Omerta is the unwritten law of the Sicilian mafia. The real Godfather

A little history of the mafia
Each business has its own development, and each development is determined by the people involved in this business, especially if it is “Our business”. And the origins Italian mafia go back to the 9th century, when "robin hood" detachments protected the Sicilian peasants from the oppression and extortion of feudal lords, foreign raiders and pirates. The authorities did not help their poor, so they only called for help mafia and trusted in her. In return, a considerable bribe was paid, the unspoken laws put forward by members of the "security" groups were carried out, but, on the other hand, the poor were given guaranteed protection.

Why did crime families become known as "mafia"
There are two versions origin of the word "mafia". According to the first, under the influence of the Arab flair (either military or trade relations Sicily with representatives of the Arab countries), the root of the word means "refuge", "protection". According to the second version, suffering Sicily foreign invaders trampled along and across, and in 1282 there was an uprising, the motto of which became: “Death to France! Breathe Italy! (Morte alla Francia Italia Anelia). Anyway, mafia- a primordially Sicilian phenomenon, and identical criminal groups in other parts of Italy and the world were called differently, for example, "Ndragetta" in Calabria, "Sacra Corona Unita" in Apulia, "Camorra" in Naples. But, the “mafia” today, like the “jacuzzi”, “jeep” and “copier”, has become a household name, so any criminal organization is called it.

How did the mafia get into power?
As an organization, the mafia crystallized only in the 19th century, when the peasants, who did not want to obey the exploitative Bourbon regime ruling at that time, “blessed” mafia for political exploits. Thus, in 1861, the mafia officially took over the status of a ruling force. Having made their way into the Italian parliament, they got a chance to influence the formation of the political and economic course of the country, and the mafiosi themselves were transformed into the so-called aristocracy.
Beginning in the 20th century, members of criminal organizations began to promote "their senators" to parliament, secretaries to city councils, for which they were generously thanked. The carefree “bathing in money” might have continued further if the Nazis had not come to power. Head of Italy Benito Mussolini did not endure mafia in power, and indiscriminately began to imprison by the thousands. The rigidity of the dictator, of course, has borne fruit, Italian mafiosi sunk to the bottom.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the mafia perked up again, and the Italian government had to start an official fight against crime by creating a special body, the Antimafia.
And the mafiosi dressed in expensive suits of businessmen, building their work on the principle of "iceberg" where the official chain of sporting goods could be engaged in the underground trade in drugs or weapons, prostitution, "protection" of other business. But, even today nothing has changed, this is what happens in some areas of Italy to this day. Over time, some "businessmen" have seriously promoted their restaurant and hotel business, food production.
In the 80s, a fierce bloody struggle began between criminal clans, where such a huge number of people died that most of the survivors prefer to work only in the field of legal business, preserving omerta, "mutual responsibility", and other signs of a valid mafia organization.
But, the mafia has not left the stage to this day. In southern Italy, 80% of firms pay bribes to their "roof", just as it is impossible to start a business without enlisting the support of local authorities. Carrying out "cleansings", the Italian government regularly sends city, regional and state officials from key posts accused of collaborating with the mafia to prisons.

How Italian mafiosi moved to America
Beginning in 1872, as a result of extreme impoverishment, the Sicilians, in search of a better life, emigrated to America in armies. And, lo and behold, the introduced “dry law” worked into their hands. They began to sell illegal liquor, having accumulated capital, they bought up enterprises in other areas of activity. So, in a short time, the money turnover of the Sicilians in America began to exceed the turnover of the largest American corporations. The American, originating from Sicily, the mafia is called "Cosa Nostra / Cosa Nostra", which means "Our business". This name is also used by those who returned from America to their homeland Sicilian crime family.

The structure of the Italian mafia
boss or godfather- the head of the family, a criminal clan. Information about all the affairs of his family and the plans of enemies flocks to him, and is elected by voting.
Henchman or underboss- the first assistant to the boss or godfather. Appointed solely by the boss himself and is responsible for the actions of all caporegime.
Consigliere- the chief adviser of the clan, whom the boss fully trusts.
Caporegime or capo- the head of the "team", which works in a single area controlled by the family-clan.
Soldier- the youngest member of the clan, who was recently "introduced" into the mafia. Teams of up to 10 people are formed from the soldiers, controlled by a kapo.
Partner in crime- a person who has a certain status in mafia circles, but is not yet considered a member of the family. Can act, for example, as an intermediary in the sale of drugs.

Laws and traditions honored by mafiosi
In 2007, the famous godfather of Salvador Lo Piccolo was arrested, who was found to have "The Ten Commandments of Cosa Nostra", which describes the traditions and laws of members of the mafia clan.

Ten Commandments of Cosa Nostra
Each group "works" in a certain area and other families do not interfere with their participation.
Newcomer initiation ritual: a finger is wounded and the icon is poured with its blood. He takes the icon in his hand, they set it on fire. The beginner must endure the pain until the icon burns. At the same time, he says: "Let my flesh burn, like this saint, if I break the laws of the mafia."
The family cannot include: policemen and those who have policemen among their relatives.
Family members respect their wives, do not cheat on them, and never look at the wives of their friends.
Omerta- Mutual responsibility of all members of the clan. Joining the organization is for life, no one can get out of business. At the same time, the organization is responsible for each of its members, if someone offended him, she and only she will administer justice.
For an insult, it is supposed to kill the offender.
Death of a family member- an insult that is washed away with blood. Bloody revenge for a loved one is called "vendetta".
The kiss of death- a special signal given by mafia bosses or capos and meaning that this family member has become a traitor and must be killed.
Code of Silence- a ban on disclosing the secrets of the organization.
Betrayal is punishable by the murder of the traitor and all his relatives.

Thinking about this topic, I conclude:
Despite the untold treasures found, only the poor of the Italian south coast dream of such a career development. Indeed, with a simple calculation, it turns out that it is not so profitable: members of a criminal group have to calculate the costs of protecting themselves and their families, unfastening bribes, constant confiscation of goods, and this at a constant risk to their lives and all family members. A halo of mystery, supported by heartbreaking rumors for many decades, was shrouded in the whole secret mafia system. Is it really worth it?

Svetlana Conobella, from Italy with love.

About konobella

Svetlana Conobella, writer, publicist and sommelier of the Italian Association (Associazione Italiana Sommelier). Cultivist and implementer of various ideas. What inspires: 1. Everything that goes beyond the conventional wisdom, but respect for tradition is not alien to me. 2. The moment of unity with the object of attention, for example, with the roar of a waterfall, sunrise in the mountains, a glass of unique wine on the shore of a mountain lake, a fire burning in the forest, a starry sky. Who inspires: Those who create their world full of bright colors, emotions and impressions. I live in Italy and love its rules, style, traditions, as well as "know-how", but the Motherland and compatriots will forever be in my heart. www..portal editor

You can fight alone against the system if you want to become famous and most likely dead. The history of the confrontation with the Italian mafia knows such examples of the struggle - successful and not very successful.

Cesare Mori

“It remains just a man, a citizen Mori, a fascist Mori, a fighter Mori, a living and full of strength man Mori,” Mori said about himself in a farewell speech in June 1929. Perhaps it is worth adding that Cesare Mori was in the right place at the right time. These days, he would sit with the mafia in the dock. In January 1926, a loyal ally of Mussolini organized a brutal blockade of the city of Gangi, in Sicily, which was the headquarters of the Sicilian mafia. Whoever didn’t hide, I’m not to blame - this principle was used by the police, led by the “Iron Perfect”, without exception for women and children.

The methods and fantasies of a devoted servant of the fascist regime brought results on January 10, when members of the mafia clan surrendered to the authorities. The city was decorated, a military band played - it was a victory, Mussolini sent to his prefect:

“I express my full satisfaction and advise you to continue in the same spirit until you complete your work, regardless of rank and title.”

Mori followed the instructions of his leader and did not pay attention to details, as a result of his work, about 11 thousand people were arrested, of which 5 thousand were only in the province of Palermo, even his colleagues admitted that there were honest people among them. The end came pretty soon, three years later Mussolini sent a telegram thanking him for his service. Cesare Mori was not overtaken by the revenge of the mafia structures; he died a natural death in 1942, a year before the fall of the fascist regime in Italy.

Giovanni Falcone

In the early 1960s, the young and assertive Falcone was assigned to handle the bankruptcy of the company, well-known politicians and businessmen were involved in the case, this moment can be called the starting point of his struggle against the mafia clan. Perhaps Giovanni made his decision much earlier, he always repeated that the mafia is a problem for all of Italy, and not just the South. In 1987, Giovanni Falcone became the absolute leader in the number of people who wanted to kill him among the members of the Sicilian mafia. The reason for the hatred was the trial, in which Falcone was a public prosecutor, where more than 400 members of groups were sentenced, including not only ordinary performers. Falcone found the "lead years" when the mafia did not stand on ceremony with law enforcement officers, and rarely one of them lived to retire.

Giovanni Falcone died on May 23, 1992, while driving a car with his wife Francesca Morviglio and a police escort. The explosive planted in the underpass detonated at 17:56 at the turn that connects the Punta Raisi airport in Palermo with the Capaci exit. Five tons of TNT exploded with such force that seismologists recorded a push, and the road section at the site of the tragedy was restored for more than a year. Giovanni Falcone remained for his compatriots a symbol of the struggle against the mafia and a nightmare for those who were his enemy.

Paolo Borsellino

Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were not just friends, they were united not only by their hometown of Palermo, not with a red diploma from the Faculty of Law, and not even by a passionate love for football. Together they fought for the safety of the citizens of Italy, for which they laid down their lives. Brosellino began his career in a civil court, in the 1980s he became a member of the Antimafia team, which investigated crimes committed by mafia groups. Brosellino at the beginning of his journey learned from his colleagues, friends, he knew that one day they would come for him.

On July 3, 1992, Borsellino said: "I know that dynamite is already being prepared for me." To his wife Agnese, the judge said: "The mafia will kill me, you need to accept and be ready, it's only a matter of time." On July 19, in Palermo, he was heading to his mother, at about 17:00 the judge's car was torn to pieces from the explosion of a powerful bomb, five of his bodyguards were killed along with him. The people ardently and in vain demanded to punish the perpetrators, it got to the point that the angry crowd almost staged a lynching of the President of the Republic, Luigi Scalfaro, right in the Palermo Cathedral. The names of the customers were known, only to whom it is easier from this.

Ness Elliot

As the power of the Italian mafia grew, the fight against it became more and more global. In many ways, the activities of Alfonso Capone in the United States attracted the attention of local intelligence agencies. A cult character for the underworld. The leading US film companies could not and should not have passed by the scale of his personality. Law enforcement officers in the 1920s often took seats in the auditorium, corruption in the organs was present in large numbers.

Elliot Ness was as indifferent to money as possible, he worked quietly in the Treasury and part-time secret agent. In the autumn of 1929, he received carte blanche from the top leadership and created a special group, the average age of which did not exceed 30 years. Surveillance specialists, gunners, financiers and sappers were selected to deal with Al Capone. During the investigation, the "Untouchables" got on the trail of the mafia's black accounting with documentary evidence of all operations, there was no cloud service then, and Capone's accountants turned out to be very talkative guys.

On May 5, 1931, through the efforts of Eliot Ness and his team, Al Capone ended up in prison for a period of 11 years. The operation was successful, if you do not take into account that the “common fund” managed to be taken away from under the noses of the guardians of the law.

"The so-called mafia": how the mafia got its name

In the Palermo dialect, the adjective mafioso once meant "beautiful, bold, self-confident." Anyone who was called that was believed to have some special quality, and this quality was called mafia. The closest modern equivalent is "coolness": a mafioso was someone who was proud of himself.

