To celebrate the Day of Remembrance in schools, the XII edition of the National Competition 2021 February entitled “For Love of Homeland!” was announced for the 22/'10 school year, a sentiment in the name of which many tragedies of the Italians of Venezia Giulia, Fiume and Dalmatia were consumed.

This is a competition aimed at students of primary, lower and upper secondary schools, both state and private Italian schools, of countries where teaching in Italian is foreseen and implemented and of Italian-foreign schools: deadline 14 January 2022.

The Competition aims to promote education in European citizenship and Italian history through knowledge and study of the historical and cultural relations of the Eastern Adriatic area.

Official communication from the Ministry of Education

National Competition Rules 10 February 2021/'22

Participation form

The events of the north-eastern border of Italy, where communities of Italian language and culture coexist with others of Slovenian and Croatian language and culture, develop in a dimension of complexity starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, when the birth of nationalisms introduced elements of contrast destined to become more acute with the Great War, with the birth of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with the affirmation of fascism and its policy of forced Italianization. The exasperations of 1940-45 take place in this context, first with the Italian-German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, then with the affirmation of the national-communist movement of Marshal Josip Broz “Tito”, and then with the brutal repressions of the immediate post-war period which hit the Italian community and which were known as “foibe” from the name of the karst pits into which most of the victims were thrown. As the situation stabilized along the border line defined on 12 June 1945 by the so-called Morgan Line (which corresponds almost entirely to the current border between Italy and Slovenia), a forced exodus began from the Dalmatian, Fiume and Istrian territories that had passed under Yugoslav control, involving hundreds of thousands of Italian citizens. The issue of the relations between this community (in many places the majority) and the Slavic one was addressed by the government in Belgrade with ambiguity and harshness, dividing the Italian population into two large categories: on the one hand, those who were in favour of communism and who were therefore considered "sincere anti-fascists", on the other, the "enemies of the people", the chosen target for waves of repression depending on the most diverse contingencies. Within this framework, Yugoslav politics proceeds in a destabilizing manner: openness towards the few Italians judged to be “good and honest” and ethnic repression, integration of reliable elements and generalized marginalization, declarations of brotherhood and preconceived exclusion alternate with each other in designing a tense atmosphere, which generates a widespread sense of precariousness and distrust in the Italian community and which ends up precluding a perspective for the future. The consequence of these conflicting pressures by the new powers, combined with the memory of the weeks of terror due to the sinkings into the sinkholes, caused the disintegration of the Italian community and the estrangement of the majority of its members from Venezia Giulia. The stages and modalities differ from area to area, between sudden accelerations, periods of underground tension and brief moments of relative stasis. These are almost always individual departures, families who close their homes and reach the border loading what they can onto trucks or carts; there are those who cross the sea by boat; there are those who move on foot, gathering their world in old suitcases tied with string. Little by little, the Istrian villages are depopulated and the territory is changing its social, economic and ethnic composition. Begun in 1945 and continuing until the end of the 300s, the exodus involved over XNUMX people, the vast majority of whom were from the Italian community in Istria. Once in Italy (a country that was also emerging from the war prostrate, with cities marked by the weight of the bombings and an economy to rebuild), the refugees were scattered across 109 camps (abandoned barracks, barracks, former prison camps, agricultural colonies) where they lived for years in precariousness and emergency, often the object of the distrust that always accompanies migratory phenomena: this is the experience of those who reached Rome and found accommodation in the “Workers' Village” used by the workers who built the EUR, of those who invent a city on the seashore in Fertilia (near Alghero), of those who crowded together in the “Passalacqua” barracks in Tortona, of those who went to look for normality in the Casermette of Borgo San Paolo in Turin. For first-generation refugees, those who left Istria as adults, it is an experience that marks a break in their lives. The refugee is not a migrant, who flees poverty or war but makes a bet on the future and dreams of returning home one day with his best suit and polished shoes to show that he "made it"; the refugee is a normal citizen, with a house, a job, a past, a system of relationships, and who suddenly has to abandon everything overwhelmed by the reasons of the "great history". “How I wish I were a tree, that knows where it was born and where it will die” sings Sergio Endrigo, recalling the story of his family, refugees from Pola in 1947.  Retracing this dramatic experience, framing it within the historical context in which it unfolded, means offering young people in-depth research and reflection that connects the past with the present: the issue of refugees, which for years has been a pressing issue in our globalized society (refugees from Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan, to name just a few of the most well-known cases), has also been a theme of our national history, in a context in which human rights have been violated, the logic of domestic and international politics has overlapped with individual reasoning, and the sense of solidarity and justice has been severely tested.  Furthermore, the events on the northeastern border offer a window into how, over time, we can find a way to heal wounds and build mutually recognizable and mutually legitimizing memories. In 2020, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Slovenian President Borut Pahor traveled to Trieste, significantly holding hands, to lay laurel wreaths at the Basovizza foiba, a symbol of Yugoslav violence, and at the monument commemorating the Slovenian victims of fascism. “The suffering endured cannot be denied – these are the words of President Mattarella – The future is entrusted to the ability to prevent pain from turning into resentment and this into hatred, such as to prevent new generations from rebuilding a coexistence based on mutual respect and collaboration”. In this sense, the research/reflection proposed by the competition fits fully into the perspective opened up by the introduction of Civic Education among the subjects of secondary school, "grasping the connection between the universal paradigm of human rights, our Constitution and the exercise of active and responsible citizenship" (Strradiotto 2011).  The competition also aims to highlight the work done by students and teachers within the individual educational projects of the school and the annual class curriculum. A fundamental requirement of the works admitted to the competition will be the development of citizenship skills, which must emerge from the active role of students and teachers in the design process and in the final products. These elements will be appropriately highlighted in the careful and considered judgment of the Evaluation Committee.

Educational materials and further information are available at www.scuolaeconfineorientale.it

Source: Ministry of Education