Abstract
The Great Hall was packed with people. There was a lot of confusion. The presenter was unable to speak. At a certain point, a man emerged from the crowd, walked toward the microphone, and began to speak: “My name is Ennio De Giorgi and I do not belong to any political party… I do not belong to any party… I do not belong to any party…” But his words were drowned in the cacophony of the crowd. It was 1974 and Italian political parties were in the middle of a campaign for a referendum on whether to keep divorce legal. Conferences with proponents of each side of the debate were invited to speak in the halls of the palace La Sapienza in Pisa, and De Giorgi had gone to listen to Sergio Cotta, who represented the Yes side. “Sergio Cotta was one of the people whom Giovanni Prodi often invited to Pisa for the Science and Faith conferences—explains Giorgio Letta.—On that occasion, there were a group of people who prevented him from speaking. They started to make such a noise that Cotta could not speak. I was there and so was De Giorgi. And De Giorgi was at first was surprised, and then, with his usual courage and candor, tried to intervene. He just wanted the speaker to be allowed to make his arguments, but even he could not make himself heard. He was in front of an audience that was scary. And then I saw him transformed. He became very indignant.”
All of you who are worried about Plyushch’s fate are neither members of a party or a class, nor represent a national interest, but you are only interested in saving a human life, a mental and physical being. The width and breadth of your effort represent a ray of hope in our bitter times. You defend all those who suffer the same violence, who are subject to the same fate and whose names are unknown to me.
Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich
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Notes
- 1.
Specifically, voters were asked whether they wanted to abrogate a 1970 law that allowed couples to divorce. The referendum took place on 12 May 1974 and the overwhelming majority voted No.
- 2.
G. Letta, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 3.
The Christian Democratic Party (led by Amintore Fanfani) and the Communist Party (led by Enrico Berlinguer) were at the time the largest political parties in Italy. The Christian Democrats were the governing party and the Communists were the opposition. The Communists favored a No vote in the referendum (thus keeping the divorce law in place) and the Christian Democrats favored a Yes vote (in favor of its abrogation). (translator’s note.)
- 4.
The letter (entitled “An appeal to clarity”), presumably the same that Letta mentions, was signed by E. De Giorgi, L. Cattabriga, E. Magenes, and L. Radicati, and published in [2].
- 5.
On that occasion, De Giorgi and other signatories wrote: “On the eve of the discussion in the Senate of the proposed law on abortion approved by the Chamber of Deputies, we believe that we represent the opinion of all honest people of any religious belief and of any political opinion, by wishing a wide and in-depth debate that should be a serious look at fundamental human rights, of concern not only for parliamentarians but for the wider public as well. That can only happen if the clear conscience of one’s own personal responsibility is placed above political calculations and interests […].” Communiqué sent to newspapers entitled “Considerations on the right to life and on other human rights,” February 1977, published in [2].
- 6.
A. Marino, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 7.
E. De Giorgi, Un’altra lettera sul clima politico (Another letter on the political climate), letter to newspapers (Pisa, 30 January 1995). Published in [2]. These letters caused De Giorgi to incur the wrath of the writer Gianni Rodari, the author of Favole al telefono and Novelle fatte a macchina, who was instead in favor of united lists. On the pages of the Communist Party daily L’Unità, Rodari harshly accused De Giorgi of confusing the concept of “united lists” with “single lists.” The accusations were factious and exaggerated: De Giorgi was taken aback by this, but the event had no follow-up and was soon forgotten. S. Spagnolo, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 8.
“In the years that followed, the issue of delegated decrees lost importance, but it was possible to organize some good cultural events, bringing students into contact with some of the biggest names in Italian culture.” A. Marino, 31 August 2008.
- 9.
Also known as the Trial of Four, it involved J. Galanskov, A. Ginzburg, A. Dobrovolsky, and V. Lahkova, all accused of anti-Soviet propaganda.
- 10.
Sergio Rapetti adds (email, 4 June 2009): “The Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR was founded by 15 people on 28 May 1969 in Moscow, and was a milestone in the history of dissent, as it was the first group ever of this type and therefore the precursor of the democratic movements in the Soviet Union.”
- 11.
A. Sakharov, E. Bonner, S. Kovalev and others signed a petition. L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris, 1997). In English, A mathematician grappling with his century. Birkhauser (Basel, 2001)
- 12.
L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris, 1997).
- 13.
L. Schwartz relates that in a short time the committee received 800 applicants from France and over 2000 worldwide.
- 14.
S. Spagnolo, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 15.
F. Colombini, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 16.
L. Carbone, Naples, October 2006.
- 17.
L. Modica, academic committee presentation, Pisa, 27 October 1996. Testimony confirmed by A. Marino (31 October 2008) and L. Carbone (2 February 2009).
- 18.
S. Mercanzin in [7].
- 19.
L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris, 1997).
- 20.
From this point, as told by L. Schwartz, Tatiana began to play an essential role in the liberation of her husband. “In fact, wives played a fundamental role in every one of our struggles to free some prisoner, and I ended up thinking that this energy born of love was not just an aid, but an indispensable condition of success”—L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris, 1997).
- 21.
