Courtesy of the author, Bruno Tardivelli, we publish the preface of his memoir “Fiume, la città smarrita”.

I purposely wanted to include on the cover the image of today's Rijeka (once Fiume) to state that this photo no longer portrays My City.

Time passes, generations too, each one leaves a trace, but if the great majority of the population flees or is driven out even brutally as happened after the war, it is impossible that the buildings alone can retain the same identity.

In a short time, a small, developed Italian city of about 50 inhabitants, since the end of the war in May 1945, was invaded, intentionally transformed into a chaotic, heterogeneous town, ethnically very different and culturally less evolved, populated by 130 inhabitants: Croats, Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Slovenes, Italians who flocked from many regions, enchanted by the communist regime.

The mass exodus of the original inhabitants, the change in habits, customs, and language, have radically changed the environment that was dear to us.

The small number of those who did not follow the mass of Exiles and remained were forced to adopt the customs and language of the new arrivals, violent conquerors.

In these pages I have described the most significant episodes of family life from the period spent in my Fiume which have left their mark on my whole life.

The little world we had to abandon has disappeared. In fact, to live in my city I would have had to learn a foreign language, speak and write Croatian, change my mentality, my feelings and maybe even my last name.

All traces of My Fiume have been lost, only the old walls and my dead, now without a tomb, remain, in the Cosala Cemetery.

I preferred to be an Exile. We settled in Genoa where relatives welcomed us lovingly.

Genoa, January 22, 2020

Bruno Tardivelli

The book “Fiume, the lost city” can be ordered from the Association of Italian Fiumani in the World – Free Municipality of Fiume in Exile (Riviera Ruzzante, 4 – 35123 Padova): licofiu@libero.it

Bruno Tardivelli, Fiume, the lost city, Genoa 2020.