Ricerc@Sapienza

The research team aims to collect evidence about the work of scholars dealing with Central and Eastern European subjects, in the field of the Humanities, during the XXth century. A multisciplinary and international approach has been adopted, involving researchers from Italian and other European institutions: Annalisa Cosentino (PI), Luigi Marinelli, Camilla Miglio, Stefania De Lucia, Angela Tarantino, Francesca Terrenato, Barbara Ronchetti, Andrea Berardini, Christos Bintoudis (Sapienza University of Rome); Gabriele Mazzitelli (Tor Vergata University); Anna Maria Perissutti (University of Udine); Alessandro Catalano (University of Padua); Ayşe Saraçgil and Luciana Brandi (University of Florence); Josef Vojvodík, Libuše Heczková and Jan Wiendl (Charles University in Prague); Ioana Bot (University of Cluj); Ligia Tudurachi (Romanian Academy); Ol'ga Gurevič form RGGU University; Piotr Salwa (Polish Academy of Sciences).

During the XXth century historians, philologists and other literati often worked in highly complex contexts, determined by wars, revolutions, regimes. Investigation on this often overlooked aspect is needed: in most cases they couldn't choose their subjects freely, without experiencing restrictions or psychological pressure, were in fact exposed to extra-literary conditions. In order to collect and interpret documents on the concrete conditions in which they could operate, the research team shall work not only in libraries, as rich and commented bibliographies are already available, but mainly in archives, both run by public institutions and private ones.

An already running research project about the first steps of the Italian scholar A. M. Ripellino in the field of Bohemistics after the end of World War II shows evidence of the close relation between literary work and politics. The present research focuses on A. M. Ripellino's work in the field of Czech and Russian literatures, dealing also with his colleagues and continuators; on the central position of Polish Studies in the field of Italian Slavic studies and of the Roman school of Slavic philology; on the work of specialists of Romanian literature and culture Rosa Del Conte and Marian Papahagi; on the  tracks of continuity before and after 1945 in Germanic studies, strongly endorsed by Giovanni Gentile during Fascism; on the role of mediator played by Giacomo Prampolini, a polyglot translator and personal friend of Dutch and Nordic authors (and a connoisseur of Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Romanian literatures).

The first results of the research have been discussed in an international workshop, and published in 2021 as special issues of the Classe A journals Slovo a smysl/Word and Sense and Romània orientale.