Osvaldo Ramous
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Biographical notes
Born on 11 October 1905 in Rijeka in the working-class district of Stari Grad to Adolfo Ramous and Maria Giacich, the youngest of six children, he lost his father at the age of two. From 1915 to 1919 he studied at the Municipal School of Music, then continued his studies of violin and piano privately for ten years. From 1924 to 1925 he attended the Leonardo da Vinci Technical Institute, and then enrolled in the "Egisto Rossi" Teacher Training Institute. At the same time, he worked, respectively, at the State Accounting (1922-1924), at the Prefecture (1924-1925), and then in Milan at an insurance company, where he remained until May 1928. Back in Rijeka, he worked for two years at the City Hall.
He approached journalism from 1923, collaborating until 1925 with the magazine "Delta" in Rijeka, directed by Antonio Widmar. In 1929 he began collaborating with the newspaper "La Vedetta d'Italia" as a theater and music critic, and then became editor the following year. In 1942 he was dismissed by decision of Carlo Scorza, at the time head of the Press Agency, with the vague motivation of reducing staff.
In September 1936 he married the Dalmatian Matilde Meštrović, granddaughter of the Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Meštrović. In 1944, a few months after the occupation of Rijeka by the Yugoslav army, he accepted the editorship of "La Vedetta d'Italia" at the urging of the city authorities who wanted a moderator at the helm of the newspaper. The Gestapo, however, did not trust Ramous too much, so in the summer of 1944 they summoned him to subject him to stringent interrogations, while his home was searched.
In 1946 the Italian Drama was born with Pietro Rismondo as director for a short time, and Ramous then followed him in the position. In his 15 years as director, he has been entrusted with 46 directing as well as some translations of Yugoslav comedies. In 1954, going to Milan with Paolo Grassi, director of the "Piccolo Teatro" and later superintendent of La Scala, he agreed on a tour in Yugoslavia of the "Piccolo Teatro" which achieved great success in Rijeka.
In 1956 he positively solved the problem related to the tragic situation in which the Italian Drama found itself, which was in danger of closing its doors. Not accepting the decisions of the local authorities, concerning the transfer to more peripheral locations and the dismissal of most of the actors, he went to Belgrade to the Federal Government, pleading the cause of the Drama with valid arguments until he obtained full satisfaction.
Once retired, in 1961 he found the ideal conditions to rediscover himself as a poet, novelist and author of short stories. In recent years he has dedicated himself to the project of a meeting between Italian and Yugoslav writers, which was carried out in 1964 with a considerable commitment both by the publisher Rebellato and by Rotary. Death caught him on March 2, 1981, while he was reviewing "The papier-mâché horse", a novel that was very close to his heart as it was closely linked to Rijeka.
Critical notes
The figure and work of Osvaldo Ramous are linked to his hometown, Rijeka, which he lived in before and after the exodus of the Italian population at the turn of the Second World War. Following the exodus, the Italian component of Fiume found in him a prolific cultural animator, who tried to keep a bridge open with Italy in an extremely difficult period. It is no coincidence that even in his lyrics the recurring theme is the dilemma – which unites all the "left" like a curse – between "leaving" and "staying", as well as the problem of the impossibility of recognizing oneself and finding one's peace in a hostile and unknown world.
A poet endowed with a subtle sensitivity, close to hermetic or hermetic lyric at first, he nevertheless remained a loner essentially faithful to himself, intent on questioning his own interiority and participating in the anxieties of contemporary humanity.
Ramous would also have entertained after the Second World War an intense correspondence with Enrico Morovich, an Italian writer and essayist also of Rijeka origin, significant both for the personalities of the two correspondents and for the human story of the exodus, with Morovich who did not accept his friend's repeated invitations, on the one hand torn by the desire to see Rijeka again, on the other assailed by the fear that the emotional state of the sight of his beloved city would reopen the wound of detachment.
