Regarding the statements of the Rector of the University for Foreigners of Siena, Prof. Tomaso Montanari, it is sad to note that the history of the eastern border is always interpreted in the context of fascism and the political attack on the right, forgetting centuries of Italian presence, history, culture and tradition on the coasts of the eastern Adriatic, as well as the adhesion to the Risorgimento of native ruling classes and volunteers. Even the history of art, a discipline that Montanari teaches, shows that the coasts of the eastern Adriatic have maintained a deep cultural and identity bond with the Italian peninsula over the centuries, in terms of commissions and artists who worked on both shores.
February 10th commemorates the date in 1947 when Italy signed the Peace Treaty that ended the Second World War: despite the partisan struggle, co-belligerence and resistance of the soldiers interned by Nazi Germany, Italy was heavily punished. Much of this punishment fell on the shoulders of the native Italians in Istria, Carnaro and Dalmatia, whose lands were assigned to Communist Yugoslavia and the assets nationalized or confiscated by the Communist regime. Regarding these properties, despite the protections provided by the Peace Treaty, Italy and Yugoslavia agreed that they would be counted in paying the war damages that Rome owed to Belgrade. A conflict lost by the whole of Italy was paid for by the Julian-Dalmatians, who saw the date of February 10th as decisive in their history even before Law 92/2004 established the Day of Remembrance.
No contrast therefore with the Day of Remembrance and with the Shoah, which devastated, among other things, the Jewish communities of Trieste, Gorizia, Fiume and Split. This further sad page in the complex history of the eastern border hit hard precisely a community that in the Risorgimento era had embraced the cause of Italianity and had already suffered the shame of the racial laws proclaimed by Mussolini right in Trieste.

Joseph of Vergottini

President of the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian Exiles