Lioni, on stage: "The Farmer Mayor: Rocco Scotellaro"

The Municipality of Lioni will present, in collaboration with the Pro Loco Lioni and the Forum Dei Giovani Lioni, a monologue by Ulderico Pesce: "The Farmer Mayor: Rocco Scotellaro", on 5 August at 9.00 pm at the Lioni station.

Rocco Scotellaro is a poet, writer, politician and researcher from Lucania. The show focuses on his role as the young mayor of Tricarico and poet of the peasant civilization of the South of the 40s, a southern intellectual of great breadth who, from a South forgotten by power, dialogues with militant culture: Calvino, Sciascia, Saba , Vittorini, Pavese.

Today we are still protagonists and spectators of political, social and economic disparities between the South and the more industrialized areas in the North of our country, not to mention the even greater differences between the internal, rural and provincial areas and the large cities.
The obvious difference is that of the infrastructures that cover, or at least should, the entire Italian territory and this is why one of the strongest symbols that characterizes the Irpinia reality was chosen as the location for the event: the railway, the "Avellino - Rocchetta Sant 'Antonio', from which it is hoped that, at least culturally, new and infinite trains will start.

History 

Rocco Scotellaro was born in Tricarico (Matera) on 19 April 1923. In a region of farmers where the illiteracy rate is still around 50%, he was lucky enough to belong to a family of educated artisans. His father Vincenzo is a shoemaker, while his mother Francesca is, as well as a seamstress, the town clerk. Rocco completed his studies brilliantly first in the region, moving between Tricarico, Matera and Potenza, then in Trento (where he lived with a sister), obtaining his classical high school diploma in 1941. He also attempted to graduate in law but the death of his father in 1942 led him to abandon his studies and return to Tricarico. 

During his school years he developed an interest in both literature and politics. He loves talking and conversing with the people of his town, that "peasant world" which he then pours into his poems. He joined the Socialist Party and, in 1946, was elected mayor of Tricarico at just 23 years old. Rocco is a very good orator, gifted with extraordinary empathy and ability to discuss, which allow him to earn the respect of everyone, from the bishop, to the farmers, to the intellectuals. Already a friend of his fellow villager, doctor, writer and great southerner Rocco Mazzarone, he also became friends with Carlo Levi, Manlio Rossi-Doria, Ernesto De Martino, the Americans Friedrich Friedmann and George Peck.

The season of struggles for land occupation, at the end of the 1940s, saw him, as mayor, alongside the farmers. This caused him serious problems: false and defamatory accusations led him to prison first in September 1948 and then again in February 1950. Completely acquitted already in March, embittered he nevertheless decided to resign and leave the country to pursue a literary career in Rome , where he works with Einaudi. 

The desire to commit to his South and "his" farmers is, however, too strong: he collaborates in the drafting of the SVIMEZ regional development plan for Basilicata, dealing in particular with illiteracy and education. In the meantime he continued to write, receiving national recognition such as the Cattolica Prize for dialect poetry (1951) followed by the Monticchio Prize (1952) and the Borgese Prize (1953). The most important, however, the Viareggio Prize for poetry and the San Pellegrino Prize (1954), were awarded to him posthumously: on 15 December 1953 he was struck down by a sudden heart attack. He is buried in Tricarico, under a tombstone with his own beautiful verses as his epitaph: 

“But there is no turning back on the paths.

Other wings will flee

from the straws of the brood,

because along the perishing of time

the dawn is new, it is new.”

(From Semper nuova è l’alba, 1948, vv. 11-15).