This morning, I got up, oh beautiful bye, beautiful bye, beautiful bye bye bye ... Whether you love it or hate it, anyone in Italy (and beyond) knows and could sing "Bella Ciao”, At least in its refrain. The famous "partisan song”Is a symbol of freedom and revolt against the oppressor and, for this very reason, it is associated with 25th April (day of Liberation of Italy from Nazi-fascism). Thanks to its powerful message, the song has seen its popularity grow even beyond national borders, becoming the anthem of universal resistance sung in Turkeyin Iraqin Chile and, even more recently, in Ukraine, destroyed due to theRussian invasion. The popularity of the song in recent years has finally grown also thanks to the TV series Netflix "The paper house". But was “Bella ciao” really born as a partisan song? The answers in this case are conflicting.

Origins of Bella ciao

The origins of the song are uncertain. For some, the melody was taken from that of a piece of popular tradition Yiddish (Hebrew), in the version played by the musician Mishka Ziganoff (1919). Others think instead it is a re-adaptation of the version sung by mundane in the Thirties (from which he takes the famous verse "oh bella ciao"). As for the text, on the other hand, this would resume a Piedmontese popular piece of the late nineteenth century, entitled Tomb flower (also present in the Venetian and Lombard tradition). In this case, freedom or the Resistance has nothing to do with it, but the song is about a woman who sees her love of her with another woman talking about her and wants to die of a broken heart. The partisan song is officially reported for the first time in 1953, in the magazine "Lapa". Success then comes in 1964, when it is proposed to Festival of the two worlds of Spoleto (in the version of the mondine).

Partisan song or not?

Today the common thought has it that this piece is a song of the partisans. The reality, according to some, is not quite this. The journalist and partisan George Mouth he declared that in the 20 months of the guerrilla war he never heard anyone singing “Bella ciao”. The journalist is of the same opinion Giampaolo Pansa that, in his book "Bella ciao. Counter-history of the Resistance”, He wrote that the piece was never of the partisans, as many believe. On the other hand, the historian Cesare Bermani states that the song was already sung by the partisans of the Maiella Brigade in Abruzzo. The same thesis is supported by the historian Roger Giacomini, who stated that the song was already sung in 1944 by the partisans who arrived in the Marche. However, there doesn't seem to be any mention of Bella ciao before the early XNUMXs. In fact, it does not even appear in the "partisan songs" of the "Italian songwriter"of Pasolini, dated 1955.

How did “Bella ciao” thus become a symbol of resistance? Thanks to his engaging music and his evocative text. Today many think that this is a "leftist" song, a communist song, but even in this case it is a commonplace. Unlike other songs like "The wind blows”,“ Bella ciao ”does not present any reference to politics and communism and was even used at the end of the Christian Democrat congress from 1976. Sung all over the world, in various versions and in various languages, "Bella ciao" is a universal hymn of freedom. Even if its history does not begin with the partisans, today it is a symbol of the Resistance, to be sung on April 25, like every day, to remind us that our society and the Republic have the scent of that "flower of the partisan”, Who died for freedom.

Featured photo: © Wilma Guerrini - Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Bella ciao: history of the most famous song of the Italian Resistance last edit: 2022-04-25T12:30:00+02:00 da Antonello Ciccarello

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