Transumanza is an ancient Italian term for the traditional twice-yearly (spring/autumn) migration of sheep flocks and cow herds to/from highland pastures.
Tonight I saw a TV documentary on the
Transumanza della Pace relating a nice and unusual story of human solidarity between the mountains of Northern Italy and the heights above Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzegovina, a region sadly known internationally for the massacres of local population made by the "tigers" of Arkan during the ethnic war in former Jugoslavia.
I think this story deserves to be told to a larger audience, and it may also shed some further light on my ramblings about egoism in another thread
.
ANTEFACT (1)Mario Rigoni Stern (1921–2008) was well known in Italy for a memorable book he wrote in 1953 about the retreat of encircled Italian troops from the Don front, entitled
Il Sergente nella Neve (The Sergeant in the Snow):
Book cover, and author in his 80s wearing the hat of our Alpine Corps
Born at Asiago in the
Altopiano dei Sette Comuni, a high plateau of 3,000+ ft in Northern Veneto, he served as Sergeant Major in our Alpine troops and in January 1943 - then a 22 y.o. - led his men on the 10-day fighting retreat of 120 Km at minus 35-42°C made by what remained of our Russian Expeditionary Army.
From this experience, one may conclude that Mario Rigoni
Stern was a man made of
stern stuff, as most our mountain people usually were
. In his own comment:
"The highest point in my life was not when I received literary prizes or wrote my books, but when on the night between January 15 and 16 I left the Don with 70 of my troops and walked westwards to get back home, abandoning my river outpost without losing a single man. Leaving the front line and organising our disengagement, that was my life's real masterpiece." ANTEFACT (2)Roberta Biagiarelli is an actress and documentarist who became involved with the plight of Srebrenica's people, producing and staging first a monologue (
A come Srebrenica) then a documentary (
Souvenir Srebrenica) on the subject.
In 2010 she met
Giovanni Battista (Gianni) Rigoni Stern, son of the author and for years head of the local
Comunità Montana, and they discussed what could be done to relieve the abject situation of the people of the mountain village of Sućeska. Gianni, then a pensioner, was asked to go over and help the local widows with some field work but, owing to his experience, he rather chose to hold classes on suitable methods for high-altitude farming and animal husbandry. Then, with financial support from Regione Trentino, he hit upon the idea of bringing over some
Rendena cows, a hardy local breed.
LA TRANSUMANZA DELLA PACEIn December 2011, a long-haul truck left Italy with 48
Rendena cows and eventually reached Sućeska:
The cows were not enough for the entire community, and therefore were assigned to those farmers (men AND women) who Gianni considered the best eligible because they had already shown that they kept their fields, stables and homes in good order.
This past February two reconditioned tractors were also donated, and further cows and farming equipment will follow as funds permit.
The basic idea of this project is:
helping people help themselves.
