The events presented by the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia at the 20th ^edition of èStoria, the International History Festival held in Gorizia, attracted considerable interest and allowed ANVGD managers and researchers, along with academics and journalists, to present pages of the history of the Adriatic border to professionals and an attentive public.

The theme that served as a common thread for the 2024 edition was the Dates and therefore the first initiative, coordinated by Maria Grazia Ziberna (President of ANVGD Gorizia) concerned precisely the perception on the eastern Italian border of significant dates such as 8 September 1943, 25 April 1945, 2 June 1946 and 10 February 1947. This last date, in the exhibition by Donatella Schürzel (researcher and national vice-president of ANVGD), was seen as a recurrence of the Day of Remembrance, established 20 years ago to recover pages of national history that had been removed because the foibe and the exodus were the demonstration of a defeat established by the conditions of the Peace Treaty but that the newborn Italian Republic wanted to hide behind the veil of victory in the War of Liberation. September 8: the “death of the Fatherland” evoked by Ernesto Galli della Loggia had its most tragic representation in Istria and Dalmatia, where, as the ANVGD communications manager Lorenzo Salimbeni pointed out, the collapse of the Italian state led to the first wave of massacres in the foibe by Yugoslavian communist partisans. April 25: historiography and popularization of the Liberation still have many gaps or even ignore the dynamics of Venezia Giulia, where an episode like the massacre of the Porzus mountain huts is still little known, even at a local level, as Fulvio Salimbeni experienced in his experience as a professor at the University of Udine. June 2: cultural operator Diego Redivo highlighted that at the founding moment of the Italian Republic, the people of Giulia, Fiume and Zadar were unable to participate in either the institutional referendum or the election of their representatives to the Constituent Assembly that would also have served as Parliament.

2025, on the other hand, will mark the history of the Adriatic border, as Nova Gorica will represent Slovenia as the European Capital of Culture alongside Gorizia, a city from which it was divided by a brick wall and barbed wire, less imposing than Berlin's, but equally representative of a contrast. The ANVGD dedicated a conference to this event, the proceedings of which, published by Walters Kluwer under the title " From "holy" and "cursed" to European Capital of Culture. Gorizia between borders, autonomy and cross-border cooperation," were presented at èStoria, sponsored by Grappa Ceschia, in a panel introduced and moderated by Davide Rossi (professor at the University of Trieste), the curator of the work together with the lawyer Davide Lo Presti. Energy sector manager Andrea Bolla emphasized that this project not only highlights little-known chapters of European history that took place in the troubled Isonzo region, but also represents an example of cooperation and overcoming hostility for a world where closures and conflicts are resurfacing. This cross-border synergy was also highlighted by RAI journalist Mauro Mazza: "Culture unites what politics divides. We must take inspiration from Gorizia and Nova Gorica to mend what history has divided." Gorizia Mayor Rodolfo Ziberna acknowledged that his fellow citizens had become accustomed to the border crossing a square, to Yugoslavian border guards ready to shoot anyone attempting to climb over "the Gorizia wall," and to the daily confrontation with one of Europe's youngest cities.

The mayor of the Isonzo capital and member of the ANVGD national executive was the focus of another meeting dedicated to GO!2025, being interviewed by Massimo Mamoli (editor of the daily newspaper L'Arena ) and Alessandro Zangrando (head of the culture pages of the Corriere del Veneto ). Slovenia's independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Ljubljana's accession to the European Union in 2004, and the gestures of conciliation and recognition of the mutual suffering endured during the century of totalitarianism and opposing nationalisms made by President Sergio Mattarella and his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor (not coincidentally recently awarded an honorary degree by the University of Trieste) paved the way for this joint candidacy. All the more so since, in the meantime, a European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation has developed in the area, one of the most virtuous in Europe: "Gorizia and Nova Gorica live in symbiosis," Ziberna emphasized, "and we are working to ensure that the border divisions are not re-established during 2025, as they were during Covid. We have a busy agenda of shared events, and in their daily lives, citizens on both sides of the current ephemeral border now travel, work, and enjoy their leisure time as if they were part of a single urban fabric. It is this cross-border daily life that has been the winning card of the joint candidacy."

1953, however, was the year in which the Trieste question, left unresolved by the Peace Treaty of February 10, 1947, experienced its most tragic moments: The riots of '53 is a lecture-performance produced by the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia together with the National League, directed by Paolo Valerio and brought to the stage at the Verdi in Gorizia in a gripping and moving manner by historians Davide Rossi and Gianni Oliva together with actors Maria Grazia Plos and Giacomo Faroldi, who read moving testimonies of the days of November 5-6, 1953. Paolo Sardos Albertini, president of the National League, shared moving memories. As a boy, he experienced the mobilization with which the people of Trieste wanted to reaffirm their Italian identity, clashing with the police of the Allied Military Government, who did not hesitate to open fire on the crowd, causing dozens of injuries and seven deaths.

30.000 attendees characterized the events of éStoria 2024, which is already projected to the next edition that will take place in the framework of GO!2025 and will be dedicated to the Cities and their role in history, topics that the ANVGD will decline once again from the perspective of Adriatic Italianity. [LS]

Source: National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia – 31/05/2024