National Content: Italy
Taken by surprise hearing about Gagarin’s flight
| Source | Giuseppe Metastasio, 56 years old, witness |
| Event referred to | April 12th, 1961: Jury Gagarin the first man in the space |
| Technological characteristics | Type of file: video Extension: avi Characteristics: 320X240 Dimension of the file: 2,50 mb Availability proposed: Downloadable |
| Description of the source | Kind of source: Interview with a witness Origin of the source : Interview Language: Interview Copyright issues : Downloadable (as agreed with the witness) |
| Contextualisation of the source | Point of view of an 11 years old child who could not realize the importance of the event, comparing it with his knowledge. |
| Interpretation of the source | Due to shortage of mass-media, news arrive in a not enough incisive way. |
| Original Contents | Sono Giuseppe Metastasio, sono il Dirigente scolastico dell’IPSS Casagrande di Terni. Che cosa ricordo dell’episodio del primo uomo che è andato nello spazio: io ero allora un bambino e non ricordo perché non sono andato a scuola quella mattina. Mio padre mi mandò al Consorzio agrario con un campione di vino per misurarne la gradazione alcolica. Ricordo che era nella tarda mattinata e mentre stavo lì nell’ufficio c’era la radio accesa e diceva che c’era stato questo grosso evento del lancio del primo uomo nello spazio. Devo dire, allora avevo undici anni, che non capivo bene cosa significasse l’uomo nello spazio, perché io pensavo all’aereo: ma l’aereo già ce l’avevamo, quindi che cosa significava questo lancio nello spazio? Soltanto dopo mi sono reso conto di cosa significasse questa distanza di 300 km di altezza, una cosa impressionante per quelli che erano i tempi. Quindi devo dire che ero rimasto piuttosto perplesso in quel momento. Come sono rimasto perplesso, anzi, forse quasi deluso, quando ho visto le immagini dello Sputnik, questa specie di palla. Anche qui, facendo il confronto con gli aerei supersonici che già c’erano, il fatto che ci fosse questa palla lanciata nello spazio mi aveva quasi deluso. Non avevo familiarità con il telegiornale, oltre tutto per me era proprio una notizia improvvisa. Sì, avevamo sentito prima della cagnetta che era andata nello spazio, qualcosa si leggeva, però non c’era questa informazione cos’ diffusa e martellante. |
| Original Contents (English Translation) | My name is Giuseppe Metastasio, I am the headmaster of the Istituto Professionale “Casagrande” in Terni. What do I remember about the first man sent to space? At the time I was a child and I cannot remember why I was not in school that day. My father sent me to the Farmers’ Union with a sample of wines because we needed to measure the alcoholic level in the wine. At the time we still did not own the Malligan burner to measure the alcohol in the wine, so we’d have to go to the Farmers’ Union to take care of this. I remember that it was late in the morning, while I was in the office of the Union, when the radio spoke about this great event: the first man sent to space. I have to say that at that time I was only 11 years old and I did not completely understand what that really meant, because I would still think about the airplanes. “But, we already have the airplanes, so what does it mean to send a man into space?” Only later in time did I realized what it meant to send someone 300 kilometers into space, an amazing distance for those days. I was quite perplexed, perhaps even a bit disappointed, when I saw the first images of the Sputnik, this ball. Even by comparing the existing airplanes, including the supersonic ones, with the Sputnik, this ball appeared to me as a disappointment. I was not familiar with the newscasts then, and this came as a sudden news to me; we had heard about the dog sent to space, you could read some things about it, but the news about this event had not been very widespread and not in any pounding manner from the media. |