Seen from afar, Dalmatia in the thoughts of Italians

Author: Lucio Toth

We have often asked ourselves how “others” see us, other Italians first and foremost. Because to talk about us, Italian Dalmatians, and about our existence in history, ignored or denied by many, we must first understand who we are talking to. What our Italian interlocutor knows or thinks about us. What we wish he understood more of. Luciano Monzali's two volumes "Italians of Dalmatia" constitute an indispensable scientific basis and we will always be grateful to him. But the question we are asking ourselves today - which emerged in a controversy last summer - is when our region entered the interests of political thought and Italian culture in general. Naturally, I want to limit myself to the contemporary age, from Campoformio onwards. Because it is from then that our "Adriatic passion" begins and it is from then that Italy, wanting to achieve independence and political unity, has posed the problem of its borders, that is, of how far the new, free and sovereign Italy should have gone, liberated from the foreign yoke and from the state fragmentation that was an essential part of this yoke. The problem is connected to the similar one of Istria and Fiume, which I will inevitably have to talk about. The exodus affected us all without distinction, even if our starting perspectives were very different. Of all the Italians in the eastern Adriatic, we were certainly the most distant and least known. So of all the most exposed. The eastern border problem is articulated in different places, times and historical contexts. If what was almost a given in the minds of the “kingsmen” for the Istrians was much less so for us and for the people of Fiume. In fact, I will not discuss how we saw ourselves on the other side of this sea that lies before us. Even though only over time have we developed a clear and definite aspiration to enter a unified Italian state. Our neighbors and fellow countrymen called us Italians: Germans, Slavs and Hungarians. We considered ourselves Italians. The notion of “Italian speakers” came about later, to justify in the eyes of Croats and Slovenes why our land became part of their national states. Our people sacrificed themselves in the wars of the Fatherland because they were simply Italians, not Italian speakers! I will deal with how they saw us from this side, especially from the Po down. Since for the Venetians the feeling was different, for reasons that it is useless to recall here and of which Alvise Zorzi is our teacher. A first bitter observation is that the Italian element of the eastern Adriatic, from the Isonzo to the Bay of Kotor, seems to look at Italy and its Risorgimento events as if it were part of it, even if in initially undefined forms and only towards the end of the nineteenth century with the firm will to become part of the unitary Italian state born in 1861 (Adriatic Irredentism). A different assessment must be made when studying the literature, personal correspondence, political writings and speeches, and diplomatic documents of the most prominent personalities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on this side of the Isonzo, those who shaped public opinion in the country and consequently the political action of its governments. Wanting to distinguish the times - and it is necessary on a methodological level - we arrive at recognizing six fairly well-defined and homogeneous periods: the first from 1810 to 1848; the second from 1848 to 1866; the third from 1866 to 1915; the fourth from 1915 to 1947; the fifth from 1947 to 1991; the last from '91 to today. The first period is characterized by an imaginary idealism. In common thought, Dalmatia remains a land of the Republic of Venice, marked as such on the maps and unjustly cancelled by the Congress of Vienna.  And since the Republic is considered an "Italian state", Dalmatia is also affected by it, as if by the light of a lantern, or a lighthouse whose ray illuminates the whole eastern Adriatic. Napoleon's handing over of Istria and Veneto to Austria in the Treaty of Campo Formio is lamented, and Ugo Foscolo, a Greek-Dalmatian, protests in his writings. In the same Lamentation of Perasto this sense of belonging emerges: “And if the present times, most unhappy because of lack of foresight, dissension, illegal arbitration, vices offending nature and the law of the people, had not taken You from Italy, our possessions, our blood, our life would forever be Yours…” (G. Praga History of Dalmatia, Padova CEDAM, 1954). This is what he addresses, as you know, to the Venetian Gonfalon, which will be kept under the altars of the Dalmatian cathedrals with the relics of the Saints. Of course this document comes from the other side. But, no one on this side of the pond disputes this. Indeed, the motto “Ti con nu, nu con Ti” will move the entire peninsula and will be taken up by the Italian marines. At the time of the annexation of the entire eastern Adriatic coast to the Kingdom of Italy (1806-1809) Gen. Mathieu Dumas was able to launch his proclamation on February 19, 1806: “Dalmatians! Emperor Napoleon, King of Italy, your King, returns you to your homeland…The Treaty of Pressburg guarantees the reunion of Dalmatia to the Kingdom of Italy. Bravi Dalmatians!...submitted to the Laws under which He has united the Peoples of Italy as members of a single Family." (ibidem) And the "Royal Dalmatian Regiment" was incorporated into the army of the Italian kingdom of Beauharnais and with it will participate with honour in the Russian campaign. In the official gazettes of the capital, Milan, the Dalmatian