Pietro Michele Stefano Ferrua was born on September 18, 1930 in Sanremo on
September 18, 1930 as the son of the casino dealer Libero Ferrua and seamstressAnita Taggiasco. ---- He was involved in the resistance at a very young age.
Immediately after the liberation of Italy from fascism, he espoused anarchist
ideas, formed the anarchist group Alba dei Liberi with two friends in Sanremo,
and in 1946 formed Sanremo at the founding of the Anarchist Federation, for which
he spoke as a delegate during the Ligurian Anarchist Federation. In 1948, he
moved to France, where he continued his studies and began attending the
Libertarian Circle of Students in Paris.
As part of the Alba dei Liberi, Ferrua became the first prisoner of conscience in
Italy in 1950 for refusing military service when he was found guilty by the
courts and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Both of his friends, Angelo Nurra
and Liberoso Gugliemi, turned out similarly.
In 1953, he began co-publishing the magazine Senza Limiti (5 issues were
published in 1952-1954). At that time he collaborated with the periodicals of the
Anarchismo group in Naples and Palermo.
As Ferrua was persecuted by the Italian judiciary, which wanted to force him to
perform military service, he took refuge in Geneva on April 25, 1954, together
with his Brazilian partner Diana. Here he became one of the organizers of the
first international anarchist camps. The very first, in which he also took part,
took place in Cecina, Italy in 1953, and another in Carrara, Italy (1954) and
Salernes, Provence, Provence (1955). In the latter place, he established a secret
structure of solidarity and aid for French and Algerian deniers and deserters
under the auspices of Jeunesses Libertaires. Between 1955 and 1962, with the
support of André Bösiger, he helped many anti-militarists and opponents cross the
border and take refuge in Switzerland. In 1958, Ferrua founded the Swiss Section
of the International Anti-Fascist Solidarity (SIA).
During his stay in Switzerland, he first stayed in Daley-sur-Lutry with Lisa
Cérésole, widow of the founder of the International Civil Service, a voluntary
peace organization. He then moved to Geneva, where he studied interpreting and
translation. There he joined forces with other anarchists in 1956 to continue the
work of Louis Bertoni - in 1957 the bilingual anarchist periodical Il Risveglio
Anarchico / Réveil anarchiste reappeared , published at monthly intervals and
then irregularly. Alfred Amiguet and André Bösiger collaborated on the French
part of the magazine and Claudio Cantini, Carlo Frigerio, Carlo Vanza and Ferrua,
who signed Vico, on the Italian part. From 1957 to 1960, they published 23 issues
in this way.
In 1957, Ferrua also launched an exhibition project on the anarchist press around
the world; with varying degrees of success he sent out a number of letters. In
order to preserve the publications that were coming, the idea was born in Geneva
of the same year that the International Center for the Research of Anarchism (
CIRA) was founded.). Alexandre Alexiev, Henri Bartholdi, André Bernard, André
Bösiger, Jean-Pierre Conza and others also took part in the project. Works from
the library of Louis Bertoni, the Germinal group in Geneva were added, followed
by a large number of books belonging to Jacques Gross and other activists who
soon joined the project, such as Hem Day, E. Armand, André Prudhommeaux, the
Swedish SAC, etc. Subsequently, CIRA received the archives of SPRI and CRIA
(Interim Secretariat for International Relations and Commission for Anarchist
International Relations, operating from 1947 to 1958), which remained packaged
for a long time and were not inventoried until forty years later. CIRA is
currently based in Lausanne, where it moved in 1965.
Pietro Ferrua has always sought recognition of the anarchist direction in
intellectual and academic circles. To this end, it sought to set up an
international CIRA Honorary Committee to bring together researchers and
activists; he had some response, but he also experienced several rejections. He
developed contacts with the University Library and the UN Library in Geneva,
while the CIRA still consisted of boxes of magazines and piles of books on the
shaky shelves of one room. He also brought together students and young
researchers to help catalog, organize conferences, publish (and copy) the CIRA
Bulletin .
