Una Città Società Cooperativa - Forlì, Provincia di Forlì-Cesena

stefan S.

THE TEARS OF ELISA - OVERCOMING DEATH OF THE OWN CHILD - UNA CITTA - OPENING SALA KATHARINA MAHN IN 2016 - Forli +++

If you go - seriously - to literature, one of the most challenging "subjects" is death, has always been. Think of Elias Canetti, winner of the Nobel prize. Beyond death, what is far more tough, is death of the own child, may it be a daughter or a son. James Salter, famous American writer who has passed away three years ago, lost - and this is the subject - a daughter in an accident with electricity, but he could never really speak of it.
Katharina Mahn, or also Karin Mahn, was born in Augsburg (the city of Bert Brecht) in the early 1960s and died on Easter monday 1999, of cancer. Katharina Mahn was a great admirer of "comparatistics in literature", quite a particular direction of studies. Has been at the University of Munich. And she had close connections to Forli, not far away from Bologna, and to the people of "Una Citta". Issuing a recurring kind of newspaper. For some - simplified - explanation, one may say that Una Citta stands for a very particular history, coming out of resistenza and the "left intelligentsia", but this time a totally positive notion

Karin, who died at the age of 37 and whom I knew for the good second half of her life, had several rooms full of books, carefully collected over time. Only child , the books went to her mother, Dora Mahn, and were donated to Una Citta, transported to Italy. Very fine books ! +++
Grief : Loosing the own daughter so young amounts to a nightmare, indeed. And it is very hard to deal with this fate, and potentially to overcome it. ++ Finally, in early 2016, there was at Una Citta in Forli the opening of a very large room, better "Sala", with all the books from Katharina, and an opening ceremony. Largely over 100 people attending.
++ Some times, sensibility provided, there are moments you know you will never Forget your lifetime, may it be Forli, a small town. The - let's say - fourth speaker foreseen at the opening was Elisa Giovanetti, Assesora a la Cultura of the City. Before she could speak in excess of ten words (or so), she broke out (this is the right term) in tears, heavily, unable to continue. Absolutely extraordinary. Turn it otherwise : Elisa was SPEAKING by tears, great and unforgettable. Johann Sebastian Bach, the great composer of Leipzig, would have been pleased, or GF Händel. Good enough, I had a wonderful, fresh handkerchief (linen) with me, which I could hand out to her. Instantly, you start to forget Silvio Berlusconi.
Next morning, on the Piazza, we took a wonderful photograph of Dora Mahn and her friend of Switzerland, and you can see that the death of her daughter is less present, after 17 years !
Thanks, indeed, to Elisa, who broke out in tears. The tears we all need (please : need) , to go onward. A very precious moment, like a painting, or an opera ! Go to Forli ! ++ photographs hereafter +++
++ Since 2016, I made many travels to Italy, going down to Roma, and sitting last time at the grave of Gramsci at Cimetero accatolico in Roma.
The "old" article written previously has nothing lost of its urgency. There is a big loss of "shame" as moral quality in the politics, and also a further loss of (useful) modesty. Sometimes, better switch off TV.
The "power" of the tears of Elisa has not diminished, by all means, but to the contrary. In German, what she did, would be called in terms of the protestant - and even catholic - church "ein Akt des Erbarmens", and the value is still there. "Erbarmen" is a timeless value, indeed. ++ And, in the meantime, Corona has added to the need to show "Erbarmen", largely more. The text has gained in value, I must say, and also the photographs. We need still "tears", still real ones, as it occurred in Forli.
Indeed, and for the time to come.

Fabio N.

Stefano I.