The words of Grazia Villasanta, president of the Circhiòla association, introduce the conference (held this morning) on the " Living conditions of women in the 19th century ", with which the Domusnovese cultural association that makes historical and genealogical research its mission primary, wanted to deepen the historical and social context in which the terrible murder of the not yet seventeen year old Grazia Raccis took place, raped and killed by a cousin much older than her in the distant 13 January 1895 .
A practically unknown story and brought to light only 4 years ago thanks to the long and tiring research work of the association which also had to contend with the lack of official documents (the burial document is also missing since the funeral was never celebrated). By rewinding the tape of history, Circhiòla has given back to the Domusnovese community the memory of a terrible story in which the young woman, already an orphan and welcomed into the house as a fill'e anima by an aunt, found death at the hands of an ogre cousin and who raped her and killed on a morning in which both had gone to get wood on the top of Monti Acqua , the relief below which the cave of San Giovanni Battista unfolds. Hidden in the best possible way by the murderer (later arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment) the martyred body of the young woman was found fortuitously only months after her death in a ravine at an altitude of 520 meters which has since taken the name of " S' accorru de Grazia Raccis ". In that same ravine, since June 2019, a plaque affixed by Circhiòla commemorates Grazia Raccis.
The story was recalled again today in the meeting held in the municipal library, with which the cultural association wanted to reconstruct the difficult condition of women in the period between the 1800s and 1900s. "Today it is obvious for us to think of women who hold important roles in society but as we well know it has not always been like this", said the mayor Isangela Mascia , who coordinated the conference also making a small historical excursus on the difficult conquest of the rights part of women. Maria Dolores Dessì , historian and researcher, focused on the economy and social life of Domusnovas at the end of the 19th century. «A town of just 2,500 inhabitants (today around 6,000) which occupied 241 hectares of land and in which agriculture and livestock increasingly began to make room for mining with the extraction of lead and zinc especially in the mines of Sa Duchessa and Reigraxius". The trades most practiced (miners, charcoal burners, haberdashers, butchers, shoemakers, millers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights), the patronal feasts (that of the Assumption and of Sant'Ignazio da Laconi also used to allow boys and girls to get together), the memory of Lorenzo Cerutti acting at the time (the mayor did not yet exist), of the notary (Antonio Pittau), the birth of the first foundry set up by Enrico Serpieri, and of the first gunpowder factory (which supplied the mines in the area) have embellished the intervention of the historian who then passed the microphone to the writer Iride Peis for an insight into the profession of mine sorters.
« Women entered the mines starting from the mid-1800s thanks to the intuition of an engineer who noticed their ability to treat cereals and meant that they soon became the only ones to deal with the selection of minerals. Receiving a wage (on average half that of a man) for those who were used to working in the house or in the fields without any pay was a revolution which, however, brought with it a whole series of other problems: hunger, the cold, the very harsh working conditions, the absence of any law or protection, the need to make children work very often, the promiscuity of the mining villages and the consequent birth of many fillusu de miniera, were the most negative aspect of this conquest ".
Archivist and palaeographer, Daniela Aretino , focused on the theme of the "Mine Teachers" recalling the hard life of the mixed schools created in the mining villages where the constants were «poverty, lack of food and clothing, malaria and the constant struggle with the families who out of necessity were forced to send their children to work and not to school".
Closely linked to the work of the mines is also the study on the role of prostitutes done by the archaeologist Grazia Villani . "An even more execrated profession in an era in which, also due to the pseudo science introduced by Cesare Lombroso, any crime and wickedness was attributed to prostitutes. Prostitutes who in 1860, at the behest of Cavour, began to crowd the first brothels, adopted as a solution to the scourge of syphis which decimated many men.Legalized brothels which soon saw the light of day in Cagliari, Iglesias, Oristano and in which even girls as young as 9 ended up often also due to the extreme poverty suffered by their families».
Representative of the national association "Female Toponymy", Agnese Onnis illustrated the long and tiring battle of the association for greater recognition of women in the naming of streets and squares. «Despite a small trend reversal, still today the national average of urban spaces named after women is between 3 and 5 percent, while the average of those named after men is 40 percent. Giving back public space to women is fundamental given that it also means recognizing their role and importance in society". The conference then concluded with the appointment given to all by Grazia Villasanta for 17 June, when a square in Domusnovas will be named after Grazia Raccis. On Saturday 27 May, however, the Circhiòla association will organize the annual excursion to s'Accorru de Grazia Raccis to pay homage and bring a bouquet of flowers to the bedside of the unfortunate young woman.