During a wave of international solidarity, four young people threw several
incendiary bottles at the Spanish consulate in February 1961, causing a large
influx of consensual attitudes but also arrests and deportations. Pietro Ferrua
had to leave Switzerland in January 1963, and CIRA left Maria-Christine Mikhaïl
and Marianne Enckell. He moved to Rio de Janeiro with his Brazilian wife and
their two children. He quickly resumed his intellectual and political activities,
founded the Brazilian Center for International Studies and operated the Brazilian
section of CIRA until his new expulsion. Due to his anarchist activities, he
became very unpopular in the eyes of the Brazilian army, which held power in the
country. He was arrested in October 1969, along with fifteen other friends, and
went into exile in the United States in December, where he found new refuge in
Portland, Oregon, thanks to family ties.
From 1970 to 1987 he worked there as a teacher at the private liberal arts
college Lewis & Clark College. He was in charge of foreign languages (French,
Italian, Spanish), comparative studies and film history. He has always been
interested in avant-garde art and literary forms - in 1976 he organized the First
International Symposium on Lettrism and published several works in this field, he
was also a member of Innovative Infinitesimal International. He also did his own
research in the field of artistic and literary avant-garde and the Mexican
Revolution. The output is the publication of a dozen books and an inexhaustible
number of articles for major academic journals, but also for anarchist ones.
A number of his academic degrees included translation and interpreting
certificates in Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish at the University of
Geneva, a master's degree in philosophy at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica
in Rio de Janeiro, ABD at the Universidade Federal in Rio and a Ph.D. in Romance
Languages and Literatures at the University of Oregon. In parallel with his
career as a university professor, Ferrua has worked as a freelance conference
interpreter around the world. He has interpreted professionally for heads of
state, corporate leadership and international organizations, including Pope
Francis, King Juan Carlos of Spain and King Baldwin of Belgium, US Presidents
Carter, Reagan and Clinton, UNESCO, IMF, WHO, Bill Gates and many more.
In addition to authoring 20 books and a number of articles in various languages,
he was also a film enthusiast, writing, directing and producing Propos Contemains
sur la Femme décousue . He was the creator of several multimedia works of art and
also a gourmet chef, connoisseur of wine and spirits, admirer of classical, jazz
and experimental music and master of Scrabble in six languages.
His interest in anarchism never left him. Following a conference on anarchism in
the Philosophical Circle, the Faculty of Arts in Portland entrusted him with a
higher course in anarchism in 1980, forming the first international symposium on
anarchism, which brought together hundreds of scholars and activists from around
the world. It was a week of debates, films, exhibitions, concerts and events on
anarchism. He has published studies on surrealism and anarchy, anarchism and
cinema, anarchists through the eyes of painters, as well as two important books
on anarchists in the Mexican Revolution. In 1982, he co-founded the Anarchos
Institute in Montreal, Canada, and in 1984, he was a speaker at the Art and
Anarchy meeting at an international meeting in Venice. Contributed to A rivista
anarchica , ApArte , Rivista storica dell'anarchismo, Art et anarchy or the CIRA
Bulletin , Brazilian publications and many other magazines and collective works.
Because he was mainly interested in anarchist propaganda, he left his
professorship in 1987 and devoted himself fully to the spread of anarchism as a
speaker, scientist and essayist. In 1992, he was one of the official speakers at
the Outros Quinhentos conference, hosted by the Pontifical Catholic University of
São Paulo in Brazil. It took him many years to return to Europe when his ban on
residence in Italy, France and Switzerland was finally lifted. He then spent some
time in Nice and Sanremo, caring for his mother. After retiring, he worked as an
interpreter, but lived in poverty, forcing him to sell part of his archives.
However, he organized film festivals, participated in various international
conferences and devoted himself to several researches. He has recently published
a number of articles on the occasion of the deaths of several anarchist comrades,
such as Franco Leggio, John Cage and others.
His health has deteriorated in recent years. He had an untimely loss of his
daughter Anna and son Franco. His wife Diana Lobo Filho also died before him.
Some of the former students who remained close to him faithfully accompanied him
until his last days, when he was in the hospital and no longer speaking. Pietro
Ferrua exhaled for the last time on Wednesday, July 28, 2021 in Portland, in the
presence of three of his closest friends.
On Saturday, September 18, the day of his late ninety-one birthday, a celebration
of his life will be held in Portland.
https://www.afed.cz/text/7460/pietro-ferrua-1930-2021
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