Alessandro Portelli, the Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History.

This paper begins by situating Alessandro Portelli's oral history in the context of the postwar reaction in Italy against the historical theories of the influential Neapolitan philosopher Benedetto Croce. It then proceeds to a discussion of Portelli's methodology by reference above all to the essay The Death of Luigi Trastulli, whose starting point is the death at the hands of the police of a young Terni steelworker in 1949. Portelli's essay is not concerned with verifying, in the mode of the documentary historian, the precise circumstances in which Trastulli was killed, however. His concern was rather to account for the diverse memories, which have grown up around the Trastulli event. Portelli's oral history methodology was inspired by his pathbreaking discovery that erroneous memories possess historical value. The paper concludes by raising some possible criticisms...
[ View Full Essay]