In the thirties of the last century the regime snatched pieces of land to be built in areas mostly marshy and unhealthy. For peasants and people in difficulty meant a new beginning. After 90 years, it can be said that it has not always ended well. But today there is some good projects.
Littoria. Sabaudia. Aprilia. But also built -in village, lash and many others. There are dozens of places that were born on the reclaimed and colonized lands during the fascist period. Places torn from marshes and malaria, and made habitable. More: planned to be self -sufficient, to contrast urbanization and go to support life in the countryside. After more or less ninety years old, and except for the famous places related to the reclamation of the Pontine Agro or the beauties connected to the Circeo National Park, what remains of it? What remains of the less popular, and certainly more peripheral places?
They enjoyed alternate fortunes. In some cases they were literally let go and where there was a thought for the population remain ruins. Other locations have never stopped working and from countries have become small cities. Then there are those abandoned rural villages that more and more often, in these days, are reborn thanks to recovery initiatives, between artistic communities, social cooperatives and young farmers. The case of Borgo Incoronata, a hamlet of Foggia, which has maintained its agricultural vocation and today with its 650 inhabitants – far from the 6,000 desired in fascist time – preserves its plant in line with the canons of the architectural rationalism of the time, and the inscription “believing obeying” on the top of the former house of the beam that recalls its birth. Also redefined as small rural communities Borgo Grappa and Borgo Montenero, in Lazio.
In Sicily, Borgo Lupo stand out, in the province of Catania, Borgo Borzellino, in the province of Palermo, and Borgo Bonsignore in the Agrigentofor which around 14 million euros were allocated by the Sicily region, useful for architectural restoration and repopulation. We take Borgo Bonsignore: it counts just 51 residents, it revives during the summer but cannot reach the ancient glories, when there were over 600 people to crowd the roads permanently. The hope is that its architecture that tells the typical conception of the 1930s – with the central square dominated by the Torre del Littorio – can return to shine as is happening in Sardinia.
Here is the case of Fertilia, a hamlet of the Municipality of Alghero, officially founded on March 8, 1936 during the fascist period with the aim of hosting colonists mainly from Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. After the Second World War, the village also welcomed Istrian and Dalmatian exiles, whose cultural influences are still visible in the toponymy and local symbols, such as the winged lion of San Marco.
«Today Fertilia is a great symbol of resilience, born thanks to a single common denominator represented by poverty and dedication to the work of various communities Who have chosen this strip of Sardinia to reconstruct a new life at the end of a long journey to the unknown, “says Mauro Manca, director of the Egean Ecomuseum of Fertilia. «His story is long. At first, between 1935 and 1939, the farmers of Polesine, Ferrarese and Venetian for the reclamation desired by the fascist regime, who decides to found a new city, still well preserved in rationalism, arrive in this marshy and unhealthy land. Then, to live in the new town which has remained unfinished because of the war, it arrives, starting from 1947, a large number of families of exiles of Istria, river and Dalmatia, led by a young priest determined to create a new Pula here “. To these are added the Italians repatriated by Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Corsica, Romania and Isola di Rodi.
“All together,” Remember Manca, “give birth to a united and perfectly integrated community. Here man and territory have grown together, giving life to an example that today, in a world that is divided, instead represent a positive and virtuous example that with the museum we wanted to tell ». And having such a place costs, not just the energy of the volunteers. «We are the only private ecomuseum that pays the rent to the Sardinia Region. We have renovated at our expense the portion of an abandoned public property. The truth is that we serve the Damnatio Memoriae due to the fascist origin of this place, and unfortunately we are forced to manage everything under the regime of absolute volunteering, since no public administration has supported us continuously “. In this way, however, the food and wine traditions that have nourished this land, making it a unique mix of history, culture, economy and territory, also risk getting lost.
A bit like it is happening in Puglia. The most tragically emblematic case is Borgo Mezzanone. Here, the writer arrives with many hopes: we have in fact pushed ourselves on the border of Puglia – in the province of Foggia, not far from Manfredonia – with the ambition to find that blooming philosophy that in 1934 had inspired the foundation of this place after the reclamation conducted by the fascist regime. Once known as “Borgo la Snpe” -in memory of the young fascist Cerignolano Raffaele La Serpe, who died during the attempt to deal with the Chamber of Labor of San Severo -, Borgo Mezzanone sees his design entrusted in July 1934 to the architect Domenico Sandri and the engineer Giovanbattista Canevari, who equipped it with meeting room and gym, school, church, bottergia and tobacconist. Well with tank for the distribution of drinking water, sports field, carabinieri barracks and residences for settlers.
During the Second World War, the area hosted an air base used by the United States, which was then managed by the Italian Air Force for training. “Everything changed in 2005, when they transformed this place into a reception center for asylum seekers,” says Massimo Trabucchi, who lives not far from Cara. Where once there were fields and silence, now there is a slum built with makeshift materials that lives in a perpetual emergency. A real ghetto that hosts thousands of migrants, mainly used as agricultural laborers in the surrounding countryside.
«They live in precarious conditions, they suffer from lacking toilets, They do not have access to drinking water or health care. It is an area completely in disarray, where every type of control by the police and carabinieri has disastrous effects », continues the man. The reference is to the end of May intervention of the Foggia Police Headquarters which seized 11 cars, the proceeds of illegal activities.
On the other hand, they proliferate work exploitation and the corporal, the true masters of the ghetto in front of the total inability of the institutions to end this small hell, In which abandonment has been stratified for years as Luca Maria Pernice specifies, which in Schiavi d’Italia (Paoline 2024) analyzes this land of no one populated by degradation. “In 2017 he became one of the largest ghettos not only of the Capitanata, but in Italy and Europe”. A tank of cheap workers. A basin of exploited deputies to become labor from the negligible cost to govern the 550 thousand hectares of agricultural land of the Tavoliere. With all due respect – at least for now – of what it was.
