Tavo Burat (born Gustavo Buratti Zanchi, 22 May 1932 – 8 December 2009) was an Italian Waldensian writer and journalist. Burat spent much of his life defending the

Piedmontese Piedmontese ( ; autonym: or ; ) is a language spoken by some 2,000,000 people mostly in Piedmont, a region of Northwest Italy. Although considered by most linguists a separate language, in Italy it is often mistakenly regarded as an Italian ...

language island A language island (a calque of German ''Sprachinsel''; also language enclave, language pocket) is an enclave of a language that is surrounded by one or more different languages. The term was introduced in 1847. Many speakers of these languages als ...

. Beginning in 1964, Burat was the secretary of an international association that defends languages and cultures threatened with extinction. He specifically focused on defending

and

Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a Gallo-Romance languages, Gallo-Romance language that originated and is spoken in eastern France, western Switzerland, and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several di ...

Biography

Born in

Stezzano Stezzano (Bergamasque: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Bergamo in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about northeast of Milan and about south of Bergamo. Main sights *Villa Moroni (17th century) *Villa Caroli-Zanchi *Vil ...

in 1932, Burat graduated in law with a dissertation titled ''Right in Graubünden''. He taught French at a middle school from 1968 to 1994. Cippo dolcino

He was the founder and first director of (in English literally ''The

plough A plough or ( US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden ...

''), one of the few magazines written in

and widespread all around the region, and was as well an editor of the

mountaineering Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become mounta ...

review ''ALP'' from 1974 to 2009. He wrote several history essays, notably about

brigandage Brigandage is the life and practice of highway robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery.Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first recorded ...

in northwest Italy and the ''

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...

'' led by

Fra Dolcino Fra Dolcino (c. 1250 – 1307) was the second leader of the Dulcinian reformist movement who was burned at the stake in Northern Italy in 1307. He had taken over the movement after its founder, Gerard Segarelli, had also been executed in 1300 on ...

. His research about Dolcino involved him not only at a scientific level but also ideally, and Burat considered himself as a ''neo-dolcinian''. In 1974 on the summit of Monte Rubello (1,414 m), where in 1907 left-wing workers of Biella and the Sesia Valley erected a monument on the place of Fra Dolcino last resistance, he laid a new stone memorial. The first monument was symbolically gunned down in 1927 by the Fascists. The 1974 opening ceremony was attended by thousands of people and guided by the Italian Nobel prize

Dario Fo Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. ...

. Tavo Burat also pursued an active political career, at first in the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...

and later in the ''

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, recei ...

'', focusing particularly on ecological issues. The Biella section of the voluntary association

Legambiente Legambiente is an Italian environmentalist association with roots in the anti-nuclear movement that developed in Italy and throughout the Western world in the second half of the 1970s. Founded in 1980 as part of the ARCI, it later became a stand- ...

is named ''Tavo Burat'' in order to celebrate his environmentalist legacy. He died in 2009.

Political and cultural career

* City council member in

Biella Biella (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the northern Italy, Italian region of Piedmont, the capital of the Province of Biella, province of the same name, with a population of 44,324 as of 31 December 2017. It is located about northeast of ...

from 1956 to 1994 * Regional manager for

PSI Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ or ψ), the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviat ...

from 1975 to 1984 * Assessor to from 1970 to 1993 * Representative for the Greens for the revision of the Statute of the Region

Piemonte Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the northwest. Pied ...

* National Councillor for the Greens from 2000 to 2009 * Coordinator of from 1974 to 2009 * Founder of the .

Works

In Italian

* 1957: (Milano-Varese, ed. Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1957). * 1974: , dins (Milano, ed. Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1974). * 1976: , dins U. Bernardi, (Roma, ed. Coines, 1976). * 1981: , dins (Milano, ed. Jaca Book, 1981). * 1989: (Milano, ed. Jaka Book, 1989). * 1997: (Torino, ed. Regione Piemonte, 1997). * 2000: (Roma, ed. DeriveApprodi, 2000). * 2002: (Biella, ed. Leone & Griffa, 2002) * 2004: (Roma, ed. DeriveApprodi, 2004) * 2006: (Milano, ed. Lampi di Stampa, 2006)

In Piedmontese

* 1979: (, 1979) * 2005: (ALP, 2005) * 2008: (, 2008)

References

External links

Lo sguardo di TAVO BURAT
booklet edited by Club Alpino Italiano depitcting Tavo Burat's life, available in .pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Burat, Tavo 1932 births 2009 deaths Italian Socialist Party politicians Italian ecologists Italian male journalists Italian Waldensians People from the Province of Bergamo Piedmontese-language writers 20th-century Italian journalists 20th-century Italian male writers