Of the 573 seats of the Constituent Assembly to be assigned and provided for by the Legislative Decree of the Lieutenant n. 74 of 10 March 1946, in reality only 556 were assigned, the 13 foreseen for the XII Constituency (Trieste and Venezia Giulia – Zara) being missing, in addition to the 5 of the province of Bolzano. With a further Decree of the Lieutenant, just six days later, it was deemed impossible to hold elections in those border lands, due to the international situation. The founding moment of the Italian State emerging from the rubble of the conflict therefore took place without involving the citizens resident in lands that, until the deliberations of the Peace Conference still in progress, were formally under Italian sovereignty, by virtue of the treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (10 September 1919), Rapallo (12 November 1920) and Rome (27 January 1924).

In vain the people of Giulia, Fiume and Dalmatia had asked to hold a plebiscite in these disputed lands through which to express their state membership based on the principle of self-determination of peoples that nevertheless figured in the Atlantic Charter. In partial compensation for these wrongs, the provisional president of the Constituent Assembly Vittorio Emanuele Orlando opened the proceedings ««in memory of the desperate pain of this hour, in the tragedy of our people of Trieste, of Gorizia, of Pola, of Fiume, of Zara, of all of Venezia Giulia, who however, if they did not vote, are nevertheless present, since no material force and no immoral trade can prevent them from always being present where Italy is present».

by Lorenzo Salimbeni – 01/06/2021
Source: Globus. Images, words and suggestions from the world