This word began to take on a criminal connotation with the hugely popular play, written in the Sicilian dialect, "I mafiusi di la Vicaria" ("Mafiosi from the Vicar's Prison"), first staged in 1863. The Mafiusi are a group of fellow prisoners whose customs are quite recognizable today. They have a boss and an initiation ritual, and the play makes multiple references to "reverence" and "humility". The characters use the word pizzu to mean extortion, as do modern mafiosi; in the Sicilian dialect, the word means "beak". By paying out pizzu, you thereby "wet someone's beak." This word came into use from prison slang almost certainly thanks to the mentioned play: the dictionary of 1857 interprets this word exclusively as “beak”, but the dictionary of 1868 already knows the metaphorical meaning.

The fact that the play was set in Palermo prison only confirms our idea of ​​the prison as a school for organized crime, its think tank, language lab, and communication center. One reviewer of the time described the prison as "a kind of government" for criminal elements.

According to its plot, the play is a sentimental tale about repentant criminals. We are interested in it as the first mention of mafias in literature - and as the first version of the myth of the good mafia, for which honor is not an empty phrase and which protects the weak. The gang leader forbids his men from robbing defenseless prisoners and prays on his knees for forgiveness after killing a man who spoke to a policeman. In the finale - completely out of touch with reality - the capo leaves the gang and joins the workers' self-help group.

Very little is known about the two authors of the play: they belonged to a troupe of itinerant actors. Sicilian theatrical legend says that they wrote the play from the words of a certain Palermo innkeeper with ties to organized crime. It is generally accepted that the image of the leader of the gang is written off from that same innkeeper. This legend can neither be confirmed nor refuted, so that the play "I mafiusi di la Vicaria" remains a very mysterious historical evidence to this day.

The word mafiosi is used only once in the play, only in the title "I mafiusi di la Vicaria"; it is likely that it was inserted at the last moment in order to give the production the local flavor that the public should have expected. The word mafia does not appear in the text at all. However, it was solely due to the success of the play that both words came to be applied to criminals who acted like the characters in I mafiusi. From the stage, these words in their new meaning leaked onto the streets.

However, the play alone was clearly not enough to secure this name for the mafia. Baron Turrisi Colonna was no doubt aware of the existence of I mafiusi when he composed his pamphlet in 1864; the son and heir of the king of Italy even came to Palermo in the spring of that year for the anniversary performance. But Turrisi Colonna, in his book, spoke exclusively about the "sect" and nowhere mentioned either the mafia or the mafiosi. The criminals with whom the baron was familiar did not call themselves mafiosi.

The word "mafia" became widespread and turned into a kind of label only when the Italian authorities began to use it. Although this word acquired a criminal connotation already in the play "I mafiusi", it was the government that turned it into a subject of national discussion.

From the description of how this happened, one can easily get the impression of how difficult and bloody the administration of Sicily was in the years after the famous expedition of Garibaldi. Many Sicilians believed that, in an effort to pacify and subjugate the island, the Italian government completely abandoned the liberal principles it declared. In particular, critics of the government's actions drew attention to two cases - the "conspiracy of knives" and the torment of Antonio Cappello. These and similar cases finally convinced the islanders that the state was not trustworthy, and forced many Sicilians to rely only on themselves and not pay attention to bureaucratic lamentations about the rampant mafia.

The "knife conspiracy," as the press dubbed it, was perhaps the most mysterious crime in the long history of atrocities committed on the streets of Palermo. On the evening of October 1, 1862, on several streets of a Palermo quarter, thugs simultaneously emerged from the shadows and attacked twelve random victims with knives, one of whom later died from his wounds. The police managed to detain one of the attackers at the crime scene; it turned out that under the Bourbons he served as a police informant. His testimony led to the exposure and arrest of eleven accomplices, who, as it was established, were generously paid by someone for this action.

The city was numb with terror. At the beginning of 1863, a trial of bandits took place, which caused a huge stir in society. There were only a dozen performers in the dock. The judge sentenced three leaders to death, the rest were sentenced to nine years hard labor.

However, the court showed surprising indifference to identifying the organizers of this attack on the city. One of the bandits named during interrogation the name of the Sicilian aristocrat Sant Elia, close to the Italian royal family; it turned out that it was he who was behind the attack, but they did not even consider it necessary to interrogate him. Opposition newspapers were full of ridicule: there was not enough evidence to condemn the three perpetrators to death to start at least a preliminary investigation into the possible complicity in the crime of a representative of the new Italian establishment. (By the way, later it turned out that Sant'Elia also headed the Masonic Lodge.)

As a result, attacks on the city, like the one that occurred on October 1, 1862, continued with frightening regularity: apparently, the one who led them failed to achieve what he wanted. Finally, a second investigation began, and this time the main suspect was Sant'Elia, whose palace was searched. In response to this, the aristocrats, as they say, closed ranks, and the king deliberately appointed Sant Elia as his representative at the celebration of Easter in Palermo. The investigation slowed down, and the attacks had stopped by then, so the investigators left Sicily.

It is still a mystery whether Sant'Elia was really behind this conspiracy; however, based on the totality of evidence, it can be assumed that he still had nothing to do with it. One thing is known for sure: the conspiracy has matured in the higher spheres. Either the local politicians sought in this way to force the national government to transfer more power into their hands, or the government decided to resort to tactics of intimidation and terror in order to cause panic, blame the opposition for the crime and crack down on it "on the sly". Subsequently, this practice was called "strategy of tension" in Italy.

A year after the first attack, an event took place that cast a new shadow on the authorities. The political climate in Sicily at the end of 1863 was extraordinarily hot, even by Sicilian standards of the day, as 26,000 deserters and draft evaders were rounded up on the island, and compositors raged everywhere. At the end of October, an opposition journalist unearthed a story about a young man who was being held against his will in a military hospital in Palermo. This young man, named Antonio Cappello, did not get out of bed, and the journalist counted more than 150 burns on his body. Doctors claimed that the burns were just traces of treatment; amazingly, the judicial investigation officially confirmed their words.

The truth was that Cappello entered the hospital quite healthy. Three military doctors, all from northern Italy, starved him, beat him, burned his back with red-hot metal buttons. The goal was simple - to get the young man to confess that he had deserted from the army.

In the end, Cappello managed to convince the doctors that he was deaf and mute from birth, and did not at all feign illness in order to evade the draft. He was released from the hospital on January 1, 1864; photographs of Cappello's burnt back were passed from hand to hand on the streets of Palermo, accompanied by a text written by an opposition journalist that accused the government of barbarism. Three weeks later, on the proposal of the Minister of Defense, the prison doctor was awarded the cross of Saints Maurice and Lazarus and received his award from the hands of the king. At the end of March, it was announced that doctors from the military hospital would not be punished.

For a decade and a half after the unification of Italy, the authorities tried to pacify the recalcitrant island with monstrous measures in their cruelty - only to return again and again to declaring liberal principles that they were unable to follow, or to enter into agreements with local shadow "authorities". ". This extremely inconsistent policy could not but affect the perception of the central government: in the eyes of its citizens, the Italian government looked at the same time brutal, naive, duplicitous, incompetent and sinister.

On the other hand, you can’t help feeling sympathy for a government forced to solve several global problems at once: building a new state literally from scratch, suppressing a civil war in mainland Southern Italy, reducing debt, the constant Austrian threat, uniting a population 95 percent of which spoke their own dialects and dialects and did not want to communicate in literary Italian. For a government completely devoid of the confidence of citizens, the news of the disclosure of a cunning anti-government conspiracy was truly manna from heaven. And it was the government official who gave the world the word "mafia" in its current meaning.

Two years after the doctors tortured Antonio Cappello, on April 25, 1865, the newly appointed Prefect of Palermo Police, Marquis Filippo Antonio Gualterio, sent a secret, alarming report to his superior, the Italian Minister of the Interior. The prefects were key elements of the new administrative system, they played the role of the eyes and ears of the government in Italian cities, they were charged with the duty to monitor the opposition and to maintain law and order in every possible way on the ground. In his report, Gualterio wrote about "an old and most noteworthy lack of trust between the people and the government." As a result, a situation has developed that contributes to the "increasing activity of the so-called mafia, or criminal organization."

During the revolutions that rocked Palermo in the mid-nineteenth century, Gualterio wrote, the "mafia" acquired the habit of displaying its power to various political factions as a way of strengthening its influence; now it supports anyone who opposes the central government. Thanks to this report by Gualterio, street rumors about the Mafia reached the ears of those in power for the first time.

Prefect Gualterio was quite candid in his conclusions about what a good opportunity to deal with the opposition provides the appearance of the "mafia". He suggested that the government send troops to the island in order to suppress local crime and thereby deal a mortal blow to the opposition. The minister heeded the recommendations of the prefect, and for almost six months 15,000 soldiers tried to disarm the islanders, catch draft evaders, arrest fugitives and hunt down the mafia. The details of this military campaign (the third in several years) are irrelevant to our story; suffice it to say that she failed.

Gualterio was an expert in his field and by no means distinguished by a riot of imagination. He did not have to invent a mafia to find a pretext for reprisals against the opposition. In many ways, his description of the "so-called mafia" coincides with the description in the pamphlet of Baron Turrisi Colonna. Organized crime on the island has become an integral part of politics. The mistake - and a very convenient mistake - of Gualterio was that, in his opinion, all the villains were on the same end of the political spectrum - the opposition. As the 1866 uprising showed, some important mafiosi, such as Antonino Giammona, said goodbye to the revolutionary past and became ardent champions of order.

After Gualterio's report, the word "mafia" came into use and instantly became the subject of fierce philological disputes. Some referred to this word as a secret criminal organization, others believed that behind it was nothing more than a special form of Sicilian national pride. It so happened that Gualterio, with his report, involuntarily raised a cloud of dust around the word "mafia"; this cloud was noted a decade later by Franchetti and Soninno, who traveled all over Sicily, and dissipated only thanks to the efforts of Judge Giovanni Falcone.

Giving the mafia a name, Gualterio made an invaluable contribution to the creation of its image. Since then, the mafia and the politicians it feeds have often claimed that Sicily is being humiliated and misrepresented in Italy. The government, they say, "invented" the mafia as a criminal organization in order to find an excuse to subject the Sicilians to repression; as we can see, we have another version of the theory of "village chivalry". One of the reasons these claims have been so popular over the past 140 years is that they are occasionally true: officials are constantly tempted to call anyone who disagrees with them mafiosi.

By acting in this hypocritical way, the Italian government has strengthened the reputation of the mafia. Thus, Gualterio, calling the mafia a mafia, became the unwitting author of the "brand strategy" of the Sicilian crime syndicate. After Gualterio, any repressive measures that proved ineffective against the mafia (whatever the government meant by this word) only undermined the respect of citizens for those in power and created a reputation for the mafia as an organization not only cunning and invulnerable to persecution, but also more effective and even more "honest". ' than the state.

More than a century had passed since Gualterio's report before anyone bothered to know the attitude of the mafia to the name given to it. This inquisitive person turned out to be the novelist Leonardo Schasha, in whose short story "Philology" (1973) two anonymous Sicilians, our contemporaries, have an imaginary dialogue about the meaning of the word "mafia". The more educated of the interlocutors, apparently a politician, demonstrates his erudition at every opportunity, quoting contradictory entries from lexicons published over the course of a century, and arguing that the word "mafia" is most likely of Arabic origin. At the same time, with the indecisiveness characteristic of a "gentleman scientist" - it is easy to imagine him as a portly man in his seventies in a wrinkled suit - he refuses to choose the main meaning of the word.

His younger interlocutor talks more down to earth; an image of a stocky, middle-aged man with featureless features and wearing Ray Wap sunglasses emerges in the reader's mind. Despite the respect he obviously has for the "gentleman scientist," this man is unable to hide his contempt for "academic stuff." In his interpretation, the mafia is something like a club of courageous people who are ready to stand up for their interests.

In the finale, it turns out that both interlocutors, of course, are mafiosi, and their dialogue is just a rehearsal in case they have to appear before a parliamentary commission. The elderly remarks that he is perhaps ready to ask the commission to allow him to make a small contribution to the history of the issue - "a contribution to confusion, you understand." As for the attitude of the author of the story to the word "mafia", then, according to Shash, somewhere after 1865 this word turned into a joke for the Sicilian mafia at public expense.

