century, publishing an important book on divorce. She lost her only son in the war, so her prowar and patriotic stance carried extra significance. Berta Allatini Friedmann (dates unknown) Ricordi e impressioni 1915–1919. Livorno: S. Belforte, 1919. Friedmann was a French-born Italian who lived in Livorno during the war. Her husband, Guido Friedmann, served as a captain at the Italian Front, and she visited him three times, recording her travels. At home, she NOTABLE WOMEN WRITERS AND DIARISTS 193 volunteered as a nurse during the war. Her published diary (1919) includes photographs taken by Guido during the war. She described her trips up and down the lines in borrowed cars to visit her cousins who were also serving. Her dates are unknown, but Guido was born in 1877 and died in 1939, so she was probably between 30 and 40 during the war. The couple had two children. Although they were a Jewish family (Guido’s promotion to captain was featured in the American Jewish Yearbook, vol. 18, in 1916), she did not discuss religion in her book. Teresa Garbari (dates unknown) “Memorie,” in Museo Storico, Trento. In her 11-page, typed diary, Garbari described how she returned home to Trento from visiting Linz despite the Austrian prohibition on letting people return to the contested area. Her solution was to join the Austrian Red Cross. She held strong pro-Italy sympathies and nursed Italian pris- oners of war (POWs), despite the protestations of her superiors. She later traveled to Udine and Trieste to help Irredentists. For Garbari, nursing was inseparable from patriotism because it was the vehicle by which she could most directly contribute to Italy’s success in the war. Her unpublished diary is housed in Trento at the Museo Storico. Antonietta Giacomelli (1857–1949) Dal diario di una Samaritana: Ai nostri soldati e alle loro infermiere. Milano: A. Solmi, 1917. Vigilie (1914–1918). Firenze: Bemporad, 1919. Giacomelli was in her sixties and already a published writer when the war began. She was a third-order Franciscan who became a volunteer nurse; she published two “diaries” of her Great War experience that read more like propaganda than personal reflection. She continued to write extensively during the Fascist years and published a diary during World War II. She lived in Treviso and Ziano di Fiemme before Italy began participating in the Great War but went to Trento and Padua in 1915. She traveled through- out the war and served in a field hospital in the war zone from January to March 1917 as a Samaritana, a member of a group similar to the Red Cross but with formal ties to the Catholic Church.

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