SUSPENDED LIVES. Testimonies of women in post-war transitions

In this lesson/performance, the historian Marta Verginella takes us into the world of the first and second post-war years through the words and lives of the women who narrated their disorientation in diaries, autobiographies or psychiatric hospital records. What emerges is a difficult emotional adaptation to the post-war reality and above all the difficulty in accepting the shifting of borders and the consequent new national belonging of the territory. The experiences of Italian, Slovenian and Croatian writers and intellectuals resonate on the scene in their original languages, but also of less educated people, such as Tolmin’s housekeeper Neža Remec, or the patients of psychiatric hospitals. A cross-section where the great history is intertwined with individual events and gender issues. Each of these women is looking for her own emancipation, autonomy, and freedom in a still very patriarchal society. The actresses Laura Bussani and Nikla Petruška Panizon skilfully give voice and body to different women: women who study despite the contrary opinion of their fathers, women who support the right to vote, women who earn their own economic independence. Curated by Sabrina Morena. In collaboration with ERC Eirene Project.