Is Tolkien's Christianity present in his works?"To listen to the works of Carlos Patiño is to listen to what Velázquez or Calderón heard".Jon Fosse. The last Nobel Prize in LiteratureA few months ago, in February 2024, Wanda Corti, wife of Eugenio, author of novels such as the famous "The Red Horse", passed away at the age of almost 97.
On several occasions I had had the honor of speaking with Mrs. Corti, who had answered the phone after I had simply looked up her name in the directory. I had introduced myself, had confided to her, as a novelist and historian, my admiration for her husband's life and work, had given her my books, and she had not only encouraged me to continue, but had even phoned me back after a lecture I had given a few years ago on Eugenio Corti.
And now I am here writing about someone who has had such an influence on my life and on my vocation as a man and as a storyteller. Eugenio Corti, in fact, is for me a father, a teacher, a model to face his own battles, those of the disappointments he had to suffer and the challenges he had to face.
Part One: The early years and the war
I would like to start by talking about his life, which is a true epic (an epic, from the Greek ἐποποιΐα, composed of ἔπος, "epos", and ποιέω, "poieo", meaning to do, is a poetic composition that narrates heroic deeds), through what is considered his spiritual testament, a letter written to his wife Vanda in 1993 and which underlines how strong his human and spiritual alliance was:
"Vanda mia:
You speak of yourself as one "who has not borne fruit": but it is not true, it is not the reality. The allusion to the lack of carnal children is obvious; I too once desired them, but neither you nor I were called to it: our union, in God's plans, did not have this end; indeed, if we had had children, the plan God had for us could not have been realized.
Our true children are our books, which come not only from me, but also from you. They stand inwardly - as you know - on two pillars: truth and beauty, and without you by my side and before my eyes every day, their beauty would not have existed, or would have been greatly atrophied, that is, in conclusion, they would not have existed.
So your life was not something boring, but on the contrary, something brilliant: it was an extraordinary adventure as a woman. Because those books - you know it too - fully succeeded, and they have an extraordinary value. Not everyone is able to understand this today, as they are confronted with the false dominant culture. But there is no need to regret it either: on the contrary, I always pray to God that - as long as I live - He does not grant me the satisfaction of a great success, because in this respect I am weak, and I would easily succumb to the temptation of pride.
If we continue to seek the Kingdom of God, all that we need will be given to us in sufficient abundance, as it has been until now."
From school to war
Eugenio Corti was born in Besana, Brianza, on January 21, 1921, the first of ten siblings. He is the son of a self-made textile industrialist. He started working as a child and then managed to buy the factory where he worked, the Nava di Besana company, expanding it and opening new factories.
He studied in Milan, at the boarding school of San Carlo, where he studied grammar and classical baccalaureate. His parents had arranged for him to obtain a degree in accounting so that he could become a valuable assistant in the company, but the rector of the school, Monsignor Cattaneo, strongly objected, realizing that for the young Eugene the classical baccalaureate was the most suitable path.
In 1940 his studies were suddenly interrupted and Eugene was unable to take his baccalaureate exams, which were passed ex officio: Italy entered the war. Nevertheless, the young Corti was able to enroll at the Catholic University, although he was only able to study the first year of law, after which he was called up for military service.
The non-commissioned officer training began in 1941 and lasted one year, at the end of which Eugene Corti became a second lieutenant. In the meantime, he passed on his request to be sent to the Russian front: "I had asked to be sent to that front to see at first hand the results of the gigantic attempt to build a new world, completely detached from God, or rather, against God, carried out by the Communists. I absolutely wanted to know the reality of communism; that is why I prayed to God not to make me miss that experience, which I believed to be fundamental for me: in this I was not mistaken'.
Stay in Russia
Corti eventually won and left for Russia. "I arrived at the front at the beginning of June 1942. For a month the front did not move, then came our great advance from the Donetz to the Don, which was followed by months of immobility. On December 16 the Russian offensive on the Don began and on the 19th our retreat: that same night my army corps found itself locked in a bag. We had been ordered to leave the Don without fuel for the vehicles, so we had to abandon all our equipment, without being able to save a single cannon, nor tents, nor provisions."
These were the most dramatic days of Corti's life: the twenty-eight days of the retreat, masterfully narrated in "I più non ritornano". On Christmas night 1942, he made a vow to Mary: if he were saved, he would dedicate his life to work for the Kingdom of God, to become an instrument of that Kingdom with the gifts he had been given: "If I were saved, I would spend my whole life in function of that verse of the Our Father that says: Thy Kingdom come".
Only on the night of January 16 a few survivors managed to get out of the Russian encirclement. Of the Italian Army in Russia (ARMIR), which numbered 229,000 men, the total number killed in action and in captivity was 74,800; of the approximately 55,000 soldiers captured, only 10,000 returned. As for the Corti sector, of the approximately 30,000 Italians of the Thirty-fifth Army Corps encircled on the Don, only 4,000 would come out of the sack, of whom 3,000 were frozen or seriously wounded.
Return home
After returning home and a difficult recovery, in July 1943 he returned to the barracks in Bolzano, and then was transferred to Nettunia, from where, after September 8, he went south on foot, accompanied by his friend Antonio Moroni, to rejoin the regular army. These events, and all those relating to the war of liberation, are narrated in "Gli ultimi soldati del re". After a period in the rearmament camps, Corti volunteers in the units created to flank the Allies in the liberation of Italy, in order to save the homeland:
"Homeland should not be confused with the monuments of the towns or the history book: it is the legacy left to us by our parents, our father. It is the people who look like us: our family, our friends, our neighbors, those who think like us; it is the house we live in (which always, when we are far away, comes to mind), it is the beautiful things we have around us. The homeland is our way of life, different from that of all other peoples.
Peace: first works
Back to middle-class life, young Corti reluctantly began studying to please his parents and graduated with a law degree in 1947. By then, the horror he had lived through and the uncertainty for tomorrow had forever changed his approach to the reality around him. He is a veteran, and as such he struggles to reintegrate himself into ordinary life, into the ordinary problems of young people of his age. That same year he publishes "I più non ritornano", his first book with Garzanti, about the Russian retreat, which he experienced so painfully. Also in 1947, on the occasion of his last exam at the university, he met Vanda di Marsciano, the woman who would later become his wife in 1951.
That year Corti started working in his father's industry: he did not like that job, but continued to do it for about ten years.
Chronicles of war
Throughout his war chronicles, Corti's analysis of the way Italians fight, who are highly individualistic, instinctively unhinged and prone to rebellion against authority, is very important: the Italians' behavior in the war perfectly represents their way of being at home.
The good heart of our soldiers is evident. Equally evident, however, is the difficulty in working and uniting for the common good. The cowardice of the majority alternated with the heroism and patriotic ardor of some individuals and individual corps, in particular the Alpini and the Corazzieri, excellent soldiers who were even better than the Germans. Other important warlike and cultural considerations concern Germans, Poles and Russians.
During these years, Corti devoted himself to a profound theoretical and historical study of communism. Combined with his personal experience on Soviet soil, these studies made him understand what exactly was happening in Russia; not only that, with a truly unique intellectual lucidity he was able to explain the reasons for the -inevitable- failure of the communist ideology.