If the sources we have can be trusted - and in the history of secret societies like the mafia, this "if" is a sine qua non - then the "sect" arose in the vicinity of Palermo, when the most cruel and most cunning bandits, members of local "parties", gabellotti , smugglers, cattle rustlers, estate wardens, peasants and lawyers united to specialize in the industry of violence and to widely practice the methods of achieving power and wealth, tested in the citrus business. These people have taught their methods to family members and business associates. When they got into prison, they introduced other prisoners to their “teachings”. When the Italian government made a series of cruel and unsuccessful attempts to crack down on the "sect", it turned into a mafia. At the latest in the late 1870s, at least in Palermo and the surrounding area, the mafia established itself in its possessions and got down to business. It was based on extortion proceeds and on the patronage of local politicians, had a cell structure, name and rituals, and its rival was an inefficient and incompetent state.

The most difficult question to answer is how many mafias existed at that time - one or many. It is impossible to establish which of the Sicilian "mafias" mentioned in government reports in the 1860s and 1870s were independent gangs; it is likely that they copied the methods that had become widely known by that time, or they considered themselves members of the same secret brotherhood to which Antonino Giammona, the boss of the audit mafia, belonged. The problem is how to interpret historical documents. In official papers, the mafia is often mentioned, but not everything that is called the mafia in them was such in reality. Some police officials willingly distorted the facts, fitting them into a "conspiracy theory" so that politicians had something to frighten their opponents.

Baron Turrisi Colonna's pamphlet is a valuable source of information due to the baron's close ties to the Mafia; and Turrisi Colonna writes of only one "numerous sect". However, his opinion could be based on a horizon limited to the vicinity of Palermo, and therefore cannot be considered decisive for the rest of Western Sicily. Police reports from the period 1860-1876 list various gangs that fought among themselves in Sicilian towns and villages. True, one cannot conclude from this that many mafias exist: after all, the civil strife in question could easily have arisen within the organization, as examples from the life of modern Cosa Nostra prove.

No matter how one regards this evidence, the very fact of their presence leads one to ask the following question: if the mafia already existed in the 1860s and 1870s, and if modern historians have data confirming this, then did those who lived at that time not have these data, allowing you to understand what the mafia is and find ways to deal with it? By 1877, Italy had Turrisi Colonna's pamphlet, the results of the parliamentary investigation of the 1866 uprising, Franchetti's work on the "industry of violence", Dr. Galati's memorandum addressed to the Minister of the Interior, and many other materials. Why did no one manage to prevent the mafia? Part of the answer is that the Italian government had too many other things to worry about at the time. But the main reason is much more shameful. The year 1876 represents a kind of watershed: in this year the mafia became an integral part of the Italian system of government.

Industry of Violence

There was something English about the investigation conducted by Leopoldo Franchetti and Sidney Sonnino. Both young men admired British liberalism, and Sonnino got his name from an English mother. Arriving in Sicily, they found themselves in a land where the majority of the population spoke a completely incomprehensible dialect. In the universities and literary salons left behind by Franchetti and Sonnino, Sicily was perceived as a mysterious place, known primarily from ancient Greek myths and ominous notes in the newspapers. Therefore, young people prepared in advance for hardships and all sorts of troubles, firmly deciding at the same time to make the most complete map of uncharted territories. Among the equipment they brought with them to the island in March 1876 were repeating rifles, large-caliber pistols, and eight copper cans (four each). Basins were supposed to be filled with water and placed at the foot of camp beds to repel insects. Since there were few roads far from the coast (and those that did were in a terrible state), travelers often rode on horseback, choosing routes and guides at the very last moment in order to avoid possible attacks.

Of the two, Franchetti had fewer illusions about Sicily: two years earlier he had been on a similar expedition to the south of mainland Italy, so he knew what to expect. However, Sicily made him lean with "inescapable tenderness" on the rifle strapped to the saddle. He later wrote: "This naked, monotonous land seems to be crushed by a mysterious and sinister burden." The notes that Franchetti took during the trip have only recently been published; of the stories he recorded, two in particular help explain why he was shocked when he encountered Sicily.

According to the first entry on March 24, 1876, Franchetti and Sonnino reached the city of Caltanisetta in Central Sicily. There they learned that a priest had been shot dead in the nearby village of Barrafranca two days earlier; according to local officials, this village was considered a mafia stronghold. Sixty meters from where the priest had been killed stood a witness, a newcomer to Sicily, a government inspector from the northern city of Turin, who had been sent to levy taxes on the grind. This inspector ran up to the dying priest and heard the last words: the priest blamed his own cousin for his death.

Quite disturbed by what had happened, the inspector jumped on his horse and rushed to the carabinieri. Then he informed his family about the death of the priest, and he did not bring down the sad news on them right from the doorway, but called for him: they say, the priest needs help - and along the way he revealed the truth. The priest's household thanked the inspector for his sympathy and explained that the murder was the result of a twelve-year enmity between the priest and his cousin. At the same time, the priest himself, a very wealthy man, enjoyed a bad reputation in the village because of his propensity for violence and on suspicion of bribery.

Twenty-four hours later, the local police arrested the inspector, threw him into a cell and charged him with murder. Among those who testified against the stranger was the priest's cousin. And the inhabitants of Barrafranca, including the family of the murdered man, remained silent. Luckily for the Inspector, the officials in Caltanisetta got wind of what was going on; when the inspector was released, the real criminal immediately fled.

A week after Caltanisetta, Franchetti and Sonnino found themselves in Agrigento, on the south coast of the island, famous for the ruins of Greek temples. There, Franchetti's notebooks were filled with another story - about a woman who received 500 lire from the police in exchange for information about two criminals; the two were in league with the local boss, who owned a significant portion of the government's road construction contracts. Shortly after the woman received the money, her son returned to the village from prison, where he had spent ten years. He had a letter with him, in which he signed in detail what his mother was guilty of before the mafia. Arriving home, he asked his mother for money for new clothes; the woman answered evasively, and this led to a noisy quarrel, after which the son left the mother's house in anger. He quickly returned with his cousin; together they stabbed the woman ten times - six sons and four nephews. Then they threw the body out of the window into the street - and went to surrender to the police.

Traveling through Sicily, Franchetti and Sonnino repeatedly noted that the word "mafia" in the ten years that have passed since it was first heard, has acquired a completely incomprehensible ambiguity. During their two months of traveling, travelers heard as many interpretations of this word as they met people, and every inhabitant of the island accused all other Sicilians of belonging to the mafia. The local authorities could do nothing to help; as a lieutenant of the carabinieri once admitted: “It is very difficult to determine what it is; you have to be born in Sambuca to figure it out.”

In the preface to his book following the expedition, Franchetti explained his feelings: what struck him most was that the most hopeless situation was not in the inland Golden regions of the island, where travelers expected to face ignorance and crime, but in the green citrus groves in the vicinity of Palermo. On the surface, the city was the center of a thriving industry that everyone was proud of: "Each tree is treated as if it were the last example of the rarest breed." But the first impression was replaced by stories from which goosebumps ran down the skin, and the hair stood on end. “After another batch of stories like this, the smell of oranges and lemons in blossom was replaced by the smell of decay.” The concentration of Violence against the background of modern production was contrary to the belief devoutly held by the Italian authorities that economic, political and social development marched in step. Franchetti in Sicily began to wonder if the principles of freedom and justice to which he was committed were embodied in the island “in anything else than pathetic speeches that hide ulcers that cannot be healed; these speeches are like a layer of varnish over dead bodies.

The spectacle, as we see, is tragic and depressing. However, Leopoldo Franchetti was not only brave, but also strong in spirit; he sincerely believed that, by rolling up his sleeves, he could cope with the problems that beset the newly formed state. As befitted a true patriot, he felt ashamed at the thought that foreigners knew Sicily better than Italians. Patiently studying the island and its history, Franchetti eventually overcame doubts and confusion. The result was a book in which the history of the Mafia was systematized for the first time. Sicily was by no means chaos; on the contrary, her problems with law and order logically followed from the islanders' quite modern rationality. The reason, Franchetti concluded, was that the island had become home to a "violent industry."

Franchetti begins his mafia history in 1812, when the British, who occupied Sicily during the Napoleonic Wars, began to methodically destroy the feudalism that reigned on the island. The feudal system on the island was based on a local form of joint land ownership: the king leased the land to the nobleman and his descendants, in return, the aristocrat undertook to send his squad to the aid of the king when the need arose. In the territory of the aristocrat, called "flax" or "feud", the only law was his word.

Before the eradication of feudalism, Sicilian history was an endless series of battles between foreign monarchs and local feudal lords. The monarchs sought to concentrate power in the center, the barons resisted this desire as much as they could. In internecine wars, the nobility held the upper hand, not least because the mountainous landscape of Sicily and the almost complete absence of roads made it extremely difficult for any outside interference in the internal affairs of the island.

Baronial privileges were numerous and lasting. The custom, which dictated to the vassals to kiss the hand of the overlord at the meeting, was officially abolished by Garibaldi only in 1860. The title "don", previously held exclusively by the Spanish aristocrats who ruled the island, eventually became an appeal to any person of any high position. (It should be noted that this appeal is widespread in Sicily everywhere, by no means only in mafia circles.)

The eradication of feudalism at first only changed the rules of war between the center and the barons. (The landowners were extremely reluctant to give up power; the last of the large estates on the island collapsed in the mid-1950s.) Gradually, however, the warring parties learned to make and maintain long-term truces; the property market began to be regulated by relevant laws. Estates were sold in parts. And for the land that you acquire, and do not receive by inheritance, you were supposed to pay; land has become an investment that pays for itself if you approach it properly. This is how capitalism appeared in Sicily.

Capitalism lives on investment, but lawlessness in Sicily put investment at risk. No one was eager to buy new agricultural machines or expand their holdings and sow the fields with grain for sale, as long as there was a real threat that competitors would steal these machines and burn the crops. Having suppressed feudalism, the modern state must establish a monopoly on violence and declare war on crime. By monopolizing heritage in this way, the modern state creates the conditions for commerce to flourish. Under these conditions, there is no longer any place for unruly baronial squads.

According to Franchetti, the main reason for the emergence of the mafia in Sicily was the catastrophic failure of the state to live up to this ideal. The state was distrusted because after 1812 it was never able to establish a monopoly on the use of violence. The power of the barons in the localities was such that the state courts and the police danced to the tune of local leaders. Worse, from now on it was not only the barons who considered themselves entitled to use force when and where they pleased. Violence has been "democratized," as Franchetti put it. The agony of feudalism meant that a significant number of men seized the opportunity to forcefully win a place for themselves in the new economy. Some of the recent vigilantes have begun to pursue their own interests; they hunted by robbery on the roads, and the landowners covered them - some out of fear, some out of complicity. Formidable managers, often renting parts of the estates, also resorted to violence to protect their possessions. In the city of Palermo, artisan guilds demanded the right to bear arms so that they could patrol the streets (as well as "bring down" prices and carry out operations to seize goods from competitors).

As local governments began to take shape in the provincial Sicilian towns, groups that combined gangs of armed criminals, commercial enterprises and political factions quickly got their bearings and wedged themselves into the process. Government officials complained that "sects" and "parties" - sometimes just large families with weapons in their hands - were turning parts of the island into completely ungovernable areas.

The state also established the courts, but it soon became clear that the new institutions unconditionally take the side of those who have the strength and will to demonstrate this strength. Corruption has also affected the police. Instead of reporting crimes to the authorities, policemen often acted as intermediaries in transactions between robbers and their victims. For example, cattle rustlers no longer drove the stolen cattle along secret paths to the slaughterhouse, but turned to the police captain with a request to "help". The captain organized the return of the cattle to the rightful owner, and the hijackers received money in return. Naturally, the captain himself did not remain at a loss.

