Arrigo Boldrini

Arrigo Boldrini
President of ANPI
In office 9 December 1947 – 5 February 2006
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Agostino "Tino" Casali
Member of the Senate
In office 5 July 1976 – 14 April 1994
Constituency	Ravenna
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 8 May 1948 – 4 July 1976
Constituency	Bologna
Member of the Constituent Assembly
In office 25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948
Constituency	Bologna
Personal details
Born	(1915-09-06)6 September 1915 Ravenna, Italy
Died	22 January 2008(2008-01-22) (aged 92) Ravenna, Italy
Political party	PCI (1943-1991) PDS (1991-1998) DS (1998-2007)
Occupation	Politician

Arrigo Boldrini (6 September 1915 – 22 January 2008) was an Italian politician and partisan, one of the most prominent figures of the Italian resistance movement, president of National Association of Italian Partisans for almost 60 years.

In 1943, Boldrini joined the then clandestine Italian Communist Party and has been one of the main promoters of the Resistance in Romagna.^[1] During the Resistance, Boldrini was the National Liberation Committee's reference man of Ravenna and leader of the 28th Garibaldi Brigade entitled to the partisan "Mario Gordini".^[1] During the Nazi-Fascist occupation, Boldrini was always at the forefront during the liberation missions in Romagna and was nicknamed Bulow, an homage to Prussian general Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow.^[2]

In 1945, some days immediately after the end of the war, his Brigade was still active in an area where had place a massacre of over 130 surrendered RSI soldiers and some former fascist civilians in Codevigo: in the last years he was indicated by revisionist researchers as the principal instigator of the crime,^[3] but in early post-war investigations Boldrini had already been acquitted of the same charges before trial, as it was demonstrated that the massacre was carried "... outside and against his orders and without his knowledge ...", and it's testified that he was elsewhere in the days of the massacre.^[4]

Boldrini has embodied the ethical and political motives behind the struggle of the Italian Resistance, becoming one of the most authoritative and credible representatives at the institutional level: after being elected to the Constituent Assembly, Boldrini became the first President of the National Association of Italian Partisans, holding this office from 1947 to 2006.^[5]

Boldrini has been later elected to the Chamber of Deputies from 1948 to 1972 and to the Senate from 1972 to 1992, being a member of the Parliament uninterruptedly from 1948 to 1994.^[1]

In 1991, Boldrini joined the Democratic Party of the Left, and in 1998 he joined the Democrats of the Left until he decided to leave politics in 2005.

He died in his hometown Ravenna on 22 January 2008, at the age of 92.^[6]

Election	House	Constituency	Party		Votes	Result
1946	Constituent Assembly	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	18,213	Y Elected
1948	Chamber of Deputies	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	43,850	Y Elected
1953	Chamber of Deputies	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	35,849	Y Elected
1958	Chamber of Deputies	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	32,218	Y Elected
1963	Chamber of Deputies	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	31,431	Y Elected
1968	Chamber of Deputies	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	62,842	Y Elected
1972	Chamber of Deputies	Bologna–Ferrara–Ravenna–Forlì		PCI	61,765	Y Elected
1976	Senate of the Republic	Emilia-Romagna–Ravenna		PCI	93,762	Y Elected
1979	Senate of the Republic	Emilia-Romagna–Ravenna		PCI	94,668	Y Elected
1983	Senate of the Republic	Emilia-Romagna–Ravenna		PCI	94,618	Y Elected
1987	Senate of the Republic	Emilia-Romagna–Ravenna		PCI	93,137	Y Elected
1992	Senate of the Republic	Emilia-Romagna–Ravenna		PDS	71,855	Y Elected

• Files about his parliamentary activities (in Italian): I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI legislature.