Homepage | Journal of My Italian National Service - Table of Contents
Ricordo del mio penare sotto le armi
Fuschino Michele di Vinchiaturo
1881-1883
Memoir of What I Endured
During 32 Months of National Service
in the Italian Army
By Michele Fuschino of Vinchiaturo, Molise
Table of Contents
(1) The original Italian text and an English translation of a 20-year-old conscript's diary from the years 1881-1883. There is a brief summary of his journal lower on this page.
- Part I: Pages 1-19.
- Part II: Pages 20-42.
- Part III: Pages 43-60.
- Part IV: Pages 61-78.
- Part V: Pages 79-101.
The pages of the text were numbered by its author ( ) or by the transcriber [ ], so that each page of the author's text has a number at its top. The translation of the text is interlinear (between the lines); the English version is everywhere in CAPITAL LETTERS.
The division of the text into five parts was made by the transcriber in order to reduce Internet page length. These divisions do not exist in the original.
(2) Summary of the 1887 Civil Wedding Banns (pubblicazioni) of Michele Fuschino and Luisa Chiatto, from which can be deduced that Michele Fuschino was 20 years old when he began his national service. Michele's future bride makes an appearance at the very end of his journal.
(3) An English language summary of the Italian Web page Historical Notes from "Vinchiaturo On Line" as it existed in January of 1998. (That text has since been altered, and its title has been changed from Notizie storiche to Informazioni turistiche.) With four photographs of Vinchiaturo, one historical.
(4) Map of the Kingdom of Italy circa 1881, showing most of the cities and towns of Italy referred to by Michele Fuschino.
(5) Map of the Province of Campobasso as it has been since 1970, highlighting the townships of the province referred to by Michele Fuschino in his journal.
(6) Notes about the conventions followed in creating this transcription and translation of Michele Fuschino's journal.
(7) The Italian text of Giambattista Masciotta, Il Molise dalle origini ai nostri giorni, Volume II (Napoli, 1915), la monografia di Vinchiaturo ("Molise - From its Origins to Our Own Day", the chapter about Vinchiaturo).
Summary of Michele Fuschino's Journal
Michele Fuschino was a stone worker born in the village of Vinchiaturo in the Province of Molise, Italy. At the age of twenty in 1881 he was called up for compulsory national service in the corps of engineers of the Italian army. The diary begins with Michele's account of being torn away from his family in Campobasso. From there he is taken to public works projects in the north of Italy (King Umberto I inspects a bridge Michele's engineering unit builds). There is endless guard duty and there is endless telegraph wire to string in and around Verona, but then a tremendous fire destroys the mountain village of Rivai near the old Austrian border. Michele's journal ends with his account of the great 1883 earthquake at Casamicciola on the island of Ischia near Naples.
Copyright © 1998. The copyright to the original document from which this transcription and translation were made is held by Steven C. Petosa, who reserves all rights.
The translation was last modified on 17 October 1998 ; minor changes were made to Part V on 9 May 2001. Send Internet mail to Robert [Wesley] Angelo. Scrivetemi in italiano. También puede escribirme en español.
The URL of this Web page: https://www.roangelo.net/journal/
Last revised: 16 March 2007 : 2007-03-16
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