In this grotesque travesty of capitalist economics, law has been hacked up and privatized like land. Franchetti described Sicily as an island dominated by a bastard form of capitalist competition. There were very blurry, ghostly boundaries between the economy, politics and crime on the island. Under these conditions, people who decided to start their own business could not rely on the protection of the law, which did not protect themselves, their families, or their business interests. Violence became a condition of survival: the ability to use force was valued no less than investment capital. Moreover, according to Franchetti, violence in Sicily has become a form of capital.

Mafiosi, according to Franchetti, were "violent entrepreneurs" - specialists who developed what would today be called the most advanced market model. Under the leadership of their bosses, mafia gangs "invested" violence in various areas of commerce and entrepreneurship in order to profit and secure a monopoly. It is this situation that Franchetti called the industry of violence. He wrote:

“(In the industry of violence) a mafia boss… behaves like a capitalist, impresario and manager. He directs all the crimes committed ... he regulates the distribution of duties and monitors the discipline of workers. (Discipline is essential in any industry that has the goal of generating significant profits on a consistent basis.) It is none other than the mafia boss who decides, based on the circumstances, whether to postpone violence or resort to more cruel and bloody measures. He must adapt to market conditions, choosing what operations to perform, what people to hire, what form of violence to use.

In Sicily, people with business or political ambitions were faced with the following alternative: either arm themselves or - and this happened more often - acquire protection from a specialist in violence, that is, from the mafioso. Live Franchetti today, he could say that threats and assassinations are part of the service sector of the Sicilian economy.

It seems that Franchetti saw himself as the new Charles Darwin in the delinquent ecosystem; as such, it reveals to us the laws of the criminal world of Sicily. At the same time, thanks to this approach, Sicily appears to us as an exceptional anomaly. However, in reality, capitalism in any country goes through a “bastard” phase of development. Even Great Britain, the country of Franchetti's dream, did not escape this fate. In the 1740s in Sussex, gunmen made huge profits from tea smuggling. Their activities led to anarchy in the county: they bribed customs officials, clashed with government troops and did not disdain robbery. One historian described Great Britain in the 1740s as a banana republic whose politicians perfected the arts of patronage and nepotism and the systematic plunder of public funds. The picture drawn by Franchetti also lacks completeness for the reason that the author did not believe in the mafia as a secret society.

The work The Political and Administrative State of Sicily was met with a combination of hostility and indifference. Many Sicilian reviewers accused the author of ignorant contempt. It is partly Franchetti's own fault that the book was received in this way. For example, his proposals for a solution to the "mafia problem" demonstrate authoritarianism and antipathy towards the Sicilians: he did not allow the inhabitants of the island to have a say in how they are governed. Franchetti believed that the Sicilian worldview is perverted, so they consider violence "ethically justified", and honesty is rejected as having no moral value. Apparently, he did not understand that people often join the mafiosi only because they are intimidated and do not know who to trust.

Thus, the pioneering work on the "industry of violence" was not accepted during Franchetti's lifetime. After publishing his study of Sicily, he later tried to make a political career, but did not succeed in this field. In the end, the grim patriotism that drove him to Sicily put an end to Franchetti's life. (Even friends sometimes noted that there was something dark and tragic in Franchetti's love for his country.) During the First World War, he did not find a place for himself because the country did not express a need for him in a difficult time. In October 1917, when the news of the crushing defeat of the Italians at Caporetto spread, Franchetti became depressed and put a bullet in his head.

Baron Turrisi Column and "sect"

In the early summer of 1863 - three years after Garibaldi's campaign - a Sicilian aristocrat who was soon to write the first book on the history of the Mafia was the target of a well-planned assassination attempt. Nicolò Turrisi Colonna, Baron Buonvicino, was returning to Palermo one evening from one of his estates. The road he was on led through lemon plantations in a wealthy area just outside the city walls. In the area between the villages of Noce and Olivuzza, five people opened fire on the baron's carriage; first they killed the horses, and then they transferred the fire to the passenger. Turrisi Colonna and his coachman drew their revolvers and fired back while looking for a place to hide. The shooting caught the attention of one of Colonna's plantation keepers. He fired his shotgun, and a scream came from the bushes on the side of the road. The failed killers then rushed away, taking with them a wounded comrade.

A year after the Turrisi attack, Colonna published a book entitled Public Safety in Sicily. It was the first of many books published after the unification of Italy, which analyzed the phenomenon of the Sicilian mafia, explored the myths associated with it and conflicting evidence. Thanks to Judge Falcone's investigation, today's historians have the opportunity to determine which of the early mafia researchers can be trusted and which cannot be trusted. Turrisi Column belongs to the former; his book is a reliable source full of curious details.

Part of the reason that Turrisi Colonna was such a good witness is due to his social status and the role he played in the dramatic events of the 1860s. Throughout Sicily he was known as a convinced patriot. In 1860, when he headed the national guard of Palermo, it was the baron's efforts that largely prevented the revolution from degenerating into anarchy. By the time the book was published, he was already a member of the Italian Parliament. Much later, in the 1880s, Turrisi Colonna became Mayor of Palermo twice. Even today he is remembered: in the Palazzo delle Aquile, the building of the city council of Palermo, there is a marble bust of the baron. The stern features are softened by a goatee, one of those that seem to be glued to the chin and betray belonging to the patricians in the civil service much more clearly than the row of medals on the chest.

Turrisi Colonna had a composure befitting his status. In 1864, when he wrote his pamphlet, law and order were the subject of incessant political debate. The government tried to prove that the opposition was plotting against the newly formed Italian state and itself provoked public unrest. Opposition representatives argued that the state was exaggerating the scale of the "crisis of legality" in order to accuse the opposition of crimes against society. Turrisi Colonna took a position that could satisfy both camps: he pointed out that organized crime in Sicily had been a real force for many years, but the new draconian government measures could only aggravate the situation.

Turrisi Colonna's research was based on a sober look: he wrote that newspapers are full of reports of thefts, robberies and murders, but this is only a small fraction of the crimes committed in Palermo and its environs, since the existing problem goes beyond the usual "rampant lawlessness":

“Stop fooling yourself. There is a thieves' sect in Sicily that has subjugated the whole island... This sect patronizes all who live in the countryside, from tenants to shepherds, and itself enjoys their patronage. She helps the merchants and receives support from them. The sect is not afraid of the police (or almost not afraid), because the members of the sect are sure that it will not be difficult for them to elude any persecution. The courts also do not frighten the sect: it is proud that, as a rule, there is not enough evidence for the court, because the sect knows how to convince witnesses.”

This sect, according to Turrisi Colonna, existed for about twenty years. In each area it recruits new members among the most intelligent peasants, among the overseers guarding the plantations outside Palermo, among the hundreds of smugglers who deliver grain and other taxable goods, bypassing customs - the most important source of funds for the city budget. Members of the sect use special signs to recognize each other as they drive stolen cattle to the city's slaughterhouses. Some members of the sect specialize in cattle theft, others in removing the owner's marks and moving animals, and others in slaughtering. In some places, the sect is so deeply rooted that it enjoys the political support of the dishonest factions that run the local councils, and therefore is able to intimidate any person, regardless of his position in society. Even individual respectable people are forced to join a sect in the hope that this will allow them to live in prosperity and peace.

Driven by hatred of the cruel and corrupt Bourbon regime and its police apparatus, the sect offered its services to the revolution in 1848 and 1860. Like many "people of violence," the members of the sect became interested in the revolution because it made it possible to throw open the gates of prisons, burn police records, and kill police informants in a flurry. The revolutionary government, the sect hoped, should grant an amnesty for those "persecuted" by the fallen regime; it must also announce the recruitment of the militia and give work to the heroes of the battles with the forces of the old order. However, the revolution of 1860 did not live up to the aspirations of the sect, and the harsh reaction of the new Italian government to the wave of crime on the island forced the sect to reconsider its attitude to power.

Only four months after the publication of Turrisi Colonna's pamphlet, the sect acquired its big name: it was then that the word "mafia" was first recorded. Given the information we have today, Turrisi Colonna's text seems surprisingly familiar. The baron mentions the "staging courts" so well known in later mafia trials: the members of the sect were going to decide the fate of those who violated the rules - and most often sentenced the violators to death. Turrisi Colonna also describes the code of silence, and in terms that are surprisingly consonant with our current knowledge.

“The rules of this malevolent sect state that any citizen who approaches the carabineri (military police) and speaks to them or merely exchanges greetings is a villain to be killed. Such a person is guilty of a terrible crime against "humility".

"Humility" means respect for the rules of the sect and loyalty to its charter. No one is allowed to commit acts that directly or indirectly affect the interests of other members of the sect. It is forbidden for anyone and everyone to provide any assistance to the police or the court in the investigation of any crimes.”

Humility is umilita in Italian, umirta in Sicilian, a word that abounds in the baron's text. Now it is believed that it was from this word that the famous omerta originated. Omerta is the mafia's code of honor, an obligation not to cooperate with the police, inviolable for all who belong to the sphere of interests of the mafia. The original omerta appears to have been a code of submission.

Turrisi Colonna advised the government not to respond to the deeds of the sect with measures of "gallows and racks." Instead, he proposed a set of well-thought-out police reforms that, in his opinion, could change the behavior of the Sicilians and give them a "second, civil baptism." The sobriety, wisdom and sincerity shown by Turrisi Colonna in describing the sect are comparable to his aristocratic restraint. He was too humble to mention a failed assassination attempt only a year ago; after all, it was just one of many similar occurrences around Palermo during the turbulent years following Garibaldi's speech. From the silence of Turrisi Colonna it followed that he did not know who had attempted on him and why, and what had become of the attackers. However, we have reason to suspect that these people did not live long.

Twelve years later, on March 1, 1876, Leopoldo Franchetti and Sidney Sonnino, two rich and "high-spirited" young men, arrived in Palermo from Tuscany with a friend and servants to conduct a private inquiry into the state of Sicilian society. By this time - just a year ago, Dr. Galati wrote his memorandum - the word "mafia" had been on the lips for a good ten years, but a variety of meanings were attributed to it - if they were attributed at all. (There was even no agreement on the spelling of this word: in the nineteenth century it was spelled with one "f", then with two, without changing its meaning.) Franchetti and Sonnino did not doubt that the mafia was a criminal organization, and intended to disrupt shrouded in a shroud of mystery and conflicting opinions.

The day after arriving in Sicily, Sonnino wrote to an acquaintance and asked her for a letter of introduction to Nicolò Turrisi Colonna, Baron Buonvicino, an acknowledged expert on the "sect."

“Here they say that he is connected with the mafia. But for us it doesn't matter. We want to hear what he has to say... Please don't tell anyone what I have told you about Baron Turrisi Colonna and his alleged mafia connections. Perhaps one of his friends will inform him of this and thereby do us a disservice.”

There is some evidence that Turrisi Colonna, the author of an analytical study of the "sect", provided significant political support to the most important and violent mafiosi of Palermo. Rumors of his connections with the Mafia spread widely, even members of the political faction to which the Baron belonged confessed in Rome their doubts about him.

In 1860, Turrisi Colonna appointed one of the leaders of the "sect" captain of the national guard of Palermo. He chose this cunning and cruel man for his ability to lead people and military experience: earlier he led one of the groups of revolutionaries who penetrated into Palermo during the revolutionary days from the surrounding hills. This man's name was Antonino Giammona, the same Giammona who later went to great lengths to take Fondo Riella away from Dr. Galati. Turrisi Colonna was also among those landowners who supported Giammona when the Home Office began investigating the Galati memorandum; Turrisi Colonna's lawyers were preparing Giammona's public statement on the matter. According to the report of the police chief of Palermo (1875), initiation rites into the mafiosi were held in one of the estates of Turrisi Colonna.

During three conversations with Franchetti and Sonnino in 1876, Turrisi Colonna talked a lot and willingly about economics. In addition to his reputation as a specialist in the "sect", he was fond of agriculture and agronomy and published many articles in academic publications on the cultivation and cultivation of citrus fruits. However, as soon as the talk turned to crime, he became unexpectedly laconic. Two years earlier, four of his men had been arrested by the police on an estate near Cefalu. He told Franchetti and Sonnino, as before the police, that he had no doubts about the innocence of those arrested. Landowners like him were the victims, he said; on their estates, they are simply forced to deal with bandits, otherwise it is impossible to protect precious crops and plantings. The baron did not mention the "sect" at all.

