Speech by the President of the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Exiles, Prof. Avv. Giuseppe de Vergottini, at the ceremony of the Day of Remembrance 2022 held at the Senate of the Republic on Thursday 10 February.

 

Honorable Presidents, Members of Parliament, Authorities

I would like to thank the Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies for giving us the opportunity to celebrate this anniversary together.

I would like to express my warmest greetings to the President of the Republic and express my most sincere wishes for the fruitful continuation of his mandate. In the past years we have had him constantly close to us in the development of events related to our activity. We are certain that we can always count on his support in facing the tasks that await us.

We have heard the call to the meaning of the law that wanted to establish today's anniversary.

I would like to insist on the value of what was decided by our Parliament in 2004. The law filled a gap that had been created between the memory of the exiles and that of the entire Nation. It is impossible not to remember that not only the Istrians, the people of Fiume and the Dalmatians had been forced to pay on behalf of the entire Country the catastrophic consequences of an unfortunate war, reduced to a mere object of other people's choices, but that a silence had fallen on the fate of the victims and survivors that had lasted too long.

Today's anniversary therefore allows for a moment of shared reflection on the meaning of the political choice made by our Parliament when it decided to interrupt a long period of uncertainty and to constructively address the exodus from the Julian territories, safeguarding the memory of a territory closely linked to the history of our national community. It is by virtue of the law that a virtuous bond has been strengthened between the institutions of the Republic and the associationism that our Federation expresses.

Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that a minority of the world of culture and information persists in an orientation that is unacceptable to us and that aims to challenge the purposes of the law. Against denialism and reductionism, we oppose the appeal to reason without entering into sterile polemics. Denying, justifying and minimizing what has been suffered constitutes a new and serious form of violence.

Cultivating the suspicion that the purposes of the law satisfy the expectations of only one political party means ignoring the long process of recomposition of national memory that has matured in our country.

With these premises, we thank Parliament for the commitment with which it has followed and continues to follow our events. We reiterate our heartfelt gratitude to the President of the Republic for having constantly shown himself attentive to the meaning of the values ​​that characterize the national identity and aware of the meaning of the sacrifices borne with dignity and decorum by the community of exiles. We are grateful to the Presidency of the Council, to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture for having followed with commitment the implementation of projects aimed at safeguarding our cultural heritage and to the Ministry of Education for the incessant activity aimed at spreading knowledge of our events in schools.