by Lorenzo Salimbeni – 09/06/2018

ROME | A large and qualified audience (including, among others, Prof. Ester Capuzzo of La Sapienza University, Prof. Giuseppe de Vergottini of the Adriatic Coordination Association and Prof. Damir Grubiša, former ambassador to Italy of the Republic of Croatia) characterized the last event of the series of study conferences "The cultural world in Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia from 1700 to 1900", organized at the Casa del Ricordo by the Provincial Committee of Rome of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia in synergy with the Department of Culture of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Rome Capital.

Introduced and coordinated by Prof. Rita Tolomeo (Dalmatian Society of National History of Rome), the afternoon opened with a report by Bogdan Živković dedicated to the relations between Yugoslavia, the PCI and the Italian minority in the post-war period. The young speaker, a PhD student at Sapienza, first highlighted the ideological differences between Italian and Yugoslav communists, who respectively represented the right and left wings of the Cominform, the former hoping for the continuation of relations with other anti-fascist forces in the institutional sphere and the latter desiring instead the outbreak of a war against capitalism. The PCI, however, did not pursue national interests, whereas the PCI wanted to demonstrate to Slovenians and Croats that their claims were taken into consideration by Tito's new Yugoslavia, which at the end of the Second World War had territorial aims not only towards Italy, but also towards all the other bordering states. The breakdown in 1948 of relations between Moscow and Belgrade (seen by the West as the first dissident of the Soviet bloc) also led to the breakdown of relations between the PCI and the PCI until the years of de-Stalinization, after which contacts intensified.

Propaganda… ideological

“Yugoslavia, the leader of the Third World countries,” Živković explained, “was a tool for the Italian communists to connect with other socialist experiences, together with which to develop a Mediterranean foreign policy parallel to the official one of the Italian State.” If Togliatti’s trip to Belgrade in 46 facilitated the liberation of many Italian prisoners in Yugoslavia, ten years later the PCI realized that there was an Italian community in the eastern Adriatic that it wanted to protect, just as it protected the Slovenian minority in Italy, while the problem of exiles was never a subject of discussion between the two communist parties. While the Botteghe Oscure considered the border established by the London Memorandum of '54 to be definitive, they instead dedicated particular attention, especially at the request of the Trieste section, to the Cominformists still imprisoned (some of whom were closely linked to Vidali or even his spies), as well as to the requests of those who wanted to return to Yugoslavia after having escaped during the purges of '48.
The publishing house Edit and the daily newspaper “La voce del popolo” were considered instruments of ideological propaganda, so much so that a collaboration between the newspaper from Fiume and L'Unità was hoped for, as well as the translation and distribution of the works of the main ideologists of communism. None of these projects came to fruition, nor did the series of conferences that were supposed to counter the cultural events promoted by the Italian consulate.

Massacres and exiles

“The Italian political system has never provided adequate representation to the exiles, who were therefore forced to create a dense network of associations,” Marino Micich, director of the Fiume Historical Archive Museum, began his report dedicated to the associations of the exodus world. In fact, after September 8, 1943, the Lega degli Adriatici was founded in Naples by the initiative of some exiles from Lussino who reported the massacres they had witnessed to the leaders of the Kingdom of the South and to the Anglo-American authorities, while in the Italian Social Republic, Senator Tacconi, having daringly escaped from Split, established the Dalmatico Committee in Trieste. After the end of hostilities, the terrible Forty Days and the definition of the Morgan Line, a National Liberation Committee of Istria was formed in Trieste and Pola (which ended up in Zone A under Allied administration), which tried to keep in touch with the Ciellenist nuclei, who in every Istrian locality were fighting to survive the Ozna raids. If after the Peace Treaty a National Committee of Italian Refugees arose, the Julian Committees had already been formed spontaneously on the initiative of the exiles: already after the liberation of Rome Antonio De Berti, Manlio Cace and Gian Proda were active on the Capitoline scene, weaving relationships with De Gasperi and the DC.

