Gemma Harasim
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Biographical notes
Born in Rijeka on July 15, 1876, she is known for being an educator of great quality, rich in cultural and political interests. He lived in the working-class district of Cittavecchia, establishing himself culturally for his passion for books and his ingenuity.
Thanks to the support of her family, she graduated from the teacher training institutes of Gorizia and Koper. After becoming a teacher, she was hired in the schools of the Municipality, then moving on to the City School, corresponding to the Italian lower technical institute established by the Gentile reform. Thanks to a scholarship from the Municipality, he attended the courses of the Higher Education and the University in Florence in the years 1907-1909. There he met Giuseppe Lombardo-Radice during a teachers' congress, with whom he had been collaborating for years in the field of pedagogy. This relationship then turned into love, with their wedding held in Rijeka in September 2010.
After the wedding, she moved to Catania where her husband taught pedagogy at the University. The entire family, including the two daughters he had, then moved to Rome, where Harasim lived until his death in June 1961.
Critical notes
On the teaching of the Italian language (1906) he was favorably reviewed by Benedetto Croce and recommended to Lombardo-Radice, then her future husband. In the pedagogical journal "Nuovi Doveri", directed by Lombardo-Radice himself, he published the articles Language Exercises, where he describes his avant-garde experiences in language teaching, and Italian and Hungarian Civilization, where he argues for the superiority of the Hungarian school system compared to the school of the time.
His Letters from Fiume, sent in 1909 to the Voice of Florence and concerning the political and cultural conditions of the city, are well known. The letters represent an objective but at the same time bitter examination of the dangers that threatened the Italianness of Fiume.