From Palermo's police chief, Franchetti and Sonnino learned that Turrisi Colonna's people were unlikely to face imprisonment, since the baron had serious political leverage and would not allow trial. Other representatives of the authorities quickly changed the subject of the conversation, as soon as the interviewers started talking about the baron.

Turrisi Colonna was a typical enigma of the tumultuous years in which the Mafia arose. He may well have prepared his 1864 pamphlet on internal sources of information - perhaps on the basis of what he learned from Antonino Giammona. When the baron wrote his book, it is possible that he sincerely hoped that Italy would be able to "normalize" Sicily. He was probably a victim of the mafia and expected that a strong and efficient state would help the landowners put the mafia in its place. Perhaps he was forced to maintain short-term cooperation with people like Giammona, expecting concrete measures from the Italian government to "pacify" Sicily. If so, his hopes and hopes had dried up long before 1876, when Franchetti and Sonnino came to him.

There is, however, another explanation for the metamorphosis that happened to the baron. Turrisi Colonna was never a victim. Their relationship with Jammona was based more on mutual respect than intimidation. Perhaps Turrisi Colonna was only the first of a series of Italian politicians whose words about the mafia were radically at odds with their deeds. Despite all the depth of organization and the iron grip of the mafia's code of honor, the Sicilian mafia would never have become what it became without the support of politicians like Turrisi Colonna. By and large, it did not make sense for the mafia to bribe policemen and magistrates, adhere to higher officials of strict enforcement of laws. In the Mafiosi's ledger, a friendly politician is the more useful the more society trusts him. If trust can be earned by thundering speeches against crime or analytical studies of the rule of law in Sicily, then so be it.

The mafia settles accounts with politicians in a currency that is rarely printed on the paper of parliamentary hearings and codes of laws and regulations. It materializes in a full-fledged gold of small favors: news of government contracts or proposed land sales, the transfer of overzealous magistrates preoccupied with their careers from the island to the mainland, warm seats for their own in local governments ... In public, Turrisi Colonna could demonstrate an abstract scientific interest in " sect”, looking at it from the height of their intellectual and social status. Away from public debate, he maintained close contact with Giammona and other mafiosi, securing business interests and providing political support.

Whatever happened between the mafia boss Giammona and the politician, intellectual and landowner Turrisi Colonna, the uprising in Palermo, which happened two years after the publication of the baron's pamphlet, turned out to be another round in the development of their relationship. In September 1866, armed gangs again moved to the city from the surrounding villages. The Turrisi Colonna National Guard, led by Antonino Giammona, defended Palermo. In the past, Giammona, like many other "men of violence", tried to speculate with revolutionary fervor; now he realized that the Italian state was a partner to do business with. Key members of the 'sect', such as Giammona, began to gradually shed their revolutionary past, and through them the 'sect' gradually entered the circulatory system of the new Italy. Along with other leaders of the struggle for the city in 1866, Turrisi Colonna was interrogated during the government investigation of events and without the slightest hesitation used the new word “mafia” to characterize the instigators of the riots: “The trials cannot be completed because the witnesses lie under oath. They will begin to tell the truth only when we put an end to the arbitrariness of the mafia.” Apparently, the mafia Turrisi Colonna called those criminals with whom he did not know personally.

We have not yet answered the question of how the “arbitrariness of the mafia” began. In 1877 the two men who had spoken to Turrisi Colonna published their study of Sicily in two volumes. In the first volume, the melancholy Sidney Sonnino, the future Prime Minister of Italy, analyzed the life of the landless peasants of the island. The part written by Leopoldo Franchetti bore the not-too-exciting title "Political and Administrative Conditions in Sicily." However, contrary to the name, this part turned out to be extremely curious; this nineteenth-century study of the Mafia continues to command authority well into the twenty-first century. Franchetti was referred to by everyone who wrote about the mafia later - until Giovanni Falcone appeared. The work "Political and administrative conditions in Sicily" gave the first convincing explanation of the causes of the mafia and described this process.

Passo di Rigano was the name of a village near Palermo. “Sun”, “moon”, “air” and “index finger” are obviously the designations of the mafia families, to which mafioso B.

The original introduction ceremony is more cumbersome and less reliable than the one to which Giovanni Brusca joined. (To begin with, it is not clear which of the two mafiosi should ask and which should answer.) Nevertheless, this outlandish dialogue confirms an obvious and extremely significant circumstance: already the early mafia was an organization so vast that its members did not always know each other. friend. As early as the end of the nineteenth century, the word "mafia" ceased to be an epithet for scattered criminal gangs and turned into the name of a criminal network.

The initiation ritual, more than any other of the Mafia ceremonies, confirms the widely held belief in the antiquity of the Mafia. In reality, this ritual is as modern as the organization itself. Apparently, the ritual was borrowed by the mafiosi from the Masons. Masonic societies, "imported" to Sicily from France via Naples around 1820, quickly gained popularity among wealthy opponents of the Bourbon regime. In these societies, of course, there were rites of passage, and in some meeting rooms, bloody daggers were shown to the assembled as a warning to would-be traitors. The Masonic sect of the Carbonari (“coal miners”) set as its goal a patriotic revolution. In Sicily, these societies gradually developed into political factions and criminal gangs: an official police report of 1830 states that the Carbonari circle is involved in fraudulent government contracts.

Turning into a single secret association using Masonic rituals promised many advantages for the mafia. The sinister initiation ceremony and the “constitution”, the first clause of which demanded the death of traitors, served to build confidence, as they forced criminals, who usually betrayed each other without hesitation, to think about the cost of betrayal. Thus, the risk of providing “protection” was significantly reduced. In addition, the ritual served to keep the most ambitious and aggressive members of the organization in line. In addition, the association offered mutual guarantees to neighboring gangs, which allowed each cosca to operate without fear of being stabbed in the back. Criminals who were not members of the organization were now forced to coordinate their actions with the mafia - otherwise they were threatened with opposition from a whole criminal network. Many underground operations, such as cattle theft and smuggling, required not only moving through territories subject to other gangs, but also acquiring reliable business partners along the entire route of the smuggled "cargo". Membership in the mafia automatically provided all the necessary guarantees to the parties involved in these operations.

By the time the Minister of the Interior learned of the confrontation between Dr. Galati and the audit cosca in 1875, the history of the mafia was almost over. However, it is still unclear where the mafia came from. We need to find out a lot about the "silent, pompous and cautious" Antonino Giammon, and in order to study his past, we must fast forward a decade from the events in the Riella fondo.

Initiation ritual

Although the police failed to bring the Mafiosi from Auditore to justice on the basis of Dr. Galati's memorandum about his tragic relationship with cosca Antonino Giammona, the investigation itself shed some light on the fact that the mafia is a secret brotherhood, sealed by a blood oath. As follows from the police materials, the people of Antonino Giammona, when initiating members of the fraternity, went through almost the same rite that the mafiosi adhere to to this day.

By sending his memorandum to the Minister of the Interior in 1875, Dr. Gaspare Galati intrigued the Minister, and he requested a report from the Chief of Police of Palermo. In his report, the police commissioner first described the ritual of initiation into mafia members. The source of information in this case could well be relied upon: as it was clear from Dr. Galati's note, the policemen maintained fairly close, not to say warm, contacts with the mafia almost from its very beginning.

According to the commissioner's report in the Mafia in the 1870s, any candidate for entry into the ranks of the "men of honor" had to pass an interview with the bosses and their closest assistants. One of those present then made an incision on the candidate's hand and suggested that he sprinkle the holy image with his blood. The candidate simultaneously took an oath of allegiance and burned the image, the ashes of which were scattered, which symbolized the destruction of traitors.

A special government envoy on his way to Sicily telegraphed the chief of police of Palermo on behalf of the minister: “Congratulations! What a vast field for further investigation!” Undoubtedly, this official would have been incredibly surprised if he happened to know that the field remained no less extensive in May 1976, when Giovanni Loscannachristiani Brusca "took place". (Brusca himself, in his testimony, used the Italian word "combinato", which can be translated both as "was initiated" and as "associated with a group.") The rite through which Brusca passed is very revealing in comparison with the ritual of 1875; a comparison of these two rites makes it possible to understand why the mafia acquired the status of a secret society from the very beginning.

The man who would eventually blow up Judge Falcone was initiated into the mafia at nineteen. The fact that his father was a local mafia boss made Brusca's task much easier, especially since he managed to commit his first murder even before the initiation. Once he was invited to a country mansion, where another of the regularly held mafia banquets was to take place. The evening was attended by many "men of honor", including "superboss" Shorty Tony Riina, whom the young Brusca already called padrino (godfather). Some began to question the young man: “How do you feel about killings? Can you commit a crime? This seemed a little strange to him: he had already killed, and now they ask him how he feels about murders. He had no idea that the initiation ceremony had begun.

At some point, all those present took refuge in one of the rooms, and Bruska was left alone. Then he was called; he saw that his father had gone somewhere, and the others were sitting at a large round table on which a pistol, a dagger and a holy image were laid out (in the middle of the tabletop). The mafiosi began to bombard Brusca with questions: “If you end up in jail, will you remain faithful, will you betray us?” - "Do you want to become a member of the association known as Cosa Nostra?"

At first, Brusca was confused, but quickly gained confidence.

I like my comrades,” he said. - And I like to kill.

One of the "men of honor" pricked his finger with a dagger; Brusca smeared the blood on the holy image, which he then took in cupped palms, and the “godfather” Riina personally set fire to the paper and uttered the following words: “If you betray Cosa Nostra, your flesh will burn like this image,” after which he covered his palms with his palm Bars so that he does not drop the burning paper.

Among the many rules of the organization, to which Giovanni Brusca initiated Riina that day, there was also the famous “regulation on the presentation”. "People of honor" are forbidden to introduce themselves as mafiosi, even to their colleagues. According to the rule, a third is required, who, introducing two mafiosi to each other, will say: "This is our friend" or "You two are from the same company as me." It was the last phrase that Riina uttered on the day of Brusca's initiation, when his father returned to the room and the son was "introduced" to Brusca, the eldest, as a "man of honor."

The "position of presentation" described by Brusca shows curious differences from the ritual outlined in the report of the Chief of Police of Palermo in 1875. A hundred years before Brusca "took place", the mafiosi used a much more sophisticated system of identification, as evidenced, for example, by this ciphered dialogue about a toothache.

Palermo became an Italian city on June 7, 1860, when, under the terms of a cease-fire, two long snakes - columns of the vanquished - crawled out of the city and doubled their own length outside the city walls, waiting for the ships that were supposed to ferry them home to Naples. The retreat of the Neapolitans was the culmination of one of the most famous military achievements of the century, the pinnacle of patriotic heroism that struck Europe. Until that day, Sicily was ruled from Naples, as part of the Bourbon kingdom, which covered almost all of southern Italy. In May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi and about 1,000 volunteers - the famous Red Shirts - landed on the island with the goal of annexing it to the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. Under the leadership of Garibaldi, these patriotic ragamuffins disorientated and defeated the much larger Neapolitan army. Palermo surrendered after three days of fierce street fighting, during which time the Bourbon fleet continuously bombarded the city.

After the liberation of Palermo, Garibaldi led his people, who had noticeably increased in number and had already turned into a real army, to the east, to the mainland. On September 6, the hero was welcomed by Naples, and the next month he transferred all the territories he had liberated to the rule of the king of Italy. Garibaldi himself refused any rewards and returned to his island of Caprera, with only a poncho, some food and seeds for the garden. A plebiscite soon held confirmed that Sicily and southern Italy had indeed become part of the Italian kingdom.