Published in 2008 as an unpublished and posthumous novel, as well as difficult to find in Italy, "Il cavallo di papier-mâché" represents the first novel in the field of literature of the Italian National Community that explicitly refers to the exodus, a taboo subject at the time of its writing (1967). Narrating the story of Roberto Badin, who remained in Fiume after the exodus and in some ways alter ego of the author, the novel deals with the transformations, ambiguities and feelings of a difficult era in a territory where different languages and cultures coexisted. In fact, we read in the incipit that "in the course of his not yet very long life, Roberto had five citizenships, without asking for any".
Critical notes inspired by "Osvaldo Ramous. The uprooting of the remainers", by Gianna Mazzieri, in La Battana, n. 97-98, 1990.
Bibliography
Poetry collections
- In the reeds, Fiume, Termini, 1938
- Wind on the pond, Fiume, EDIT, 1953
- 50 poems, Zagreb, Croatian Literary Association, 1957
- Plant Planting, Padua, Rebellato, 1960
- Il vino della notte, Venice, Lombardo-Veneta, 1964
- Medea's awakening, Padova, Rebellato, 1967
- The word in time, Zagreb, Zora, 1969
- Reality of the absurd, Padova, rebellato, 1973
- Mercy on things, Padova, Rebellato, 1977
- Posthumous Viaggio quotidiano, Fiume, Centro editoriale, 1982
Dramas
- A duel, Milan in Il teatro per tutti, 1934
- Special Edition, Zagreb, Zora, 1950 translated into Croatian under the title Posebno izdanje, Zagreb, Glas rada, 1951
Dramas performed
- We set up a show – 1947 – for the inauguration of the Children's Theatre in Rijeka
- With one foot in the water, performed in Rijeka on 4 June 1970
Unreleased dramas
- L'ora di Marinopoli, 1952
- The Longest Road, 1954
- In the Shelter, 1954
- The Idol, 1956
- The Harbor, 1956
Radio Dramas
- Lotta con l'ombra, originally written for the theatre but not exploited, then remade as a radio drama in 1960 (translated into Croatian Borba sa sjenom, and the Spanish Lucha con unas ombra broadcast in Buenos Aires)
- La mia ocarina, 1960 (translated into German Dorina und meine Ocarina and broadcast five times in East Berlin) – broadcast by Swiss radio in Monteceneri on 8 July 1970
- Il farmaco portentoso, 1963, broadcast by RAI II on 18 January 1963 Rendini Magda, 1962
- An almost human heart, 1968, broadcast by Swiss Radio (I program) on 14 Oct. 1970
- Con un piede nell'acqua, 1969, broadcast by Radio Friuli-Venezia Giulia on 15 February 1974
- Un attimo solo, 1974, broadcast by radio FVG on 14 March 1975
- Le pecore e il mostro, 1966, broadcast by radio Trieste on 13 Jan. ’68
- Viaggio senza meta ( 1976), broadcast by Radio Koper on 6 June 1976
- Sull'onda degli echi, 1977, broadcast by RAI I on 16 January 1980
- Guido i'vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io, 1969 broadcast by FVG on 18 May 1972
Fiction
- The Seagulls on the Roof, 1961 – novel that remained unpublished in Italian, but translated into Portuguese by Antonio D'Elia and published in S. Paulo in Brazil, 1964 with the title Gaivotas no telhado.
- Also translated into Croatian by Jerka Belan and Duška Orlandi and published under the title Galebovi na krovu, Zagreb, Naprijed, 1965.
- Serenade to death, a collection of short stories that has remained unpublished in Italian. Translated into Portuguese by Rolando Roque da Silva and published in São Paulo (Brazil) in 1975 in 20,000 copies under the title Serenata ao passado by the same publisher of Gaivotas no telhado, Clube do livro.
- The children of the comet, stories published by the fortnightly "Panorama" of the EDIT of Rijeka in installments during 1984.
- In addition, thirty short stories, not included in the works listed above, published in various magazines and newspapers.
- The papier-mâché horse – unpublished novel, published posthumously in 2008 by the publishing house EDIT Rijeka, Croatia.
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