The article deals with “Black Notebook”, a diary written during the World War II which is inserted into chapter six of the autobiographical text titled “The Italics Are Mine”. It illustrates a form of prevalence of a diary writing which is not spontaneous, but controlled in its intimate dimension. This is the result of the reconstruction aimed at confirming the existential path traced inthe autobiography, and oriented on the one hand to record the way in which Berberova focuses on situations and interprets the flow of life; on the other hand, it bears witness to current events through a fragmentary narrative of the progressof the events themselves and the reaction and behavior of the persons involved in them.