Even contemporaries considered the accomplishments of Garibaldi "epic" and "legendary." However, these achievements quickly lost their significance, turned into a memory - the relationship between Sicily and the Italian kingdom turned out to be so tense and painful. The mountainous island has long been infamous as a revolutionary powder keg. Garibaldi succeeded in Sicily largely because his intervention led to a popular uprising that crushed the Bourbon regime. As it soon became clear, the 1860 uprising was only a prelude to real trouble. The reckoning of 2.4 million Sicilians as Italian citizens turned into a genuine epidemic of conspiracies, robberies, murders and settling accounts.

The royal ministers, who originated mainly in northern Italy, expected to find partners among the upper strata of Sicilian society, among those who reminded them of themselves - conservative landowners with the ability to govern and with a desire to carry out orderly economic development. Instead, the ministers, to their genuine amazement, faced outright anarchy: republican revolutionaries had close contacts with gangs of criminals, aristocrats and churchmen yearned for the Bourbon regime or stood up for the autonomy of Sicily, local politicians did not disdain kidnappings and murders as tools to fight against not less unscrupulous opponents. In addition, the state announced universal conscription, which had never been heard of in Sicily before, and therefore met with hostility. Many also believed, as it turned out, that participating in a popular revolution freed them from having to pay taxes.

The Sicilians, who sacrificed their political ambitions in the name of the revolution, resented the behavior of the government, which, as they believed, arrogantly deprived them of access to power, which they needed to solve the problems of the island. In 1862, Garibaldi himself became so desperate about the state of affairs in the newly formed kingdom that he returned from voluntary retirement and used Sicily as a base for organizing a new invasion of the mainland. He sought to liberate Rome, which still remained under the rule of the pope (Rome did not become the capital of Italy until 1870). Government troops stopped Garibaldi in the mountains of Calabria, where the recent hero was wounded in the heel.

The Italian government responded to the crisis by imposing a state of emergency in Sicily, setting an example for decades to come. Unwilling or unable to pacify Sicily politically, the government regularly resorted to military force: expeditionary forces landed on the island every now and then, cities were besieged, mass raids and arrests were carried out - without trial or investigation. But the situation did not improve at all. In 1866, a new rebellion broke out in Palermo, in many ways identical to the uprising that overthrew the Bourbons. As was the case during Garibaldi's attack in 1860, bands of rebels descended into the city from the surrounding hills. There were rumors - not confirmed - about cases of cannibalism and drinking of blood; The government re-imposed a state of emergency. The rebellion of 1866 was suppressed, but only after ten years filled with unrest and repression did Sicily get used to living side by side with the rest of Italy. In 1876, island politicians first entered into a coalition government in Rome.

A constant counterpoint to the disturbances in Sicily between 1866 and 1876 was the impression that the beauty of the island made on travelers who frequented Sicily after its annexation to Italy. All these travelers were speechless when they had a view of Palermo. One garibaldino, who first saw Palermo from the sea, recalled that the city looked like the embodiment of a children's fairy tale. Its walls were surrounded by a belt of olive and lemon groves, behind which rose the amphitheater of the surrounding hills and mountains. The urban layout also had a severe charm: the two main streets of Palermo ran perpendicular to each other and intersected at the Quattro Canti (“four corners”) - the square of the seventeenth century. At each corner of the Quattro Canti rose an ensemble of balconies, cornices and niches, symbolizing the four city blocks.

Despite the damage caused by the bombardment from the sea, Palermo in the 1860s offered numerous entertainments to local residents and visitors: the most important of them, perhaps, was considered a walk along the famous sea promenade - Marina. During the endlessly long summer, when the unbearable heat of the day barely subsided, the noble citizens went for coastal walks in the moonlight and inhaled the aromas of flowering trees - or ate ice cream and sherbet, making a promenade to the melodies of famous operas performed by the city orchestra.

In the narrow winding streets away from the main streets and from the Marina, aristocratic palaces had to crowd in the neighborhood with markets, craftsmen's workshops, warehouses and almost two hundred (more precisely, 194) charitable cloisters. In the early 1860s, visitors did not get tired of noting the number of monks and nuns on the city streets. Also, Palermo seemed to be a kind of stone palimpsest of a culture that goes back into the depths of time for many hundreds of years. Like the island as a whole, the city abounded with monuments left over from numerous invaders. Since the ancient Greeks, every Mediterranean power, from Rome to the Bourbon kingdom, has sought to subjugate Sicily to itself. To many, the island gave the impression of a collection of curiosities: Greek amphitheaters and temples, Roman villas, Arab mosques and gardens, Norman cathedrals, Renaissance palaces, Baroque churches ...

Sicily was perceived in two colors. Once it was the granary of ancient Rome. For centuries, wheat has grown in the endless fields, gilding the surrounding hills. The other color was less "age". The Arabs who conquered Sicily in the ninth century brought with them a new technology for irrigating the land; under them, the island was covered with citrus groves, endowing the northern and eastern coasts with a shade of dark green foliage.

It was during the turbulent 1860s that the Italian ruling elite first heard about the Sicilian mafia. Since no one knew what it really was, people who wrote about the mafia concluded that it was a vestige, a legacy of the Middle Ages, a sort of evidence of centuries of bad rule by strangers, thanks to which the island was in a backward state. Accordingly, they tried to find the origins of the mafia in the wheat gold of the hills, among the ancient estates where wheat was grown. Despite its wild beauty, the interior of Sicily was a vivid metaphor for everything that Italy sought to eradicate and leave behind. Hundreds of hungry peasants worked on huge estates, exploited by cruel landowners. Many Italians saw the mafia as the epitome of Sicilian backwardness and poverty and hoped that the mafia would disappear of its own accord as soon as Sicily emerges from the abyss of isolation and catches up with historical time. An optimist even claimed that the mafia would disappear "with the first whistle of the locomotive." This faith in the antiquity of the mafia never completely dried up - largely because the "people of honor" supported it. Tommaso Buscetta sincerely believed that the mafia originated in the Middle Ages as a resistance movement against the French occupiers.

However, in reality, the mafia cannot boast of such a respectable age. It originated around the time it was first heard of by angry Italian government officials. The mafia and the newly formed state were born together. By the way, the fame that the word "mafia" has received is a very curious fact; the Italian government, concerned with this word and what stood behind it, played a significant role in its dissemination.

As befits, perhaps, the criminal genius of the mafia, its origin cannot be reduced to any one story - you have to analyze several at once. Studying these histories and comparing them requires a certain chronological skill, if not resourcefulness: we will have to move back and forth in the turbulent decade of 1866-1876. and even take a short trip fifty years into the past, as well as listen to the testimony of people who were witnesses and accomplices of the birth of the mafia.

It is best to start not with the word "mafia" - for reasons that will certainly become clear - but with the affairs of the early mafia and with the places where it began its activities. After all, if the mafia cannot claim to be ancient, then the hills of inner Sicily covered with wheat gold are by no means the place of its birth. The mafia originated in what is still the island's heart of Sicilian wealth - on the dark green coast, in the middle of a modern capitalist import-export business, in the idyllic orange and lemon groves on the outskirts of Palermo.

Dr. Galati and the Lemon Grove

The mafia honed its methods during a period of rapid growth in the production and marketing of citrus fruits. Sicilian lemons gained commercial value in the late 1700s. A boom in the sale of these elongated yellow fruits in the middle of the nineteenth century led to the expansion of the dark green belt of Sicily. The British Empire played a significant role in this boom. Since 1795, lemons have been used in the Royal Navy as a remedy for scurvy. In addition to lemons, the British imported bergamot: its oil was added to Earl Gray tea; commercial production began in the 1840s.

Sicilian oranges and lemons were delivered to New York and London already at a time when in inner Sicily they knew about these fruits only by hearsay. In 1834, citrus exports from the island amounted to 400,000 cases; by 1850 there were 750,000 cases. In the mid-1880s, 2.5 million cases of Italian citrus were delivered to New York each year, and most of the fruit came from Palermo. In 1860 - the year of Garibaldi's campaign - it was estimated that the Sicilian lemon plantations were the most profitable agricultural land in Europe, surpassing even the orchards around Paris in this indicator. In 1876, citrus farming averaged sixty times more profit per hectare than any other piece of land on the island.

In the nineteenth century, citrus plantations were quite modern enterprises requiring significant initial investment. The land was to be cleared of stones, terraced, storehouses built, roads built, walls built to protect crops from the wind and thieves, irrigation canals dug, sluices installed, and so on. It took about eight years for the trees to bear fruit after planting. Profits could only be expected a few years later.

So the level of initial costs was quite high; in addition, lemon trees were extremely vulnerable. A short interruption in the water supply was enough for the plantation to die. There was also a constant threat of vandalism, directed both at the fruits and at the trees themselves. It was this combination of vulnerability and profitability that created the breeding ground for the development of mafia "patronage" practices.

Although lemon plantations existed and still exist in many coastal regions of Sicily, the mafia remained almost exclusively a western Sicilian phenomenon until relatively recently. It originated in the immediate vicinity of Palermo. In 1861, with almost 200,000 inhabitants, Palermo was the political, legal and banking center of western Sicily. More money circulated among the local moneylenders and real estate dealers than anywhere else on the island. Palermo was the center of wholesale and retail trade and a major port. It was here that land was sold, bought and leased, both in the neighborhood of the city and in other areas. In addition, Palermo set the rules of the political game for Sicily. In other words, the mafia was born not out of poverty and island seclusion, but out of wealth and power.

Lemon groves in the vicinity of Palermo became the setting for the story of the first victim of the mafia, who was honored with a detailed description of his hardships. That victim was the respected physician Gaspare Galati. Almost everything that is known about him as a man - and a man of great courage - is gleaned from the testimony he subsequently gave to the authorities, who eventually confirmed the accuracy of the details he reported.

In 1872, Dr. Galati, on behalf of his daughters and their maternal aunt, took over the property, the crown jewel of which was the fondo Riella - "garden", that is, a four-hectare plantation of lemons and tangerines in Malaspina, a fifteen-minute walk from the border of Palermo . This plantation was considered a model enterprise: the trees were irrigated with a modern three-horsepower steam pump, which required a specially trained person to operate the pump. However, when taking possession of the property, Gaspare Galati was clearly aware that large investments in business were at risk.

The former owner of the fondo, Riella, Dr. Galati's brother-in-law, died of a heart attack following a series of threatening letters. Two months before his death, he learned from the man who operated the pump that the letters were sent by the plantation superintendent, Benedetto Carollo, who dictated the texts to his accomplice, who could read and write. Carollo had no education, but he knew how to count: according to Galati, the caretaker behaved as if the plantation belonged to him, did not hide that he received 20–25 percent of the cost of production, and even stole coal intended for the steam pump. What bothered Dr. Galati's brother-in-law was that Carollo wasn't just stealing;

Between the Sicilian groves where lemons grew and the shops and stores in Northern Europe and America where people bought these fruits, long chains of salesmen, wholesalers, packers and transporters lined up. The business was built on innumerable financial speculations, with the money going into action while the fruits were still ripe on the trees; As a safety net against a poor harvest and to recoup the high initial investment, plantation owners tended to sell lemons long before it was time to harvest.

At fondo Riella, Dr. Galati's brother-in-law followed established practice. However, in the early 1870s, brokers who bought the plantation's crops from him suddenly discovered that lemons and tangerines were disappearing right from the trees. Fondo Riella quickly acquired an extremely dubious business reputation. There was practically no doubt that the caretaker Carollo was behind the disappearance of the fruits and that the goal of this enterprising young man was to bring down the price of the plantation and then acquire it as a property.

After taking over fondo Riella after his brother-in-law's death, Dr. Galati decided to save himself the trouble of renting out the plantation. But Carollo had other plans. Potential tenants listened to quite frank words from him: "By the blood of Christ, this garden will never be rented or sold." It overflowed the cup of patience

Galati: he kicked out Carollo and advertised that he was looking for a new caretaker.

Soon he had to find out how the young Carollo reacted to the fact that, in his own words, “they took away a legitimate piece of bread from him.” Surprisingly, several of Dr. Galati's closest friends (people who had nothing to do with the fruit business) insistently began to advise him to return Carollo. However, the doctor was not going to follow the advice.

