Motherhood and Cultural Memory: Three Contemporary Renditions of “I treni della felicità”

This essay explores the cultural memory of the so-called “treni della felicità,” or trains of happiness, a solidarity initiative promoted by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) after the Second World War. Conceived by a group of women from the Unione Donne Italiane (UDI), including Teresa Noce, Daria Malaguzzi Valeri, and Dina Ermini of the PCI Women’s Commission, this program sent over 70,000 Italian children—initially from Milan and Turin and later from Southern Italy—to families in Central and Northern Italy to receive food, care, and shelter. This work examines how this initiative has been interpreted in Viola Ardone’s novel Il treno dei bambini (2019), Cristina Comencini’s film Il treno dei bambini (2024), and Laura Sicignano and Alessandra Vannucci’s play I treni della felicità. Questa storia nei libri di storia non c’è (2024). It analyzes the tension in these works between the idealization of traditional family structures as symbols of stability and the recognition of the evolving, fluid dynamics of contemporary womanhood and motherhood. By contrasting these representations with right-wing governmental efforts to reinforce a traditional vision of motherhood, this study addresses the extent to which the authors challenge conservative depictions of motherhood and propose alternative models for rethinking maternity beyond biological lineage.