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Dalmatian exiles start again from Toni Concina
After two years of waiting due to the pandemic, the Dalmatians met in Senigallia for the 67th traditional Gathering
67th Dalmatian Gathering, two years after the last edition. “I thought the pandemic would have spurred us to write…and instead” the editorial production – Adriana Ivanov, Councilor for Culture, underlines during the morning dedicated to books – has not been so copious even if it remains quite substantial. And in fact its presentation was with fireworks, as always. All the participants glued to their seats, listening to it in the Fenice theater in Senigallia, a place that for many years hosted the Dalmatian Gathering, all attentive and involved, almost moved, because meeting again is not trivial, because every gesture, every word now takes on an importance with multiple meanings.
Finally together to discuss culture and elect the new president-mayor. In leaving his post, Franco Luxardo outlined the results of a challenging journey, studded with successes and desires still waiting to be achieved. He leaves the Association of Italian Dalmatians in the World after almost three decades of presidency, passing the baton to Antonio (Toni) Concina. We had already seen him in past years chairing the meetings of the Association of Italian Dalmatians in the World, sharing memories and emotions with Luxardo, Missoni, Drioli and many others. A man who has traveled and conquered many realities but who, at a certain point in his life, decided to settle in Orvieto, where he became mayor, today mayor emeritus. Antonio (Toni) Concina, from Zaratino, is an example of Julian-Dalmatian excellence in the world.
Here is how he describes his return to Zadar: “It is actually two returns: the first, many years ago, at least thirty. I was a guest on a boat with friends and we were sailing along the islands of the eastern Adriatic. It was not my intention to disembark in Zadar but my father, in a precious phone call (it was not yet the time of cell phones), knowing where I was, asked me emotionally to get off, approach the Riva of our house, kiss the ground and take away a stone. I obeyed of course. It was one of the last wishes of my father, who then died a few years later. And the stone is with me. The second return a few years ago. When I felt it was my duty, as Deputy Mayor of the Association of Italian Dalmatians in the Free World-Comune di Zadar in exile, to accompany many friends to Zadar to greet our dead at the Cemetery, to visit many other tombstones, to walk around Zadar and its surroundings and actually enter for the first time the city always only imagined. Different feelings, which would require different spaces. But special feelings, nourished by small things, small encounters: unforgettable, for example, the coffee consumed with the great basketball champion Pino Giergia, who always remained in Zara to bear witness to his origins and his Italianness even in his sporting triumphs”.
University in Italy and a diploma from Harvard, a successful career in Rome and then…Orvieto.
“I lived there as a child after the interlude in the Marche, attending practically all the schools, except the high school that saw me attend college in Naples, in the famous Nunziatella Military School”.
Without ever abandoning his piano, the love for music that during the pandemic was a consolation for many friends to whom he regularly sent his performances with jazz interpretations of the greatest hits of all time. This is why he also gave Senigallia an evening to its people, to the guests and above all to the Madrinato dalmatico which thanks to his "charity concert" raised funds to continue its activity in Zara with a program of continuous interventions - as the president of the Association Cristina Luxardo testified. To tell the truth, business was combined with pleasure considering the participation of the public who sang with the new president, a moment of sharing after two years of closures.
Festive atmosphere, without forgetting however the thinning of the ranks, the slow erosion that time imposes indifferent to everything that people would still like to propose and achieve: from this awareness also comes the enthusiasm for the renewed proposal of the president AFIM-LCFE, Franco Papetti, in Senigallia also representing FederEsuli who, in full harmony with the editor of Dalmata, Giovanni Grigillo, proposed to organize in 2022 a Gathering of all the acronyms, that is to say Istrians-Fiumani-Dalmatians together as in the Fifties, with other perspectives, in numbers certainly not so massive but with the same motivations and perhaps with different projects that can project everyone towards a new future. This is the hope, welcomed with a long applause. "Now we have to get to work". Papetti and Grigillo are convinced of this, as are many other councilors and non-counselors, who perhaps see in this initiative the long-awaited opportunity to network and support each other.
