(This epic historical novel about World War II and after, ...)
This epic historical novel about World War II and after, written from the author's own personal experiences as an Italian Freedom Fighter, is a profoundly moving account of the war, those who fought in it on both sides, and the effects the war had on families in the author's hometown in northern Italy.
The Last Soldiers of the King: Life in Wartime Italy, 1943-1945
(In the sequel to the highly acclaimed Few Returned, Eugen...)
In the sequel to the highly acclaimed Few Returned, Eugenio Corti, one of Italy’s most distinguished postwar writers, continues his poignant account of his experiences as an Italian soldier in the Second World War.
Eugenio Corti was an Italian writer and essayist, whose seminal work, The Red Horse, a 1000-page novel, tells his experiences and those of his fellow Italians during and after the Second World War.
Background
Eugenio Corti was born in Besana in Brianza on 21 January 1921, to Mario and Irma (Bestetti) Corti. He was raised in a family with deep Catholic roots. The paternal grandmother, Giuseppina Ratti, was the first cousin of Achille Ratti who, in 1922, was elected Pope with the name of Pius XI.
Education
Eugenio Corti attended part of the elementary school in Besana, then continued his classical studies until he graduated from the San Carlo College in Milan.
After completing his classical studies, in 1940 he enrolled at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Faculty of Law, graduating from it with a Doctor of Law degree only in 1947.
On February 1941, Corti was called to arms and destined for the XXI Artillery Regiment of Piacenza. From there he went to the Cadets Officers School of Moncalieri, from which he came out with the nomination to Artillery Lieutenant. At the end of the course, being in the first tenth of the ranking, he could choose the destination at the front; he chose the Russian front, which he reached in June '42. His precise purpose was "to know the communist world".
After having established the front on the Don, in the second half of December, the Italian army received the order to abandon the positions and to withdraw. Without vehicles and without sufficient food, the Italian departments, almost all of them on foot, began a tragic retreat.
Returning to the barracks in Bolzano, he was transferred to Nettuno. After the Armistice of 8 September, he walked to the south. After a period in the reorganization camps in Puglia, Corti entered voluntary service in the departments of the Italian regular army, born to support the Allies.
In 1947, Corti published The Most Do not Return, his first book, on the autobiographical experience of the retreat of Russia. Corti then immediately began writing his second book, The Poor Christs: the topic is the liberation war of Italy.
In 1951, the writer began to work in the paternal industry: he worked for ten years during a period of serious crisis, described minutely in the novel The Red Horse.
After the publication of The Red Horse, he dedicated himself to the writing of other works and to numerous public meetings all over the world. Of these years there are various essays in which he analyzes the Second Vatican Council and the Christian Democracy; in other writings, he traces the history of Western civilization from Protestantism to the Second World War.
Corti had very strong anticommunistic political views.
Connections
In May 1951, in Assisi, Corti married Vanda dei Conti di Marsciano, known in the summer of 1947 at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. The couple had no children.