Great satisfaction among the organizers of the first summer school for teachers dedicated to the history of the eastern Italian border, namely the Working Table of the Ministry of Education and the Associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Exiles, and among those who were able to participate, having the requirements set out in the announcement released in June.

The possibility of meeting in person and in compliance with the anti-Covid restrictions in the wonderful structure of the Vittoriale degli Italiani, the kind hospitality of Giordano Bruno Guerri, President of the Fondazione il Vittoriale, and the organizational machine put in place by Prof. Caterina Spezzano, director of the Ministry of Education, with her staff of collaborators have contributed to carrying out in the best possible way the topic "The difficult twentieth century of the eastern border. From the Italian Risorgimento to European perspectives".

From 12 to 16 July in the sumptuous D'Annunzio residence of Gardone Riviera, the high profile of the speakers involved provided information and cultural enrichment to the participants, who then divided into groups to create educational workshops, the results of which were presented on the last day of work. The reports were broadcast live on Facebook page of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia and remain visible on the CDM YouTube channel of the Multimedia Documentation Center of Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian Culture, but for the benefit of those who were unable to attend the summer school, the site will be The events of the eastern border and the world of school the collector of all the recordings, the powerpoints that have been projected and the proceedings that will be published soon.

Monday July 12 the school opened with institutional greetings from Giordano Bruno Guerri (President of the Il Vittoriale degli Italiani Foundation), Giuseppe de Vergottini (President of FederEsuli), Davide Bradanini (General Consul of Italy in Fiume), Stefano Bruno Galli (Councillor for Autonomy and Culture of the Lombardy Region), Giovanni Francesco Malanchini (representing the Lombardy Regional Council) and Stefano Versari (Head of Department of the Ministry of Education). The first reports presented brought attention to the situation within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in its final phase, since it is from there that dynamics, oppositions and nationalisms that will degenerate into the twentieth-century catastrophes start: The Italian presence in the Eastern Adriatic on the threshold of the Great War it was de Vergottini's report, Trento and Trieste, two irredentisms that of Stefano Bruno Galli.

The next day moderator Elena Depetroni introduced Gianni Oliva with a speech that oscillated between historiographical references and political issues (Foibe between denial and removal: the reasons for silence) and Orietta Moscarda with an in-depth study dedicated to the consolidation of Tito's communist dictatorship in Istria (Istria in the post-war period: popular power). The July 14 Chiara Vigini introduced Raul Pupo, author of a lesson on methodology in teaching these complicated events (Season of flames and season of massacres: a hypothesis of periodization of political violence on the eastern border), and the documentary which is part of the Video project Pearls of Memory “Elsewhere. Journeys of a Soul", designed to overcome the difficulties in holding meetings in schools close to Remembrance Day in times of pandemic. Donatella Schürzel the 15th July coordinated the work of a session which saw the contributions of Davide Rossi (The Great Caesuras of the Twentieth Century. The Treaties and the Eastern Border , master lecture on the geopolitical issues that have affected the upper Adriatic) and Giuseppe Parlato (d'Annunzio, Fiume, fascism, a very stereotypical topic that has been revisited outside of the usual clichés).

Caterina Spezzano has completed this extensive excursus historical presenting the 16th July Marino Micich, author of the report Fiume from the end of the war to the exodus (May 1945- February 1947). The Italian-Croatian research on the victims of Italian nationality in Fiume and its surroundings and the dignified epilogue of Riccardo Gigante at the Vittoriale: beyond the historiographical information provided to the audience, the work carried out by the associations of exiles in rediscovering and deepening their history, working in the archives and in the field, was evident here (an aspect that the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella also focused on in his speech on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance 2021).

 

Lorenzo Salimbeni