"MEMORY IS A PRODUCT OF OBLIVION": UN VIAGGIO INUTILE (1981) BY ROSSANA ROSSANDA IN FRANCO'S SPAIN

In 1962 Rossana Rossanda undertook, on behalf of the Italian Communist Party, a trip to Spain, aiming to strengthen the anti-Franco forces dispersed after the civil war. Instead, her intinerary seemed to be useless, as the title of the book collecting the report of the expedition suggests (1st edition Bompiani, 1981). Un viaggio inutile springs from a double mnemonic filter: the clandestine operation imposed a ban on transcribing travel notes, which Rossanda drafted only on the way back; secondly, eighteen years passed between the experience in Spain and the rewriting of the notes, which took place in 1980. The present work, therefore, aims to explore both the mnemonic devices of Rossanda's journey and its reception by the Spanish public, also by resorting to the translation of the text (Un viaje inutil, Laia, 1984 and Tirant Humanidades, 2021).