Il movimento anarchico palermitano tra il 1889 e il 1900

Abstract

This essay resulted from a research on Paolo Schicchi, a key figure of the Sicilian anarchist movement between the late nineteenth century and twentieth century. A number of events that marked the life of this anarchist demonstrates the existence of an active movement participant of the internal discussions of the anarchist movement and participant of the struggles that developed during the last decade of the nineteenth century in Palermo. Despite the huge amount of documentation preserved at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome and the Archivio di Stato di Palermo, historians have however neglected the study of this phenomenon. This essay therefore hopes to fill a gap in historical research.

In fact, the emergence of local anarchist groups such as the ones of Palermo are crucial for understanding revolutionary movements in a broader social and political context. To what extent is it possible to follow a precise political project by a local anarchist movement? What kind of connections did this anarchist movement with both Italian and international anarchism?

In order to research this subject, I analyzed the archival series known as Casellario Politico Centrale, preserved at the Central Archives of the State in Rome, as well as the series of the Prefettura Gabinetto (1861-1905) and the Questura Gabinetto (1866-939), stored at the State Archives of Palermo.

Also the consultation of the bibliography on the history of liberal Italy, the Fasci dei Lavoratori movement and the history of the Italian anarchist movement was fundamental.

The essay is composed of 2 main chapters.

In the first chapter, is traced in a short introduction the arrival of the anti-authoritarian theories in Palermo; then, through the use of the documents found in the cited archives, the events that saw the Palermitan anarchists protagonists between 1889 and 1900 are exposed and, therefore, their contribution in: the organization of workers' demonstrations, the development and organization of the Fascio dei Lavoratori of Palermo, the participation in the solidarity movements with those affected by the repression following the state of siege proclaimed in 1894 and in conclusion the solidarity with those affected by the so called anti-anarchist laws and the involvement in the social struggles of the last years of the century.

In this chapter the results of the critical research made on the archival sources produced by the state institutions posed to control and repress the anarchist movement it's also exposed , and in general every revolutionary movement, i.e. Police and Prefecture.

At the end of the chapter the relationships between the socialists and the anarchists in Palermo in the period under study of this essay are underlined.

The second chapter contains the biographies of four anarchist from Palermo and its province: Emanuele Gulì, Paolo Schicchi, Gesualdo Crisafi and Giuseppe Genova.