> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# In spring 1833 in a Taganrog tavern Garibaldi heard about Mazzini and Young Italy
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-taganroge-v-odnoi-iz-blizhaishikh-k-portu-ulits-byla-staraia-kharchevnia/
- Published: 2023-10-30T18:20:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:50:11.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, People

In Taganrog, in one of the streets nearest the port, there was an old tavern. In the spring of 1833 many Italians gathered there around a young dark-haired man with a shining eye and an inspired tongue. It was a spacious room, its walls blackened by tobacco smoke. The proprietor dozed in a corner on a bench beneath an icon of St George. A single lamp lit the room dimly, so that the assembled like-minded men could not make out the man who sat in another dark corner.  
"Seven kings," said the young man, "sit upon our necks like the seven deadly sins. We, the subjects of one of them, Francis of Modena, we rose up under the leadership of Ciro Menotti. Parma, Bologna and other cities of Romagna drove out their oppressors. The dawn of freedom was already rising over us, when suddenly the Duke of Modena, gathering his strength and supported by foreigners, restored his dreadful dominion, and the unhappy Menotti, bound in chains, languishes in a casemate. But apostles rise even from the grave! One man has conceived a great design. Old Italy, land of bondage, baseness, treachery and arbitrary rule, must perish. The hour of Young Italy is at hand! This man will break the chains of the imprisoned. His burning word will set the hearts of the young aflame, his voice will reach the ears of tyrants and call his brothers to vengeance."  
"Who is this man?" asked some of the sailors.  
"Who is he?" asked also the stranger of whom we have spoken above, stepping out of the dark corner where he had been sitting.  
"His name," replied the young man, "will be wreathed in a halo; at this moment he is the invisible soul of Italy. Tomorrow he will be the guiding star that leads us to vengeance. His name is Giuseppe Mazzini. He is a poet and a thinker. The sufferings of his native land make him weep. The baseness of those who groan without trying to free themselves from under the oppressor's cudgel outrages him to the depths of his soul. The tears of the weak rouse in him compassion and a longing to help. From the snowy summits of the Alps all the way to Etna he has stirred up a patriotic ferment. The fatherland must not be in bondage to popes and kings. The time has come, and through the lips of our poet Rossetti, freedom calls out to Italy:

"Put on your helmet, lay aside the mitre, old mistress of the world; rise, rise from your deep sleep; I am the dawn of your new day.""

"Blessed be thou, my brother!" exclaimed the stranger, beside himself, throwing himself upon the orator to embrace him. "Until now I have wandered in the dark, and you have enlightened me: now I know what I must do. There is an Italy, I have a fatherland! Blessed be thou!"  
"But who are you?" asked the astonished orator.  
"I am an Italian, just as you are," he replied, "and like you, I am outraged by violence and wrong; the love of freedom burns in me... my name is Giuseppe Garibaldi!"  
That very evening word of him was sent to the secret society of Young Italy, of which the young orator was one of the most ardent adherents. A strange thing! Garibaldi first glimpsed his patriotic future in Russia.  
Garibaldi's development was rapid. In that very year the Saint-Simonians fled from Paris to Constantinople. The ship on which they sailed was commanded by Garibaldi. Among them were Ferdinand Lesseps, who even then dreamed of cutting the Suez Canal, and the musician Félicien David, who was then conceiving his "Melodies in the Desert". Barrault, the leader of the fugitives, told Garibaldi of the vast plans of Saint-Simonism, which were destined to make all suffering humanity happy. And thirty years later Garibaldi wrote: "Before I knew Barrault, I loved only my country; since I became acquainted with him, I have come to love mankind."

**"Scenes from the Life of Garibaldi". (From the notes of a former volunteer)**