I am an American who as a young woman in 1961 traveled to Italy where I spent two weeks at the little country home of Angelica Balabanoff. As I helped her around her house and garden we talked each day of politics and the news of the day and in the evenings she read her poetry and exerpts of some of her writings. I shared some of my travel journal that she showed so much appreciation for though what I wrote was definitely intellectually thin and probably mundane but she show great appreciation for my writing - a sign of her kindness. I have thought of that rare time before I had a sense of history or historical figures and wish that I had had the perspicacity to ask the questions that were so critical in further understanding the uniqueness of Angelica's place in the Socialist movement and in history in general. I did however realize that I was in the company of an amazing woman, one I would remember for the rest of my life.
I am an American who as a young woman in 1961 traveled to Italy where I spent two weeks at the little country home of Angelica Balabanoff. As I helped her around her house and garden we talked each day of politics and the news of the day and in the evenings she read her poetry and exerpts of some of her writings. I shared some of my travel journal that she showed so much appreciation for though what I wrote was definitely intellectually thin and probably mundane but she show great appreciation for my writing - a sign of her kindness. I have thought of that rare time before I had a sense of history or historical figures and wish that I had had the perspicacity to ask the questions that were so critical in further understanding the uniqueness of Angelica's place in the Socialist movement and in history in general. I did however realize that I was in the company of an amazing woman, one I would remember for the rest of my life.