Luciana Castellina

Summary

Luciana Castellina (born 9 August 1929) is an Italian journalist, writer, politician, and feminist.[1][2]

Luciana Castellina
Member of the European Parliament
In office
17 July 1979 – 19 July 1999
ConstituencyCentral Italy (1979–84; 1989–99)
North-East Italy (1984–89)
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
23 April 1992 – 6 May 1992
ConstituencyPerugia
In office
12 July 1983 – 23 May 1984
ConstituencyMilan
In office
5 July 1976 – 4 October 1979
ConstituencyComo
Personal details
Born (1929-08-09) 9 August 1929 (age 94)
Rome, Italy
Political partyPCI (1947–1970; 1984–1991)
PdUP (1974–1984)
PRC (1991–1996)
SEL (2015–2017)
SI (since 2017)
Spouse
(m. 1953; div. 1958)
Children2
Alma materSapienza University of Rome
OccupationPolitician, journalist, writer

Biography edit

Luciana Castellina was born in Rome on 9 August 1929. She graduated in law from Sapienza University of Rome. In 1947, she joined the Italian Communist Party. Castellina started her career in journalism in the 1950s, working for the daily newspaper Paese Sera. She later worked for several other newspapers, including L'Unità, Il Manifesto, and Liberazione. Her writings focused on issues such as workers' rights, feminism, and communism. In 1974, she was co-founder of the Proletarian Unity Party for Communism. She served four terms in the Italian Chamber of Deputies and twenty years in the European Parliament. In the European parliament, she served as chair of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and of the Committee on External Economic Relations.[3][4][5]

Castellina was president of Italia cinema, an agency to promote Italian films abroad, from 1998 to 2003.[3] She served as editor of Nuova Generazione, a Communist youth magazine, and of Liberazione, and also played an important role at Il Manifesto.[5][2] Castellina was named an Officier in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Comendadora (Commander) of the Republic of Argentina.[3] In the 2015 Italian presidential election, Left Ecology Freedom supported Castellina's name as possible successor of Giorgio Napolitano as President of Italy. She has been supported for the first three ballots, until the party decided to support for the fourth ballot Sergio Mattarella who was later elected president.[6]

Personal life edit

Castellina has been married to Italian Communist Party leader Alfredo Reichlin. They had two children, Lucrezia and Pietro, both of them economists.

Electoral history edit

Election House Constituency Party Votes Result
1976 Chamber of Deputies Como–Varese–Sondrio DP 2,862  Y Elected
1979 Chamber of Deputies Como–Varese–Sondrio PdUP 1,598  Y Elected
1979 European Parliament Central Italy PdUP 14,957  Y Elected
1983 Chamber of Deputies Milan–Pavia PCI 30,044  Y Elected
1984 European Parliament North-East Italy PCI 89,998  Y Elected
1989 European Parliament Central Italy PCI 75,826  Y Elected
1992 Chamber of Deputies Perugia–Terni–Rieti PRC 3,105  Y Elected
1994 European Parliament Central Italy PRC 68,127  Y Elected

Selected books[3] edit

  • Cinquant'anni d'Europa (2007)
  • Eurollywood, Il difficile ingresso della cultura nella costruzione dell'Europa (2008)
  • La scoperta del mondo, a finalist for the Strega Prize
  • Siberiana, won the Letterario Vallombrosa Prize in 2012
  • Guardati dalla mia fame (2014) with Milena Agus
  • Manuale antiretorico dell'Unione Europea (2016)

References edit

  1. ^ Bull, Anna Cento (2017). Speaking Out and Silencing: Culture, Society and Politics in Italy in the 1970s. Routledge. p. 56.
  2. ^ a b Cornils, Ingo (2010). Memories of 1968: International Perspectives. Peter Lang. p. 354.
  3. ^ a b c d "Luciana Castellina" (in Spanish). Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona.
  4. ^ "Luciana Castellina". European parliament MEPs.
  5. ^ a b Mulhern, Francis (2011). Lives on the Left: A Group Portrait. Verso Books. p. 150. ISBN 978-1844676996.
  6. ^ "Elezione Presidente della Repubblica: sì unanime del Pd a Mattarella. Berlusconi: "Riforme non vedranno luce"". Il Fatto Quotidiano. 29 January 2015. Retrieved 18 October 2018.