Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (19 June 1926 – 14 March 1972) was an Italian publisher and left-wing political activist. He founded the publishing house Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore in 1954. He was also a communist and founded the GAP militant grouping in 1970.^[1][2] GAP would become the second terrorist organization to be formed during the Years of Lead.

Early life

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was born into one of Italy's wealthiest families descendents of Feltre, as marquess of Gargnano. His father Carl served in high positions with numerous companies including jobs in the lumber field. The young Giangiacomo first took an interest in the lives of workers and the poor during discussions with the staff who ran his family's estate. He came to believe that, under capitalism the vast majority of people could never attain his privileges and were compelled to sell their labour to the industrialists and landowners for a pittance.^{[citation needed]} During the latter stages of World War II, Giangiacomo joined the Gruppo di Combattimento "Legnano"^[3] and at the same time he enrolled in the Italian Communist Party (PCI), fighting the invading German army and the remnants of Mussolini's regime. Over the next few years, Giangiacomo played a key role in financing the activities of the PCI.

In the post-war period the PCI held a very powerful position amongst the Italian electorate. The country was in economic ruins and the Party's opposition to Mussolini had gained it great poplarity. Given the widespread radicalisation in society, it would have been easily attainabe for the PCI to embark on a struggle to peacefully take power on a number of occasions. The leadership of the Party, however, was firmly under the influence and control of Joseph Stalin. Under his orders, the PCI involved itself in coalition governments in Italy, which would see them sharing power with progressive capitalist parties. But even this was too much for Italian Anti-Communists, who were afraid that the PCI in office would unleash a revolution from above.

Publisher

Near the end of 1954, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli established a reputable publishing company, Feltrinelli Editore. The first published book from the Milan publishing house was the autobiography of the first Indian minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In the late 1950s Feltrinelli accidentally came across the manuscript of the novel Doctor Zhivago by the Russian writer Boris Pasternak. Set in Russia, the novel follows a multitude of characters from 1903 to 1943, the period of revolution, Leninism and Stalinism. At once, Feltrinelli saw a masterpiece. Nikita Khrushchev and the PCI leaders saw it entirely differently and refused to allow any criticism whatsoever of the Soviet Union.

Senior Service records the fascinating correspondence between Feltrinelli and Pasternak, as they successfully resisted clumsy attempts by the Soviet regime to halt publication of the novel. However, Doctor Zhivago immediately became an international best seller, to be followed by several popular film adaptations. As a result of his defiance of Moscow, Feltrinelli was expelled from the PCI in disgrace.

Feltrinelli Editore scored another coup in 1958 and became the first to publish The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Described as the greatest novel of the century, The Leopard centres on the Sicilian nobility during the Risorgimento, when the Italian middle class rose violently and formed a united Italy under Guiseppe Garibaldi and the House of Savoy.

Whatever his own reading tastes, Feltrinelli was always keen to promote the avant-garde, including the works of the influential Group 63 literary circle. He also took the risk of illegally publishing and distributing novels banned under obscenity laws, such as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer.

Activism

Feltrinelli spent the next years travelling the world and making links with various radical Third World leaders and anti-imperialist and guerrilla movements. In 1964, Feltrinelli met the leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, supporter of the main South American and international movements of liberation, with which long friendship was hoped to be established. In 1967, Feltrinelli arrived in Bolivia and met with Régis Debray. He published the writings of figures such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and a series of pamphlets on the unfolding revolution in the colonial world and the Middle East.

Death

On March 15, 1972, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was found dead at the foot of a high-voltage power line pylon at Segrate, near Milan, apparently killed by his own explosives while on an operation with other GAP members ^[4]. Like his father's death, the passing of Giangiacomo was immediately viewed suspiciously. Many believed Italian secret services, which had a number of informants in the underground groups, had a part in his death.

Epilogue

The sum contribution of the short-lived GAP to the class struggle, like the Red Brigades, was to disorientate some sections of the working class and to give the state excuses to use repressive measures. Yet 8,000 youth and workers attended Feltrinelli's funeral. Undoubtedly, they were paying homage to a son of the ruling class who had broken ranks and pursued an intransigent goal of revolution, as well as having created a valuable publishing house whose affordable publications both informed and enlightened.

References

Further reading

• Carlo Feltrinelli (2002). Feltrinelli: A Story of Riches, Revolution, and Violent Death. Harcourt. 
• Knigge, Jobst C.. Feltrinelli – Sein Weg in den Terrorismus, Humboldt Universitaet Berlin 2010

de:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

es:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli eo:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli fr:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli it:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli pt:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli ro:Giangiacomo Feltrinelli ru:Фельтринелли, Джанджакомо