Grazie Mamma Erasmus, for the Europe of students!
Në katër dekada, ajo e pa krijesën e vet të ndikonte në jetën dhe botëkuptimin e 10 milionë studentëve që ndoqën programin Erasmus duke krijuar, ndoshta në mënyrë të pavetëdijshme, ndjenjën e përkatësisë europiane pikërisht tek ata që Europën e kuptonin më pak se çfarë ishte. Është e vërtetë, siç thoshte edhe vetë, se Erasmusi nuk ka prodhuar profesionistë më të mirë, por e sigurt që ka krijuar njerëz më të mirë.
2025-10-19 15:03:00
Erjon Uka
Erjon Uka / When I experienced six months of Erasmus, a university semester from Tirana to Bologna, I didn't even know who had created the program.
It was called a "European program" and that was enough to give it prestige. You just enjoy beautiful things and don't bother yourself with questions. Questions are for later, or when something goes wrong.
And much later I learned that Erasmus also had a “mother.” Sofia Corradi was the Italian “aunt” who conceived the first concept in 1969, which in 1987 became Erasmus.
Surely, if she were a man, she would have tried harder to put her name on the program. There is hardly anything that rivals men's desire to brand ideas, programs or businesses with their names, such as the "Marshall Plan", the "Schuman Declaration" and dozens of others.
Instead, the program was named after another man, Erasmus of Rotterdam, the medieval Dutch humanist who turned free speech into a life motto in the age of the woodcutter. An apt symbol, no doubt about it!
“The student, even if he does not belong to a family residing abroad, may request to develop part of his study program at a foreign university, by submitting a request for prior approval to the Faculty Council. The Faculty Council may declare the equivalence of the studies, which will become final once the student has presented the relevant documentation certifying the studies completed abroad ,” wrote Sofia Corradi in the memorandum presented to the Italian Ministry of Education in 1969.
The idea, as is usually the case with those that cause great change, came from a personal difficulty. After studying in the United States, in Rome he faced an unexpected obstacle: “La Sapienza” did not recognize his diploma obtained abroad, requiring him to follow the regular program of studies in his homeland again. And from the spark of anger mixed with the desire for change, this idea of the Erasmus program was born, a vision that would pave the way for future generations to study freely in European universities.
The rest is known.
In four decades, she saw her creation influence the lives and worldviews of the 10 million students who followed the Erasmus program, shaping, perhaps unconsciously, a sense of European belonging precisely among those who understood Europe least of all. It is true, she said, that Erasmus has not produced better professionals, but it has certainly created better people.
I don't know the feeling she experienced, but I believe that very few people manage to see the fruits of their vision impact millions of lives for the better while they are alive. In the announcement of "La Repubblica" about the professor's passing, I read the comments that were not consolation, but gratitude. Someone thanked her for the husband she met in the Erasmus program; Another for the most beautiful experience of her life; A girl wrote her comment from Lisbon, where she was attending the Erasmus semester; While another boy, sarcastically told her that she was "responsible" for the betrayals that couples committed against each other in the cities where they temporarily studied.
Today "Mamma Erasmus" is no more. But Erasmus and Europe, still.