Lucio Toth's thought is still a commitment to be kept: "Our return will be complete when in Zadar, even the Croatian boys, will recognize themselves in our history", he affirmed.
Of course, the road ahead is not easy, as the president of Ci di Zara, Paolo Marusic, underlined in his greetings, “but we promise you – he added – that we will work to make everything better”.
The road is long and full of obstacles that will have to be overcome, as always, but supported by a new faith based on common goals, on a different feeling after the bad experience of the pandemic that has not yet ended.
Described by Carlo Cetteo Cipriani in a freshly printed volume in which he collected online conversations on social media, from recluses. Snippets of life or requests to be listened to, to be helped, to have that solidarity that we expect from those like us. The Dalmatian school of Venice has produced a guide in Italian and English, a sign of vivacity and desire to bring visitors back to admire Carpaccio's canvases. And then history books, literature, poetry... the long list, in the words of Adriana Ivanov, becomes a juicy story, peppered with sensations and emotions.
A pause also on the tragic events of the Second World War that affected Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia. We focus on the events of Split, recounted by Maria Pasquinelli in that terrible autumn of 1943. While in Istria people were disappearing into the foibe – as she herself would later document – in Split where she taught at the Italian school, she witnessed the last days of Superintendent Soglian and Principal Lughinbhul, two names that weigh like a millstone on the history of the twentieth century in this part of the Adriatic. Ivanov remembers, comments on the paths revealed in the volume “Tutto ciò che vidi” by Turcinovich-Poletti (Oltre edizioni 2020). Anguish materializes, the facts speak and the emotion is general. There is time to metabolise, moving on to other topics, all important, whether they look at the most remote history or whether they speak of the present up to the moment of the verses with which Ivanov loves to close the bookish gallops, an interpreter of great style. "You act like a true actress", are the comments of the audience as they prepare for another moment of great solemnity.
In the pandemic era, the Association has “accumulated” two Tommaseo awards, which went respectively to judge Carlo Nordio (for 2020) and to journalist Dino Messina (2021), author of the book “Italiani due volte”. The awards were presented by Rosita Missoni, present at the gathering with her son Carlo, always close to the world that was Ottavio Missoni's.
Nordio was the protagonist of the Milanese investigation into the Loggia Ungheria, the most important Prosecutor's Office in Italy, which has influenced Italian politics in the last 25 years, but which has revealed itself to be an environment of internal struggles and, what is worse, violation of the law. Veneto, the Magistrate knows the story of the exodus in depth, as he explained in the long motivation of the Piero Detoni award. Nordio is a figure who gives credit to Italy for honest commitment, who still believes in the right motivations. The Magistrate's speech was touching, with great affection for the Dalmatians he has had the opportunity to follow in these years.
How did Dino Messina follow them, initially for work reasons "every year in view of the Day of Remembrance - he says - the newspaper asked me to talk about a character. So my professional interest became curiosity, love of knowledge, even passion, and I investigated, collected and told many stories in a book that helped me understand a universe".
The Tommaseo Award extends the contact area with exquisite intellectuals who deal with the subject and who continue to do so, also in the name of the great Dalmatian who accompanies them entering the list of the "chosen ones". An intuition, started years ago as a bet, which today turns out to be a winning strategy, for everyone.
And now what awaits the new president Antonio (Toni) Concina. “There are so many things to do, we will get to work right away…”. Roll up your sleeves and start again with an appeal for participation to which are added Elisabetta Barich, Adriana Ivanov, Giovanni Grigillo and many others who have never stopped, sometimes sailing against the wind, sometimes risking in the storm but convinced of their role and satisfied, rightly, with the successes. Even if the association is a small world, sometimes focused on itself, there is plenty of room for all those who want to make a contribution. As in all appeals, it would be right to add, “layabouts and ill-intentioned people need not apply” is a joke among the public heading to the hotel for the convivial, participatory lunch. Then there is time for goodbyes. It was nice to see each other again, this time more than usual, “let's not let the weather decide for us” we take before leaving, meeting in the evening.
Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin – 02/10/2021
Source: The Voice of the People
