On the occasion of the 2022 Remembrance Day, the podcast entitled is available online The Long History of the Eastern Border. Political and Cultural Relations between Italy and the Adriatic Coastal States in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century.

The initiative was curated by Federation of the Associations of the Fiume, Giuliani and Dalmatian Exiles, institution that brings together in a single context the various associative realities of the Julian-Dalmatian diaspora.

The main objectives of the institution are the perpetuation of the cultural and historical identity of the Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian communities, formed in Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia through the Roman-Venetian and Italian civilization and the protection of the moral and material interests of the communities, their descendants and those who maintain a historical-cultural, social or ideal connection with the eastern Adriatic.

FederEsuli has worked in collaboration with the Ugo Spirito and Renzo De Felice Foundation, established in Rome in 1981 for the study of Ugo Spirito's thought through the papers of his Archive and the texts of the Library, acquired thanks to his wife Gianna Saba. Over the years, the Foundation has committed itself to safeguarding and maintaining the unitary character of the Library and Archive, formerly belonging to Ugo Spirito, and of anything that has subsequently been acquired by the Foundation, with the specific aim of enhancing its heritage and making it accessible also through online cataloguing (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale, Lazio '900). Furthermore, the institution promotes research and studies on the history, philosophy, economics, political geography and geopolitics, sociology, law and Italian and international politics of the contemporary age.

The organizers and active protagonists of the project were Prof. Giuseppe de Vergottini, current President of FederEsuli, with professors Davide Rossi, Giuseppe Parlato and Andrea Ungari.

The main objective was to highlight the centuries-old ties, both political and cultural, that link the Italian peninsula and the other side of the Adriatic in a long-term perspective.

Starting from the contextualization of this historical bond, created since the period of the Roman Empire and consolidated during the long domination of the Serenissima Republic of Venice in Istria and Dalmatia, the events of the relations between the Italian peninsula and the Adriatic from the period of the Italian Risorgimento until 1870 were discussed, the border issue at the end of the First World War, the question of Fiume and the complex definition of the border between Italy and the newborn Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, up to the complex events linked to the policies of forced nationalization that characterized both nation states, whose relations were wavering until the outbreak of the Second World War, during which the invasion of Yugoslavia took place on 6 April 1941 and the division of the territory between Italians and Germans.

The themes of war and its consequences are then addressed, such as the story of the foibe, the concentration camps, the mass graves, the expulsions of the Germans and the Julian-Dalmatian exodus.

Finally, the subsequent diplomatic events are introduced (signing of the Peace Treaty on 10 February 1947, the Tripartite Declaration of March 1948, the Italian-Yugoslav confrontation of the summer-autumn 1953 and the London Memorandum of 1954 with the last exodus of the Italian component) which led to the Treaty of Osimo of 1975.

Subsequently, the wars that affected the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and caused its dissolution, led to the birth of new and different state entities that undertook new and different interstate relations and exchanges with the Italian state, once again changing the cross-border scenario of the Upper Adriatic territory.

Finally, the institution of the Day of Remembrance, the accession of Slovenia and Croatia to the EU, the meeting between the Italian and Croatian Presidents in Pula in 2011 and between the Italian and Slovenian Presidents in Trieste in 2020 represent the stages of approaching an Adriatic seen as a sea that unites European peoples and no longer pits opposing nationalisms against each other.

These topics are addressed as content that can be used spontaneously and accessibly by all, thanks to the choice of their diffusion through the format Espaitec's. A technology that allows listening to audio files via the internet and the main dedicated platforms such as Spotify, Google Podcast or Apple Podcast, to name a few. The simplicity of the format in this case does not take away the historical-scientific validity of the project, since behind the contents and the topics conveyed we find speakers coming mainly from the background, academic. Professors, researchers and scholars of the subject give voice to the events and problems previously exposed.

Each content – ​​created thanks to the collaboration with the company “Pensiero Visibile” – is conveyed in the form of an episode where each of the authoritative speakers addresses, in an accurate and in-depth manner, a chosen theme of which two versions have been created: a short one, in an informative and didactic key of the approximately 5 minutes long and a longer one with a more in-depth cut approximately 15 minutes long.

All episodes, as well as being broadcast on the main podcast listening platforms, will follow the following schedule:

1. Luciano Violante, The Eastern Border Problem
2. Egidio Ivetic, Venetian culture in the Adriatic
3. Esther Capuzzo, Istria and Fiume after 1870
4. Luke Micheletta, The Italo-Yugoslavian Border Question at the Paris Peace Conference
5. Massimo Bucarelli, Fascist Italy and Yugoslavia
6. Joseph Parlato, Nationalization and denationalization between the two wars
7. Raoul Pupo, The Fascist Invasion of Yugoslavia
8. Basil DiMartino, The anti-partisan struggle in the Balkans (1941 – 1943)
9. Philip Chaplain, The Italian occupation of Slovenia;
10. Andrea Hungarian, The Italian Army and the Jews in the Balkans
11. Joseph of Vergottini, foibe
12. John Olive, The silence on the foibe and the exodus
13. Massimo De Leonardis, The Peace Treaty of 1947 and the Question of Trieste up to the London Memorandum
14. Enrico Miletto, The world of exodus
15. Ida Caracciolo, The Yugoslav Question from the London Memorandum to the Treaty of Osimo
16. Kristjan Knez, The Italian national community
17. Antonio Varsori, The Nineties and the Wars in the Former Yugoslavia
18. Davide Rossi, The Upper Adriatic and the EU
19. Joseph Parlato, The foibe today
20. Nicola Porro, Why an Eastern Border Podcast in 2022?
21. Giampaolo Pansa, The three hundred thousand exiles and the responsibilities of politics

 

Il link to indicate to listen to these interventions: https://anchor.fm/federesuli

The main aim of the initiative is to have the widest possible diffusion, especially among young people, but being able to access quality content.