Città e Storia -
2012/
2
ISBN 978-88-8368-137-0
Francesco Quinterio

La violenza della natura con la violenza dell’uomo. 1915: il terremoto della Marsica con la Grande Guerra. Le iniziative di soccorso nella pubblicistica del momento

Pag. 359-
378
, DOI 10.17426/97423
COD: A1026A Categoria:

6,00 

Keywords:

The territory of the Marsica has been hit in January 1915 by a catastrophic earthquake, causing thousands of deaths and the destruction of some countries: it was the second major earthquake in Italy in the twentieth century after the one of few years earlier in Messina (1908). In the first part of this essay we discuss the controversy, as always frequent in these cases, not the timeliness of aids, also due to the appalling conditions and weather (snow, ice and winter storms) and geographical (isolated villages in the mountains, though not very far from Rome) and the rail and roads at that time in Italy were inadequate. The second part analyzes the publications of the time, a year after the catastrophe (among other things in the middle of World War I), about the propaganda for the recruitment of the first emergency relief, then the action taken by the press (in particular the recently created daily “Il Giornale d’Italia”) and some regional communities, such as Piemonte and Campania, as well as the analysis of the time and cost of reconstruction and the problem this time of the delivery of traditional materials, but also new ones, to make housing and social facilities (nurseries and hospitals).

The territory of the Marsica has been hit in January 1915 by a catastrophic earthquake, causing thousands of deaths and the destruction of some countries: it was the second major earthquake in Italy in the twentieth century after the one of few years earlier in Messina (1908). In the first part of this essay we discuss the controversy, as always frequent in these cases, not the timeliness of aids, also due to the appalling conditions and weather (snow, ice and winter storms) and geographical (isolated villages in the mountains, though not very far from Rome) and the rail and roads at that time in Italy were inadequate. The second part analyzes the publications of the time, a year after the catastrophe (among other things in the middle of World War I), about the propaganda for the recruitment of the first emergency relief, then the action taken by the press (in particular the recently created daily “Il Giornale d’Italia”) and some regional communities, such as Piemonte and Campania, as well as the analysis of the time and cost of reconstruction and the problem this time of the delivery of traditional materials, but also new ones, to make housing and social facilities (nurseries and hospitals).