Early life He was born in
Caltanissetta,
Sicily, in 1906, into a family of democratic and republican tradition since the
Risorgimento; his grandfather Pompeo, his namesake, had founded the union against accidents for the miners of Sicily, and his great-uncle
Napoleone Colajanni had been one of the founders of the
Italian Republican Party. He graduated in law in the 1920s, and soon became a staunch anti-fascist and member of the then-banned
Italian Communist Party; he was arrested for having worked for the establishment of an organization in which young
republicans,
socialists,
communists and
anarchists could meet and discuss their ideas. In 1940, during the
Second World War, he was called up for military service and assigned to the "Cavalleggeri di Palermo" Cavalry Regiment, but was repeatedly transferred and finally sent to
Piedmont for having promoted an organization of officers disappointed with the conduct of the war. When the
Armistice of Cassibile was announced, on 8 September 1943, he was in
Pinerolo, serving as
lieutenant in the
Regiment "Nizza Cavalleria" (1st), having been denied promotion to
captain due to his anti-fascist past.
Resistance Evading capture by the Germans, Colajanni, along with another fifteen men from his regiment, joined a fledgling Communist partisan group in
Barge, from which the Piedmontese
Garibaldi Brigades would be born; among its members were
Ludovico Geymonat,
Antonio Giolitti and
Gian Carlo Pajetta. Colajanni's comrades who joined the partisans with him included lieutenants Carlo Cotti and Antonio Crua and second lieutenants Vincenzo Modica, Giovanni Latilla and Massimo Trani, all of whom would go on to take leading roles in the Garibaldi Brigades of Piedmont. Along with them, Colajanni founded the 1st Partisan Battalion "Carlo Pisacane"; he took the
alias and
nom de guerre of
Nicola Barbato, after
the Socialist doctor who had been a leader of the
Sicilian fasci. He soon became one of the main leaders among the Communist partisans in Piedmont, becoming commander of the 4th Garibaldi Brigade of
Cuneo on 14 March 1944 and of the 1st Garibaldi Division of Piedmont on 22 May 1944. After repelling a series of German and Fascist attacks in the
Varaita Valley between March and July 1944, the Garibaldi groups under Colajanni maintained their combat efficiency and were partly broken into smaller groups that moved towards the plain, according to a strategy devised by "Barbato". As the partisan ranks were swollen by new recruits, which allowed the establishment of a second Piedmontese Garibaldi division (the 11th Garibaldi Division of Piedmont), Colajanni left the command of the 1st Garibaldi Division of Piedmont to Vincenzo Modica and became the commander of the VIII Piedmontese Partisan Zone (
Montferrat) and deputy commander of the Military Regional Command of Piedmont, the underground organization that coordinated all partisan groups in the region. In April 1945 "Barbato" organized the march of the partisan formations on
Turin from multiple directions; the attack on the Axis-held city began on April 19, 1945, with the assault of the groups under Modica against the Fascist garrison of
Chieri, which was defeated with the participation of the 11th Garibaldi Division and the Mobile Operational "
Justice and Freedom" Group. On 28 April 1945 the Garibaldi partisans led by Modica and Latilla formations entered Turin, where, fighting alongside the "autonomous" partisans of
Enrico Martini and the "Justice and Freedom" groups, they overcame the resistance of the
Black Brigades and liberated the city. Colajanni was then appointed deputy
questore of Turin.
Political career A few months later Colajanni became Undersecretary for Defense in the
Parri and, subsequently, in the
first De Gasperi cabinet. He later returned to Sicily, where he became a member of the municipal council of
Palermo. In 1947 he was elected regional deputy in Sicily for the
People's Democratic Front; he remained in the
Sicilian Regional Assembly for six terms, until he resigned in March 1969, at a time when he also held the position of vice president of the regional parliament. In 1975 he was elected to the
Italian Chamber of Deputies until the following year. His political commitment lasted until his death; he was a member of the Central Committee of the
Italian Communist Party, secretary of the Communist federations of
Enna and Palermo, national councilor of the
ANPI and of the National Peace Council. He died in Palermo in 1987, and was buried in the cemetery of Enna. ==References==