REST IN POWER, @COMRADE
In memory of Giovanni Stiffoni (1974-2024)
From Umanità Nova
November 26, 2024
A historian in love with Rio and Anarchy
We join the family and comrades of Rio de Janeiro in mourning the premature and sudden passing of Giovanni Stiffoni on November 6, 2024 at the age of fifty. Originally from Milan and a citizen of the world, Giovanni was a fervent anarchist activist, researcher and historian of refined qualities, a free-spirited man, traveler and cheerful storyteller, who found in Rio a place where he felt at home in the last ten years of his life.
A sensitive person, very dear and esteemed by all, he lived cultivating his loves: for his life partner, for research and for libertarian activism. Before moving permanently to Brazil he had spent about fifteen years, for study and work between France and Spain. In love with Rio and anarchy he had planned to stay there to continue his career as a university professor. He had participated in the great popular mobilizations of 2013-2014.
In 2012 he obtained a doctorate in Modern and Contemporary History and Civilization at the University of Bordeaux with a thesis, later published, on « Camillo Berneri (1897-1937). Myths, stories and realities of an anarchist intellectual .»
His research had led him to frequent several Italian and Spanish anarchist archives, in particular the Archivio Famiglia Berneri-Aurelio Chessa in Reggio Emilia, and the Archivo de la Guerra Civil in Salamanca. He was a professor of Italian Language and History at the universities of Nice, Bordeaux and Malaga. In Rio de Janeiro, as a teacher-researcher he was a professor of Contemporary History at the state universities of Rio (Unirio) and Niterói (UFF). He was currently carrying out post-doctoral research at the Universidade Statale de Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) on the relationships between Italian anarchists who emigrated to Brazil in the early 1900s and the local communities.
As an activist he had been part of the dissolved Liga Anarchica of Rio and was currently frequenting local anarchist groups. He was one of the most active curators of the Instituto de Estudos Libertários [ https://ielibertarios.wordpress.com/inicio/ ].
Always present at meetings and gatherings of militants, as well as in the fields of study and research, he instilled good humor and empathy. A polyglot, he was a tireless translator of conferences, articles and lessons from French and Italian into Portuguese. With Giovanni we lose a scholar and a good and kind companion, a “militant of the anarchist cause”, loved for his “engaging cheerfulness”.
(edited by CR and GS )
