Maestri di scuola e non solo: profilo di Cesare Malservisi (1935-2005)

Among the most influential revolutions of the 20th century historiography - from the Annales to the return to narrative history, through the key concepts of microhistory and biographical turn – while seeking for the “black box of schooling”, the recent international and national historical-educational researches have turned their attention to the theory of “school as a living reality”. Notably, the observational study of the classroom empirical culture as well as of the school material culture has received significant contributions from the focus on the teaching profession, whose multiple dimensions have also been investigated from a biographic point of view. Within this theorethical framework, this work attempts to portray the life of Cesare Malservisi as primary school teacher, librarian, dialect songwriter and intellectual during the Postwar years in Bologna. Starting from the analysis of the reference coeval literature, the primary focus of this research is to investigate the family personal archive whose sources shift from Cesare Malservisi’s career, private life, professional activity to the school material culture. For instance, while aiming to build a “plural biography”, sources have been classified, analyzed, intertwined and integrated with interviews conducted with witnesses who have personally met Cesare Malservisi. The picture that emerges from this study confirms the complexity of Malservisi’s teacher role whose professional development coexist with his engagement to society, and parallely explores the local pedagogic and teaching scene, with special attention to the intense socio-political and educational ferment of the Postwar years in Bologna, a subject that has not yet been thoroughly investigated.