Around 10 a.m. on July 2, 1874, the man Dr. Galati had hired to replace Carollo as caretaker of the Riella fondo was shot and killed several times in the back as he walked along a narrow path through the trees. The shots were fired from behind a stone fence in a nearby grove, a practice often resorted to by the Mafia in its early days. The victim died in a Palermo hospital a few hours later.

Dr. Galati's son went to the local police station to put forward a theory about Carollo's involvement in this murder. The police inspector ignored his words and arrested two men who happened to be passing by the plantation. They were later released, since, of course, no evidence of their guilt could be found.

Despite these discouraging events, Dr. Galati hired a new caretaker. Soon, several letters were planted in his house, saying that he had done wrong by dismissing the "man of honor", that is, Carollo, and hiring a "despicable spy". They also threatened in the letters that if Galati did not change his mind and return Carollo, he would face the same fate as the former caretaker, perhaps "more barbaric in manner." A year later, having found out what exactly he was faced with, Dr. Galati interpreted mafia terminology as follows: "In the language of the mafia, a thief and murderer is a man of honor, and a victim is a despicable spy."

The doctor came with these letters - there were seven of them - to the police. He was promised that they would arrest both Carollo himself and his accomplices, among whom was the adopted son of the former caretaker. However, the inspector - the one who had earlier seized on the false trail - was in no hurry to fulfill his promise. Three weeks passed before he was able to arrest Carollo and his adopted son, kept them in the station for two hours and released them on the grounds that they had nothing to do with the crime. Galati became convinced that the inspector was connected with the criminals.

The longer he fought for the property he managed, the clearer the picture of the actions of the local mafia became in the mind of Dr. Galati. Cosca was based in the nearby village of Uditore and hid behind the sign of a religious organization. In this village there was a small Christian fraternity, the "Tertiarii of St. Francis of Assisi", which was headed by a priest, a former Capuchin monk, known by the name of Father Rosario; the tertiaries proclaimed as their tasks the commitment to mercy and the help of the church. Father Rosario, who under the Bourbons was a police informer, was also a prison chaplain and used his position to pass notes from freedom to prison and from prison to freedom.

But he was not the leader of the gang. The chairman of the fraternity of the tertiaries and the boss of the mafia in Auditora was Antonino Giammona. Ots was born into an extremely poor peasant family and began his career as a laborer. The revolution that accompanied the integration of Sicily into the Italian kingdom allowed Giammona to acquire wealth and influence. The uprisings of 1848 and 1860 gave him the opportunity to show his own prowess and to have influential friends. By 1875, when he was fifty-five, he had become quite a wealthy man; According to the Chief of Police of Palermo, the value of Giammona's property was about 150,000 lire. He was suspected of massacring several fugitives from justice, whom he first sheltered. According to the police, their deaths were related to the fact that they began to steal from local businesses under the auspices of Jammona. It was also known that Giammona had received a large amount of money and some mysterious task from a familiar criminal from near Corleone, who fled to the United States from police persecution.

Dr. Galati described Antonino Giammona as "silent, pompous and cautious". There is every reason to believe this characterization, since the two knew each other very well: several members of the Giammona family were clients of Dr. Galati, and the latter somehow happened to extract two musket bullets from Brother Antonino's thigh.

Mafia Uditore was engaged in the fact that "patronizing" the local lemon plantations. They forced landowners to accept their people as overseers, watchmen or brokers. Mafia contacts with carters, wholesalers and port loaders could result in either the death of the crop or its safe delivery to the market; resorting to violence when necessary, the mafiosi founded miniature cartels and monopolies. Having taken possession of one or another fondo, the mafia took as much as it considered necessary, either as the notorious “tax” for patronage, or in order to buy up the enterprise, having previously reduced the price to a minimum. The cause of Dr. Galati's distress was not that Jammon somehow disliked him; no, the latter simply set out to subjugate all the citrus plantations in the vicinity of Uditore.

Convinced that the influence of the mafia extends to the local police, Dr. Galati decided to take his suspicions directly to the investigative magistrate. The decision was strengthened after the police returned only six of the seven threatening letters to him: the last, most frank, was “lost”. From the magistrate, Dr. Galati learned that such "incompetence" was quite typical of the local police station.

In the meantime, new anonymous letters appeared in the house: Dr. Galati was given a week to fire the caretaker and replace him with a "man of honor." However, Galati was inspired by the first positive result of his struggle - the police inspector, whom he suspected of having links with the mafia, was dismissed. In addition, the doctor reasoned that the mafia would not kill a person who occupies such a high position in society as he did, and therefore ignored the ultimatum. Barely passed the deadline indicated in the letter, the new caretaker was shot in the light of day in January 1875. Benedetto Carollo and two other former employees of the fondo were arrested on suspicion of murder.

This attack brought unexpected luck. Before passing out in the hospital, the victim identified his killers. At first, he did not respond to the questions of the police. But when the fever intensified and death came close, he asked to call the investigator and declared under oath: it was those three who were arrested by the police who shot at him.

Encouraged by the magistrate, Dr. Galati personally nursed the wounded and did not leave him day or night. He himself did not leave the house without a revolver, and he did not let his wife and daughters out into the street. Letters with threats did not stop, the situation in the family became more and more nervous. They wrote to Dr. Galati that he himself, as well as his wife and daughters, would be slaughtered - perhaps when they returned from the theater: the blackmailers knew that the doctor had a season ticket. The doctor found out that there was a mafia agent in the magistracy as well, since the mafiosi hinted that they had access to his testimony. Nevertheless, desperation was evident in the last anonymous letters. Dr. Galati allowed himself to hope that in a trial with a witness ready to testify, Benedetto Carollo would finally not be able to wriggle out of it.

And then the wounded caretaker, who was nursed by the doctor, took matters into his own hands. As soon as he got out of his hospital bed, he went to Antonino Giammon and negotiated a truce. Giammon organized a gala dinner in honor of this event, after which the witness changed his testimony - and the charges against Carollo fell apart.

Without saying goodbye to either relatives or friends, Dr. Galati fled with his family to Naples; he donated both property and clients, a list that steadily grew over a quarter of a century. After his flight, he sent a memorandum to the Minister of the Interior in Rome in August 1875. This note stated that 800 souls lived in Auditor at most, but only in 1874 twenty-three murders took place in the village - among the victims were two women and two children, and another ten people were seriously injured. None of the crimes were solved. The war for control of the citrus plantations was fought with the full connivance of the police.

The Minister of the Interior ordered the Palermo police chief to investigate the situation on the spot. The investigation of the Galati case was entrusted to a young capable officer. He soon found out that the second caretaker of the plantation, like his deceased predecessor, was a very remarkable person. Probably Dr. Galati did not know this (or did not want to admit), but the facts indicated that both caretakers he hired were in close relations with the mafia. It was as if the doctor had become embroiled in a war of rival mafia cosche.

The Uditor Mafia reacted to the new investigation by bringing in powerful people. Benedetto Carollo applied for permission to hunt the fondo Riella; his entertainment partner was a judge from the Palermo Court of Appeal. Antonino Giammonu was supported by many landowners and politicians. Lawyers prepared a document stating that Jammona and his son were persecuted only because they "live on their own means and do not allow anyone to rob them." In the end, the authorities had to abandon the investigation, except that the police continued to monitor Uditor.

Apparently, the misfortunes of Dr. Galati were connected not only and not so much with the actions of a gang of criminals, they largely arose from the fact that the doctor could not, as it turned out, trust either the police, or the magistrates, or the neighboring landowners. The story of Dr. Galati reveals to us another feature of the mafia. As will become apparent a little later, the emergence of the mafia is closely connected with the emergence of an unreliable state - the state of Italy.

"Patronism" - extortion, murder, the desire to control the territory, rivalry and cooperation of criminal gangs, even a kind of hint at the "code of honor" - all this can be found in the pages of Dr. Galati's memoirs, from which it follows that many mafia practices were used as early as 1870- years on lemon plantations near Palermo. In addition, the doctor's memoirs contain information about the most important element of mafia reality - the ritual of initiation into the mafia.

"Cosa Nostra" - these words made every inhabitant of the sunny island shudder. Entire family clans were involved in criminal mafia groups. Sicily, this flowering garden, grew on rivers of blood. The Sicilian mafia has spread its tentacles throughout Italy, and even the American godfathers have been forced to reckon with it.

After returning from the south of Italy, I shared my impressions with one of my friends. When I said that I didn’t manage to get to Sicily, I heard in response: “Well, for the better, because there is a mafia!”

Unfortunately, the sad glory of the island washed by the waters of three seas is such that its name conjures up not amazing landscapes and unique cultural monuments, not centuries-old traditions of the people, but a mysterious criminal organization that has entangled, like a web, all spheres of society. Famous films contributed a lot to this idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba "criminal syndicate": about Commissioner Cattani, who fell in an unequal battle with the "octopus", or about the "godfather" Don Corleone, who moved to America from the same Sicily. In addition, the echoes of high-profile trials of mafia leaders in the 80s and 90s, when the fight against organized crime in Italy reached its climax, have reached us. However, no success of the authorities and the police in this endeavor can change the postulate that has taken root in the minds of society: "The Mafia is immortal." Is it really?

It is generally accepted that the mafia is a fairly complex branched criminal organization with its own strict laws and traditions, whose history goes back to the Middle Ages. In those distant times, people armed with swords and lances, hiding their faces under hoods, were hiding in the underground galleries of Palermo - members of the mysterious religious sect "Beati Paoli". The very name "mafia" appeared in the XVII century. It is assumed that the word is based on an Arabic root meaning "protection"; there are also other interpretations of it - “asylum”, “poverty”, “secret murder”, “witch” ... In the 19th century, the mafia was a brotherhood that protected “unfortunate Sicilians from foreign exploiters”, in particular, from time of the Bourbons. The struggle ended with a revolution in 1860, but the peasants, instead of their former oppressors, found new ones in the person of their compatriots. Moreover, the latter managed to introduce into the life of Sicilian society the relations and code of conduct that had developed in the bowels of a secret terrorist organization. The criminal orientation quickly became the cornerstone of the "brotherhood", the corruption with which it supposedly fought was in fact the basis of its existence, mutual assistance turned into mutual responsibility.

Skillfully using the distrust of the official authorities, traditional for the population of the region, the mafia formed an alternative government, practically replacing the state where it could act more effectively, for example, in such an area as justice. The mafia undertook to solve any problems of the peasant, and - at first glance - for free. And the poor turned to her for protection, which the state could not provide them. The peasants did not think that someday it would be their turn to render services to their patron. As a result, each village had its own mafia clan, which administered its own court. And the widespread myth of a secret, centralized and ramified organization with a thousand-year history greatly contributed to strengthening the authority of such clans as its “local divisions”.

Palermo Airport bears the names of Falcone and Borsellino, who have become a legend in today's Italy. Prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and his successor Paolo Borsellino did their best to rid Sicily of the mafia. Falcone became the prototype of the famous Commissioner of Catania.

1861 - an important milestone in the history of the mafia - it became a real political force. Relying on the poor population of Sicily, the organization managed to nominate its candidates to the Italian parliament. By buying or intimidating other deputies, the mafia was able to largely control the political situation in the country, and the mafiosi, still relying on grassroots criminal structures, turned into respectable members of society, claiming a place in its upper class. The researchers compare the Italian society of that time with “a layer cake, in which the connections between the layers were carried out not by official representatives, but by informal ones, i.e. mafia soldiers. Moreover, without denying the criminal nature of such a state structure, many of them recognize it as quite rational. In the book of Norman Lewis, for example, you can read that in the “mafia” Palermo, a housewife could easily forget her handbag on a table in a bar, because the next day she would certainly find it in the same place.

The authorities of Palermo have developed a program to combat the mafia, which they called the "Sicilian cart". "Sicilian cart" two-wheeled. One wheel - repression: police, court, special services. The other wheel is culture: theater, religion, school.

