Romano Prodi, an Italian story – time.news

by time news
from VENANZIO POSTIGLIONE

From his youth in Reggio Emilia to the summit of Europe: the autobiography «Strana vita, la mia» (Solferino), with Marco Ascione, goes beyond politics. And it tells our country

An image. Which becomes a metaphor and perhaps a whole life. Nine brothers, all studying around the same rectangular table, “with the anthologies and vocabularies of Latin and Greek sliding from side to side”. Share and compete, compete and share. In a (such) large family you have to grab your space and be good in your place: at the same time. In a complicated, but also fun, balance that can bring you from the parish of Reggio Emilia to the top of Europe.


We are confirming that books, once born, begin an existence of their own, if they have something to say. We understand how Strange life, mine from Romano Prodi with Marco Ascione (Solferino) was born under the star of political biography but is already becoming something more in the early days. A re-reading of our recent history, a cross-section of the Italian labyrinths, a return of the Prof in the debate on the left, a (sometimes bitter) script where leaders roar and collapse between dawn and dusk. On each page you can see, feel, the good nature and claws of Prodi, copyright of Edmondo Berselli, as if he were talking to us under the arcades of Bologna. But we also appreciate the clear and direct style of Ascione, head of the Politico here at Corriere: because the book can be read in one breath, the best compliment that can be given to a journalist.



A Christian Democrat family, in Reggio Emilia,
in the forties and fifties, where everything but absolutely everything is branded PCI, as in a story by Guareschi. The young Prodi was born and raised anti-communist and one day would have been defined as a communist, political extravagances. Studying is the only way to social redemption, as our fathers and grandparents told us, we often go to bed without dinner, the oratory is the place where we learn to discuss and the high school professors “are the real moral leaders of the city “(what a beauty). Another world. Where the present seemed better only because there was a good future in sight. A nationwide village Saturday.

The Via Emilia towards Bologna, the landing place at Milano which is always one step ahead, the university that welcomes those who are good and also not wealthy. The story of Prodi as a boy, a young man, an adult, becomes the mirror of the social elevator that (then) worked “and everything seemed possible”. Years of dispute, but in one sentence there is the whole Professor: “It happened in ’68, but I was doing something else”. Sounds like the title of a Woody Allen movie. The students even close him in a room, but Prodi takes them out of exhaustion and after two hours they release him: «With this idiot there is no taste».


We are already at 25 November 1978, when he becomes 39 years old Minister of Industry. An experience that lasts only four months, but it is the first step. When he returns to Reggio fresh from his appointment in the government, his mother immediately reserves him a preferential treatment: “Come on, minister, take the garbage down.” The IRI season, “my Vietnam”, the duel with Craxi on Rai, the iron relationship with Andreatta, who also acts as a wedding witness and manages to arrive late, Berlusconi’s descent into the field and the invention of the olive tree, “a tree dear to all Italians, twisted trunk and deep roots” (the description is by Arturo Parisi and clearly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy). The Prof’s bus crosses Italy and, 25 years later, Prodi mentions the three drivers “Franco Azzi, Fabrizio Cotti and Umberto Bianchi known as the grandfather”: it seems a habit but in the meantime he really remembers them.



A piece of Italian history. Between political substance and anecdotes of everyday life. The visit to the League, “Where everyone asked me for advice on their savings”, the difficult cohabitation with Pietro’s, “Who clicks his heels like a soldier.” Romano Prodi remembers the successes, the euro goal above all, but also admits the defeats and errors of assessment. It is understood that the former prime minister would not want to say it but in reality he does and in the end he says it. “The two major parties that were part of the government intended to take back power. I was just a guest. Or a stranger ». The man who beat Berlusconi twice was defeated by his own majority. First with the Olive Tree, then with the Union. Yes D’Alema that “in Gargonza arouses dismay” at the birth of the Democrats with a majority vocation up to the betrayal in the race for the Quirinale, “the primacy of the Party still emerged, whether it was the old PCI or the new Democratic Party”. Italian paradox of the left. Who needs the foreign pope to make it and then can’t stand him, who doesn’t govern when he has won and then he governs after losing.


The book becomes a manifesto. But also a legacy, the Anglo-Saxons would say. The ethics of dialogue always and in any case, “because they are all capable of speaking with St. Francis, but the difficult thing is to speak with the wolf”. The basic idea of “Bring together the reformists”, with the laity, the Catholics, the progressives, the former DCs and the former PCI, beyond the Churches of the past. But also the political project of two coalitions that confront and alternate in government: a horizon born with Segni, made by Berlusconi and Prodi, then vanished on the street. The last term, with the Five Stars allies of Salvini, the Democratic Party and the Knight, only Giorgia Meloni is missing, indicates a path that twists, contradicts itself, goes back. Thirty years later, beyond the electoral laws, there is a political country back in the head, a country that has relied on the talent of Mario Draghi to get out of the pandemic and hang up Europe.

The character of Prodi, whether like it or not, whether he is loved or rejected, is the face of Italy that is recovering from the rubble of war and sits (even) next to the Great. After long chats in Bologna, Marco Ascione it tells about the impulses and also all the falls. Strong ambitions and basic humility. The Prof that in the morning leads the EU Commission and in the evening he participates in condominium meetings and prepares frozen food. The title for a sequel could also be “The European Provincial”. If they feel like it.

Meet them

On Friday 1 October, at 6.30 pm, Romano Prodi will present the book in the Sala Buzzati of the Corriere della Sera, with the director Luciano Fontana, Marco Ascione and Sylvie Goulard. The meeting is organized by the Corriere Foundation (entrance upon reservation on the Foundation’s website. The event will also be live streaming on time.news and on the Facebook pages of Corriere, Fondazione Corriere and Solferino. October 14th at 3.30 pm with Gustavo Zagrebelsky.

September 26, 2021 (change September 26, 2021 | 21:55)

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