Stefania Gabriella Anastasia Craxi (Milan, 25 October 1960) is an Italian politician, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 2008 to 2011 in the Berlusconi IV government. Deputy from 2006 to 2013, since 2018 she has been a senator for Forza Italia
As of 10 November 2022, he has held the position of Chairman of the 3rd Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the Senate of the Republic.
Daughter of the Prime Minister and secretary of the PSI (1934-2000) and older sister of Bobo (1964), in 1985 she started a collaboration with Canale 5, becoming production secretary for the W le donne program and for Miss Italia; in 1986 he founded Italiana Produzioni Audiovisive, later renamed Aran and later Endemol.
After the death of his father in 2000, he left his television career and founded the Craxi Foundation, with the aim of exalting, through conferences and documentaries, the figure of his father’s socialist leader.
She has been married twice: with the entrepreneur Renato Neri, with whom she had a son Federico (1987); and with Marco Bassetti, Milanese stylist and designer, former president and director of Endemol now at the helm of Banijay, with whom he had daughters Benedetta and Anita (1991).
His latest literary effort in the shadow of history: my life between politics and affections (2024, Piemme editore).
“This volume was born from a movement of the soul. It tells a piece of my story, my Craxi, a difficult and extraordinary father, and, wandering through memories, tells the story of our family, a family extended to a small, large political community and friends who shared everything for years.” “My first life, which I tell in this book, did not contemplate the stage, but rather the behind the scenes, being off the screen, never in front. And, above all, he did not foresee, not even for a dream, politics as a daily commitment.
But no one asks us what we want: the will clashes with the sense of duty, of having to act and having to do, of having to say and having to be there. This is the lesson I have learned from living in the shadow of history. I have not been part of it, perhaps only in certain situations, in some cases comic and in others tragic, but I am a witness in spite of myself. And today, having reached the age of maturity, the age in which we reflect and look at the past, I see frames pass before my eyes, which make me understand how distant that past time is and how, in many ways, that time does not seem to pass.”
For the first time, Stefania Craxi, Bettino’s daughter, decides to tell a political story of which she is proudly proud. In his memoirs, anecdotes and reflections there is not only the affectionate memory of the exuberant and dreamy, obstinate and tenacious politician who was his father, but the story of an entire country in great transformation, full of energy and grudges that have never subsided. Men and women, protagonists and extras of an era that will not return; the few who have been close to her and the many who have turned away in the darkest times; extraordinary, and sometimes painful, pages of recent Italian history. In the shadow of history is a sweet and poignant memorial of a daughter who simply remembers, after so many years – and who does not forget – the legacy of a political thought and culture.
This volume is presented as an intimate and reflective journey through personal and collective memory, in which Stefania retraces the events of her family and the historical era in which her father was a leading protagonist.
The tone is that of a personal story, full of emotions and awareness matured over time. Stefania describes Bettino Craxi not only as a father, but also as a complex and visionary political figure, capable of arousing both admiration and fierce criticism.
The book is also a tribute to a generation and an Italy in transformation, showing the political and social dynamics of the time, and reflecting on the human and political relationships that marked those years.
The title In the shadow of history suggests a double meaning: on the one hand, the role of witness “in the shadows” that Stefania has played for most of her life, and on the other, the weight of a story that continues to influence the present. It is a work that combines the human and affective aspect with the historical and political one, offering us a personal look at a crucial phase of recent Italian history.
“I tell the story of a family that is a political and socialist family, a family that expanded to a community, the socialist one in turn open to civil society – the words of Stefania Craxi -. I had understood immediately, as a child, that my father would never take care of my homework, my first crushes, the only way to stay close to him was politics and so I did my first electoral campaign at 8 years old, backpack on my shoulder up and down Milan. He too immediately realized that he had little space to spend with his family, so I traveled a lot with him, accompanying him on official visits around the world”.
In this book, Stefania Craxi recalls the personal and family experience she lived alongside her father, Bettino Craxi, politician and central figure of Italian socialism in the 80s. It tells of the peculiarity of belonging to a family that was not only “political”, but also “socialist,” which broadened its horizons towards civil society. This sense of community and commitment to a larger cause also influenced his childhood and adolescence.
Stefania describes the awareness, since childhood, that her father could not devote much time to the daily aspects of his personal life. To stay close to him, she therefore chose to approach politics, to the point of having her first electoral experience at the age of eight.
Growing up, he often accompanied his father on official trips, sharing with him the rhythm and responsibilities of public life.
These reflections highlight not only the sacrifice that the family had to face for Bettino Craxi’s political commitment, but also how Stefania found a personal and unique way to be close to him, embracing political activism from an early age.
The text offers an account full of personal and political memory, focused on the evolution of Milan and Hammamet, and on the role of politics in the life of Stefania Craxi, daughter of Bettino Craxi.
Stefania Craxi describes the Milan of those years as a place of opportunity, inclusiveness and vitality, in stark contrast to today’s city, which she judges to be more elitist and less welcoming. The city of the past emerges as a symbol of rebirth after the terrorism of the 70s, characterized by a reformist climate and a society that, although diversified, was united.
Childhood and adolescence, lived with emotion and a liveliness linked to the artistic and cultural environment of the city.
The isolation of the second Hammamet, which coincides with the exile of her father, Bettino Craxi. Here feelings of loneliness and bitterness emerge, intertwined with a harsh judgment on the work of Italian justice during Tangentopoli, seen as a “story of infamy”.
The book celebrates the primacy of good politics, as opposed to the television and spectacular drift of the following years. Craxi emphasizes that politics once concerned vital and dramatic issues, while today it appears faded.
The praise of his father’s politics is intertwined with a reflection on the limits of justicialism and the need for a historical reconciliation with respect to the period of Tangentopoli.
Stefania recalls Bettino Craxi’s relief at the rise of Silvio Berlusconi, seen as a bulwark against a left that, in the author’s words, would have led Italy towards a phase of illiberality. However, the awareness that politics had irreparably changed with the advent of new models of communication and power is a constant reflection that emerges from the story.
In summary, the book is configured as a journey between personal and collective memory, intertwined with the figure of the father, the meaning of politics, and two symbolic cities for the author: Milan and Hammamet.