The event was held in Paris and was very successful: “The Day received the support of a large number of well-known figures; in particular, we received an admirable letter from the Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, the support of the unions, that of the central committee of the League for Human Rights, of the Committee against special psychiatric hospitals in the USSR, and that of the 38 Soviets I already mentioned,” remembers Schwartz. De Giorgi himself, when speaking about the fight to free Plyushch, often quoted a few paragraphs from Shafarevich’s letter: “All of you who are worried about Plyushch’s fate are neither members of a party or a class, nor represent a national interest, but you are only interested in saving a human life, a mental and physical being. The width and breadth of your effort represent a ray of hope in our bitter times. You defend all those who suffer the same violence, who are subject to the same fate and whose names are unknown to me.”
- 22.
L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris 1997). Andrieu’s article, says Schwartz, was full of accusations against the Socialists and the way they had framed their battle. However, the most important thing was that the French Communists had recognized the need to support human rights, even in the Soviet Union.
- 23.
L. Plyushch was taken to Austria through Czechoslovakia, where he was met by M. Broué and T. Mathon of the Comité des Mathématiciens, and by B. Lowbeer, of the English section of the Committee, and by an Austrian delegation of Amnesty International. Even though he was not Jewish, Plyushch only had a visa for Israel, as all Russian émigrés of the time were returning Jews. To solve the problem, the then French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac intervened to ensure Plyushch received the necessary documents from the French Embassy in Vienna. L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris 1997).
- 24.
S. Spagnolo, Pisa, 6 February 2007.
- 25.
Translator’s note: a member of the Italian Communist Party.
- 26.
P. Guzzanti, How the Italian Communist Party saved Plyushch, La Repubblica, 15 January 1976. In the article, Guzzanti also writes that the French Communists intervened late, and, in the words of L. Lombardo Radice, “with their naïve noise, they nearly damaged the negotiations.”
- 27.
Lucio Lombardo Radice (1916–1982) was a mathematician of Sicilian origin, tied to the Italian Communist Party.
- 28.
L. Schwartz, Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, Odile Jacob (Paris 1997).
- 29.
It is worth mentioning that, after Plyushch was freed, and for a few months, E. De Giorgi and L. Lombardo Radice faced off on the pages of various newspapers. The subject of contention was the Russian writer and dissident Andrei Amalrik. Lombardo Radice accused Amalrik of discrediting the USSR (L’Unità, 18 October 1976), whereas De Giorgi praised him for being a defender of human rights (L’Unità, 6 November 1976). Lombardo Radice claimed that the Italian Communist Party had nothing to prove, as “Italian Communists support human rights without question” (L’Unità, 6 November 1976). De Giorgi replied that if that was the case the Italian Communist Party “could be doing much more: working for the freedom of thousands of people” (Famiglia Cristiana, 9 January 1977). With regard to the relationship between Lombardo Radice and De Giorgi, L. Carbone observes (20 December 2007): “De Giorgi was viewed within the Italian Communist Party as an ‘objective’ battering ram for the Catholic world, so any position of his had to be countered. Lombardo Radice was probably the one person to cast him in a more favorable light, because he knew him and was aware that he was acting in good faith and of his stature in mathematics.” L. Radicati adds that, in the 1970s, the Christian Democrat Party could have leveraged a good number of intellectuals (as the communists did): “They could have involved some striking personalities like De Giorgi and Aldo Andreotti, but they never bothered.” L. Radicati, Barbaricina, 9 February 2007.
- 30.
G. Israel, mathematician and historian of mathematics at Rome’s Sapienza University, also a signatory of the letter to Paese Sera, says (email, 20 March 2008): “From what I remember of those times, while I was in close contact with Lombardo Radice, the driver of these initiatives was without doubt De Giorgi. Lombardo Radice was involved because he was known as a “liberal” communist, and was identified by the Italian Communist Party as the right person to contribute to this initiative. He was urged to intervene on the issue by a few colleagues within the Institute of Mathematics who were both members of the Communist Party and connected to De Giorgi. These people did everything they could to marry the moral zeal of De Giorgi and the prudent pragmatism and communist orthodoxy of Lombardo Radice. It is certain that, given the close mind-set of the Communist Party at the time, without Lombardo Radice’s contribution, the operation would not have succeeded, as his support legitimized a position that might otherwise have been perceived as anti-Communist. On the other hand, there is no doubt that if De Giorgi and the French had not made the first move, nothing would have happened.” This assessment by G. Israel is confirmed by M. G. Garroni Platone (29 October 2008) and is believed to be balanced by A. Marino (31 October 2008).
- 31.
L. Plyushch (Besseges, 4 June 2009), in an email communication via S. Rapetti.
- 32.
Georges Marchais (1920–1997) was the leader of the French Communist Party.
- 33.
L. Plyushch, public record letter (Rome, 30 May 1977).
References
Bassani, F., Marino, A., Sbordone, C. (eds.): Ennio De Giorgi (Anche la scienza ha bisogno di sognare). Edizioni Plus, Pisa (2001)
Dossier Ennio De Giorgi. In: Guerraggio, A. (ed.) Lettera Matematica Pristem, pp. 27–28. Springer (1998)
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Parlangeli, A. (2019). Let’s Save Plyushch!. In: A Pure Soul. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05303-1_16
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