Who Was Bruno Filippi?

Little is known about Bruno Filippi. He was born in 1900 in Livorno, Italy, the first of six brothers, and his father was a typographer. His family moved to Milan when he was still a child. In 1915, he was already known to the police who described him as a “dangerous element”. That same year, he was arrested during an anti-militarist demonstration; he had a warm gun without bullets. He spent some time in prison. After the war, in 1919, social unrest broke out throughout the country. In Milan, there were often clashes with the police and Filippi was among the rebels. In the summer, several young anarchists, including Filippi, began to attack their enemies. A bomb exploded at the Hall of Justice; there was an attempt to injure one of the most powerful Italian capitalists, Giovanni Breda, with sulfuric acid and a bomb exploded at his house; another bomb exploded at the home of a rich senator.
On September 7, 1919, Bruno Filippi was climbing the seps of the building where the “club of nobles” was located. He was carrying a bomb, hoping to destroy this meeting place for the richest people of the city. Suddenly, the bomb exploded, killing the young anarchist.
Bruno Filippi was a regular contributor to the individualist anarchist paper Iconoclasta! In 1920, the editors of the paper printed a booklet with many of his articles entitled Posthumous Writings of Bruno Filippi.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

A CLOSED CHAPTER

The sad task of obituary writer is mine. It is sad to write a page with a heart that asks: and then what? But we are dedicated to the struggle: or to succeed in disappearing. It is inevitable and so one of us inevitably vanishes.

Uh! And how the imbeciles will howl: willful anarchist! Who can understand the storm that roars in our brain? Who can understand our hunger for joy, for life? Who can understand our defeat due to human cowardice?

We are alone. We did not find the group of daredevils ready to participate in the struggle for the conquest of life.

Therefore, we were defeated.

And one of us has vanished. The other remains with his eyes fixed on the horizon. He cannot, he must not depart. This is our destiny. Will we find comrades?

Otherwise, each in our own way, we will disappear, silent or tumultuous, from the stage of the world.

A chapter has closed.

A chapter of struggle, of hopes, of illusions. But the end has not come. As these strange, unusual lives come to an end, we will come to understand that it would have been better if they had never been born.

And that’s all there is to say.

(Summer 1918)