For the Italianity of the Eastern Adriatic, Venice, whose 25th anniversary of its foundation we are celebrating today, March 2021, 1600, has always represented a point of reference, the most genuine element of connection with the Italian peninsula, with its language and its culture.

Under the motto “Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus” engraved on the depictions of the lion of St. Mark that decorated churches, palaces and fortresses from Muggia to Dulcigno, passing through Capodistria and Zara, the relations between the two shores of the Adriatic were consolidated, not only in the name of trade and commerce, but also of artistic and cultural circulation: thus the Italian-speaking populations of the eastern Adriatic remained within the Italic linguistic and identity ecumene.

Venice was Serenissima in giving peace, prosperity and autonomy to the Istrian and Dalmatian municipalities that made an act of dedication; it was a competitor in the trade towards the Balkan hinterland of Ragusa di Dalmazia, the fifth Italian maritime republic; it was Dominant when its warships faced the Turks after having loaded the artillery at the arsenal of Pola and the gonfalon at Perasto, in Montenegrin Dalmatia.

“Ti con nu, nu con ti” said the notables of Perasto when, following the Napoleonic horse-trading that so afflicted Ugo Foscolo and his literary alter ego Jacopo Hortis, the Republic of Venice lost its independence and they were left with the thankless task of burying under the high altar that glorious banner that they had proudly guarded for centuries.

Venice would then be the leader of the insurrections in 1848, when Istrian and Dalmatian volunteers flocked to the reborn Venetian flag enriched with the Tricolour, who would not fail to make their contribution in the subsequent wars of the Risorgimento which would finally lead to the annexation of the unredeemed lands after the Great War.

The capital of Veneto would become the landing point after the Second World War for Istrian fishermen fleeing the Yugoslavian communist regime and for the motor vessel Toscana, dedicated to evacuating almost all of the population of Pola, but the entire region would prove particularly hospitable towards the thousands of Istrians, Fiume and Dalmatians welcomed in the Refugee Collection Centers and then in the Julian-Dalmatian Villages.

Even today, Venice looks with attention and care towards Istria and Dalmatia, having promulgated, even before the institution of the Day of Remembrance, a law aimed at the recovery and safeguarding of the Venetian-style architectural heritage after the implosion of Yugoslavia.

Celebrating 1600 years since the birth of Venice therefore also means remembering the centuries-old belonging of the indigenous Italians of the Eastern Adriatic to the Italian national community.

 

Renzo Codarin