Peculiarities of the Kvarner capital

The Trentino statesman, Micich then recalled, had tried in vain to save Fiume from annexation to Yugoslavia, presenting the Free State of Zanella at the peace conference as the first victim of fascist expansionism, while the peculiarity of the capital of Carnaro had led to the establishment of a Fiume Office within the Julian Committees. From an evolution of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Zara, whose first president was Fausto Pecorari, the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia would be established in 1948, present in eighty Italian provinces. In that period the Opera Assistenza Profughi also arose, whose general secretary Aldo Clemente, who would later be the first president of FederEsuli, obtained significant results for the exiles in terms of housing, jobs and institutions for children. If the National League had been refounded in 1946 and the Association of Istrian Communities took up the legacy of the Istrian Cln, the last refugees from Zone B of the never-established Free Territory of Trieste gave life to the Union of Istrians in the second half of the 64s. In the 66s, the openings of Senator Barbi, a convinced European and national leader of the Anvgd, towards those who “remained” led to the establishment of the Free Municipalities in Exile (Zara in '68, Fiume in 'XNUMX and Pola in 'XNUMX), who did not recognize themselves in these hopes for dialogue.

The international attitude

Professor Donatella Schürzel, from La Sapienza University and president of the Provincial Committee of Rome of the Anvgd and national vice-president, instead outlined the attitude of the world of culture towards the events of the eastern border, highlighting how the documentaries of the Incom week between 1947 and 1954 had contributed to informing the national community on the evolution of the Trieste question and on the integration of the exiles into the social fabric (particularly touching are the images of the assignment of the first apartments in the Julian-Dalmatian Village in Rome). "These were well-known but burning events - Schürzel specified - and therefore more space was dedicated in the newsreels to the reconstruction of Montecassino or other famous locations. Instead, the fate of the last strip of Istria represented by Zone B that the London memorandum assigned to the Yugoslavian civil administration passed in silence".

The "Adriatic Defense"

One of the most authoritative voices of the Adriatic diaspora was therefore represented by the newspaper of the Anvgd “Difesa adriatica”, whose combative director Silvano Drago was also subjected to complaints and trials, from which he emerged fully acquitted. In his long journalistic career Indro Montanelli always followed the events of the exiles with attention, from the exodus from Pola until more recently when he hoped for an official ceremony at the Quirinale, in which the President of the Republic would apologize to the exiles for everything they had suffered in the name of their Italianness. If the MSI newspaper “Secolo d'Italia” always rode the events of the eastern border with polemical tones, the memoirs of the exiles and of those who lived through the tragedies of Venezia Giulia proved genuine and fruitful: from the regrets for the lost Istria of Stuparich to the memories of Saba of the Dalmatia where he sailed in his youth, passing through the poems of Lina Galli. The “Istrian sketches” by Biagio Marin from Grado were original and effective, while the Istrian trilogy by Fulvio Tomizza offered the general public the opportunity to understand the historical, cultural and social complexity of Istria.

The same Julian-Dalmatian Village on the southern outskirts of Rome was a cultural hub capable of attracting attention and proposing innovative perspectives thanks to the action of figures such as Bepi Nider. Giuseppe Donorà and Piero Soffici in the musical field, Diego Zandel in journalism and fiction, Osvaldo Ramous who lived in Fiume as an exile in his homeland, Gianclaudio de Angelini in verse and essays, Marisa Madieri who was able to involve her husband Claudio Magris in understanding the catastrophe of the exodus: these and many others are the names of intellectuals who in various fields have demonstrated the vivacity of Julian-Dalmatian Italianness in the second half of the twentieth century.

A stimulus for new scenarios

On the sidelines of the final aperitif offered to the guests on the picturesque terrace of the Casa del Ricordo, Donatella Schürzel is extremely satisfied with the splendid success of this event, of which she was the creator and promoter: "In the events held over a three-year period - explains the representative of the Anvgd - we wanted to provide an image of Istria, Carnaro and Dalmatia that went beyond the tragedies of the foibe and the exodus. We started from the eighteenth century to demonstrate how already in the age of the Enlightenment the eastern Adriatic coast was intimately connected with the Italian peninsula and at the center of European cultural flows. The Day of Remembrance rightly focuses attention on the foibe and the exodus, I wanted to bring out what was the cultural, political and social life of our compatriots rooted there for centuries. Following the thread of this peculiar form of Italianness can provide stimuli and suggestions of particular importance in the new European scenarios".
The Società di Studi Fiumani, which manages the Casa del Ricordo together with the Anvgd, and the Association of Triestines and Gorizians in Rome have always actively participated in these initiatives, which have seen university academics, journalists, researchers, and high school teachers as speakers: "I am trying to find funding that will allow us to publish the proceedings of this review - says Prof. Schürzel - because the knowledge that has been presented here deserves to be collected to reach an even wider audience. In addition to the people who still make up the Julian-Dalmatian community of Rome, many middle and university students have attended the conferences, but also many Romans eager to learn about the history of a part of Italy separated by the borders set in 1947".

Source:  The voice of the people