Nevertheless, the new, "legal" mafia could not save the south of Italy from terrible impoverishment, as a result of which, between 1872 and the First World War, about 1.5 million Sicilians emigrated, mainly to America. Prohibition served as a fertile ground for illegal business and capital accumulation, the former members of the brotherhood reunited and successfully recreated their usual way of life on a foreign land - this is how Cosa Nostra was born (originally this name was used to refer specifically to the American mafia, although now so often called Sicilian).

In Italy, the mafia continued to be a state within a state until the Nazis came to power in 1922. Like any dictator, Benito Mussolini could not reconcile himself to the existence of any alternative power structures, even informal and perverted ones. In 1925, Mussolini deprives the mafia of its main instrument of political influence by canceling the elections, and then decides to finally bring the organization objectionable to the regime to its knees and sends a special prefect, Cesare Mori, to Sicily, endowing him with unlimited powers. Thousands of people were thrown into prison without sufficient evidence; sometimes, in order to capture the "godfathers", sieges of entire cities were announced, but Mori's tough tactics bore fruit - many mafiosi were imprisoned or killed, and in 1927, not without reason, victory over organized crime was announced. In fact, the fascist party itself began to play the role of the mafia as a guarantor of public order in Sicily and an intermediary between the government and the peasants.

The most "mafia" Sicilian sweetness is cannoli, waffle rolls with a sweet filling. They eat them all the time at The Godfather. Another Sicilian dessert is cassata, an almond-based cake. And the tourist town of Erice specializes in vegetables and fruits made from colored marzipan.

Those influential mafiosi who managed to escape Mori's persecution found refuge in the United States. However, even here the free life of Cosa Nostra was violated: first, by the abolition of the Prohibition in 1933, which dealt a blow to the mafia's business, and then by quite successful, although not always legal, actions of the state against the most odious figures of the criminal organization. For example, the infamous Al Capone was imprisoned for 11 years for tax evasion, and another "America's greatest gangster", John Dillinger, was simply shot dead by federal agents when he left the cinema. However, the end of the Second World War was approaching, and the idea of ​​using the authority of the heads of organized crime in the capture of Sicily seemed tempting to the Allies. The "boss of bosses" of the latter, Lucky Luciano, who was sentenced by a US court to 35 years in prison, acted as an intermediary between the Sicilian and American mafias. The replacement of this punishment with deportation to Rome was, apparently, a good incentive for him - Luciano agreed with the Italian "colleagues" to assist the Allies in landing on Sicily, and the inhabitants of the island met the British and American troops as liberators.

However, there has never been a case where society did not have to pay for the services of the mafia. Almost brought to her knees, she suddenly had the opportunity to be reborn in a new capacity. The dons who distinguished themselves most in the fight against the fascists were appointed mayors in the main cities of Sicily, the mafia managed to replenish its arsenal at the expense of the Italian army, a thousand mafiosi who helped the allied forces were amnestied under a peace treaty. The Sicilian mafia has strengthened its position at home, strengthened ties with its American "sister" and, moreover, significantly expanded its possessions - both territorially (penetrating Milan and Naples, previously untouched by it), and in the sphere of its criminal business. Since the late 50s, the heads of the Sicilian organization have become the main suppliers of heroin to America.

The beginning of this was laid by the same Lucky Luciano, who, by the way, lived to a ripe old age and died of a heart attack almost during a meeting with an American director who was going to make a film about his life. The efforts of his followers were directed both to the drug trade and to establishing links between the mafia and politicians. How much they have succeeded in this over the past decades can be judged by the report of the Italian Anti-Mafia Commission: “Numerous interrelations have formed between mafiosi, businessmen and individual politicians, which have led to the fact that public authorities have fallen into an extremely humiliated position .. The mafia often resorted to threats or direct physical liquidation of people, even intervening in political issues, since the fate of the entire business, the income of the mafia and the influence of its individual representatives depended on them.

Thus, the impression was created that nothing threatened the well-being of the mafia. But this is not entirely true - the danger lay within the organization itself. The structural structure of the mafia is well known: at the top of the pyramid is the head (capo), near which there is always an adviser (consigliere), the heads of departments (caporegime), who control ordinary performers (picciotti), are directly subordinate to the head. In the Sicilian mafia, its cells-detachments (kosci) consist of blood relatives. Koskis under the leadership of one don are united in a consortium (family), and all the consortia together make up the mafia. However, the romantic version of an organization united by common goals becomes nothing more than a myth when it comes to big money.

The ritual of initiation into the Sicilian mafia is that the newcomer's finger is wounded and his blood is shed on the icon. He takes the icon in his hand, and it is lit. A beginner must endure the pain until it burns out. At the same time, he must say: "Let my flesh burn like this saint if I break the rules of the mafia."

Each consortium has its own interests, often very different from those of the rest of the Mafia. Sometimes the heads of families manage to agree among themselves on the division of spheres of influence, but this does not always happen, and then society becomes a witness to bloody wars between mafia clans, as was the case, for example, in the early 80s. The response to the drug trade that led to this terrible massacre was a government anti-mafia campaign, and the mafia, in turn, instituted terror, the victims of which were high-ranking officials, politicians and law enforcement officers. In particular, in 1982, General Della Chisa was killed, who began to dig up mafia scams in the construction industry and became interested in the question of who protects it in the government. 10 years later, the chief mafioso Tommaso Buschetta, who was arrested in Brazil, said that Giulio Andreotti, who served seven times as prime minister, ordered the clan to kill Della Chisa. Buscetta is also the author of the so-called "Buscetta theorem", according to which the mafia is a single organization based on a strict hierarchy, with its own laws and specific comprehensive plans. This “theorem” was firmly believed by the anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, who back in the 80s conducted a series of investigations, as a result of which hundreds of mafiosi were brought to trial.

After the arrest of Buscetta, Falcone, relying on his testimony, was able to start several "high-profile cases" against them. The judge vowed to devote his whole life to the fight against the "curse of Sicily", was sure that "the mafia has a beginning and an end", and sought to get to its leaders. Falcone created something like a committee to combat the mafia, the success of which was so obvious that the committee was ... dissolved by the authorities, dissatisfied with his authority and fame, and possibly fearing exposure. Slandered, left alone, Falcone left Palermo, and in May 1992, along with his wife, fell victim to a terrorist attack. However, the murder of Giovanni Falcone and another judge who fought against the mafia - Paolo Borselino - forced the Italian public to wake up. The mafia has largely lost its former support of the population. The “omerta” law, which surrounded the organization with a veil of silence, was violated, and a lot of “peniti” (repentant), i.e. defectors who refused mafia activities gave evidence, which made it possible to send dozens of important dons to jail. However, the old generation of gangsters, forced to retreat into the shadows, was replaced by a young one, ready to fight both the legitimate authorities and their predecessors...

So, the fight against organized crime, which was carried out with varying success throughout the 20th century, continues to this day. The mafia sometimes "changes its skin", always retaining its essence of a criminal terrorist organization. It is invulnerable as long as the official institutions of power remain ineffective and officials remain corrupt and selfish. In fact, the mafia is an exaggerated reflection of the vices of the whole society, and until society has found the courage to fight its own vices, the mafia can still be called immortal.

There are many legends about organized crime in various countries, embellished and romanticized by works of art. Thanks to this, members of criminal gangs are shrouded in a kind of brutal flair, which, if not turning them into Robin Hoods, at least allows them not to be perceived as cruel and greedy thugs. One of these legends says that criminals have their own special code of honor, which they strictly follow. This view is somewhat true, and the most famous of these codes is the omerta, the unwritten law of the Sicilian mafia.

Deaf-blind-mute - that's the perfect mafia ...

Thanks to books and there was an idea that omerta (in Russian pronunciation, the emphasis is on the second syllable, in the original Italian sound - on the last one) is exclusively the law of silence, which all mafiosi must keep. That is, a member of the mafia should not tell anyone anything about the affairs of the “family”, about the members of the organization, about its activities - in general, be silent like a fish. This is indeed one of the main components of omerta, but far from the only one.

Omerta is translated as "mutual responsibility" and includes a variety of traditional attitudes for a member of the mafia.

The main one is that all cases should be decided exclusively in the mafia circle. This has been going on since the 18th - 19th centuries, that is, from the moment the mafia was born as secret criminal-patriotic societies in Sicily. Then the island and all of Italy were under foreign rule, so it was necessary to find some form of opposition to the occupying power. The Sicilians could not openly fight, and therefore mafia organizations arose, leading, on the one hand, a sabotage struggle, and on the other, responsible for the self-organization of rural communities. Therefore, the requirement of strict secrecy was the most important, nothing could be reported about the mafia to outsiders, all questions and mutual insults were resolved not with the help of official authorities, but “between their own”.

Later, this resulted in a strict instruction - no matter what happens, do not report on the mafia and its affairs. If a “colleague” has committed a crime against a mafia member, one cannot go to the authorities and demand justice. You need to figure it out yourself, "according to concepts." But besides the code of silence, the law of omerta included other important principles. For example, the inadmissibility of betrayal: betrayal was considered the most terrible crime and was punished mercilessly. A potential traitor had to understand in advance the consequences of his act - not only he, but his entire family was subject to punishment in the form of death. Often, not only the closest members of the apostate's family were slaughtered, but also all, even distant, of his relatives. In addition, omerta implies unconditional obedience to the higher members of the mafia and the lifelong status of a mafia. Mafia is for life, you can't retire or retire here. There are no former mafiosi, there are only mafiosi alive and mafiosi dead. And, of course, the same principle of mutual responsibility operates, “one for all and all for one”. For the offense caused to one member of the mafia, all members of the organization will fully repay.

Omerta and the Mafia: Classic Book and Movie Set

Let a harsh, but in its own way attractive picture emerges: a strict code of honor, discipline, readiness to avenge the "neighbor", loyalty to one's "family" and the like. But life shows that this is for the most part an idealized representation from works of art. In reality, omerta, the law of silence and mutual responsibility, of course, operates, but it invariably falters. The modern mafia is a kind of huge corporation that deals with illegal business and receives huge profits. And when it comes to very big money, traditions, moral rules and codes of honor recede to the tenth plan. So mutual betrayals, internecine wars and cooperation with the authorities are not uncommon within the mafia.

Omerta, like the Sicilian and Italian mafia in general, was glorified by American writers of the 1960s and 1970s, primarily by the famous Mario Puzo.

First of all, he is known, of course, as the author of the legendary "Godfather", but he wrote a number of other novels about the mafia: "The Last Don", "The Sicilian" and "Omerta". But Puzo's knowledge of the Mafia wasn't just because of his Italian heritage. The source of this knowledge, which at one time shocked the American society, was the revelations of the arrested mafia Joseph Valachi. It was Valachi who first openly violated the law of omerta and told "outsiders" about the structure and basics of the Sicilian mafia, Cosa Nostra (translated as "Our business"). The term itself has become entrenched in popular culture precisely because of the words of Valachi. In 1962, he was arrested for heroin trafficking and feared that he would be killed in prison for old disagreements with his boss, Vito Genovese. In order to get protection from the state, in 1963 Valachi decided to give public testimony about the mafia.

It was this middle-class gangster who said that the Sicilian mafia "families" have a structure that is in many ways similar to the hierarchy of other organized crime groups in the world (Japanese yakuza or Chinese triad , for example). At the head of the family is the "godfather", the boss, who consults on strategic issues with the "adviser" (consigliere). Directly ordinary members of the mafia are led by "captains" (caporejime), who are subordinate to individual units or territorial districts. In order to avoid direct contacts between the godfather and the direct perpetrators of criminal acts, there is a special trusted person. The scheme is as follows: the godfather gives instructions to a trusted person face to face, he, in turn, also privately transmits the order to the caporegime, who is already giving orders to the “private”. Thus, in the event of a betrayal, no one will be able to testify that he heard, for example, how the boss orders the killer to kill an objectionable person.

Alexander Babitsky