departments remained included even after the creation of the Illyrian Provinces (1810-1814), the administrative and judicial system being uniform. In Italy during the Napoleonic period, no one found any objection to this assimilation of Dalmatia to the rest of Italy. The anti-French uprisings that occurred in the Dalmatian hinterland, fueled by the Catholic clergy and the governments of Vienna and London, were no different from those in southern Italy, even if reading between the lines of the Habsburg proclamations an anti-Italian ethnic factor began to emerge. During the English blockade of the ports of the continent, Lissa will be the base of His Britannic Majesty's fleet for years, while Zara will bravely withstand the Austro-English sieges, proving to be supportive and faithful to the Franco-Italian troops that guard it. This feeling of belonging of our region to the fate of Italy continued to radiate even after the Restoration, even if the provinces of the Habsburg Empire considered "Italian", with Italian being the official language, were divided into the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom and Illyria, which began already in Cormons and Aquileia, the future border of 1866. In the secret sects that spread throughout Italy and in Dalmatia itself in the decades between the 1820s and 1840s, both the "Guelph Sect" and the Carboneria considered Dalmatia part of Italy and its claims for freedom and independence. In the statute of the Ausonia Society, which was the founding charter of the Carboneria, of clear Masonic origin, we read: “Old Italy, assuming the ancient name of Ausonia, had to be completely freed from the triple navy to the highest peaks of the Alps: from Malta to Trentino, from the Bay of Kotor to Trieste and to include all the islands within a radius of one hundred miles from its coast”. The somewhat visionary style of these proclamations, typical of the spirit of the times, cannot be ignored, nor can we know what knowledge their editors had of the ethnic situation in our region. But since there was no Croatian or Slovenian national movement at the time, it was natural that the rebellion against Habsburg "oppression" should be directed at all the territories of the former Italian states before the Congress of Vienna. However, already in Mazzini, at the time of the foundation of Young Italy (1831), Dalmatia's belonging to Italy fades and wavers until it is lost. Despite the fact that among his followers, persecuted by the police, there were many Dalmatians. Over time, Mazzinian ideals had spread, extending to the aspirations of all the peoples "oppressed" by the three central-eastern empires: Austria, Russia and Türkiye. In fact, in the statute of Young Italy, Dalmatia disappears and the borders of the future state stop at Kvarner. Thus Mazzini wrote in the years of the Roman Republic: “But the true objective of Italy's international life, the most direct path to its future greatness, lies higher up, where the most vital European problem is being stirred today, in brotherhood with the vast, powerful element called to infuse new spirits into the Communion of Nations or to disturb them, if left to go astray by an imprudent distrust, with long wars and great perversions: in the alliance with the Slavic family. The eastern borders of Italy have been marked since Dante wrote 'at Pola near Carnaro which encloses Italy and bathes its borders' (Inf. IX. 113) Istria is ours. But from Fiume, along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, to the Bojana River on the borders of Albania, there is an area in which, among the relics of our colonies, the Slavic element predominates.” Mazzini indicated two Slavic areas: one to the south and one to the north of the Dacian-Magyar “barrier” of Hungary and Romania, and he considered the Slavic strip between Germany and Russia providential, against German predominance and Tsarist Pan-Slavism. “There, in the alliance with the populations of these two areas lie…our hopes, our initiative in Europe, our future political and economic power.” (in “Politica internazionale” nn. 4, 5 and 6 on “La Roma del Popolo”, Rome 1848-49). In the revolutions of 1848, Dalmatia – as Monzali observes – was not the scene of great upheavals. Yet we know, from the memoirs of Niccolò Tommaseo, that the Italian garrison of Zara should have rebelled and it was he himself who stopped it.  And that the municipality of Split asked to join the reborn Venetian Democratic Republic. An entire Istrian-Dalmatian Legion fought in the defense of Venice and Dalmatians were its main protagonists. Others we find in the defense of the Roman Republic, such as Federico Seismit-Doda, author of the most popular song among the fighters: “La Romana”. The republican and Mazzinian Seismit-Doda exudes love for his Italian homeland. Don't know what your idol thinks of his homeland? Speaking of musical vocations, wasn't it a Dalmatian, Enrico Cossovich, who wrote the most famous Neapolitan song in 1848: “Santa Lucia”? Meanwhile, his brother Marco is a Garibaldian volunteer and will become a colonel in the future wars of the Hero of the Two Worlds (G. Garibaldi, “Memoirs”, BUR ediz.1998, Milan). But how did the other Italians see a Sirovich, a Caravà, a Cattalinich, a Solitro, a Paulucci delle Roncole, who fought alongside them for the unity of Italy? They were perceived as Italian patriots, but this did not mean that their land was necessarily included in the unification dream. This was still undefined in its constitutional (constitutional monarchy, republic or federation of states) and territorial contours. Terenzio Mamiani's position is enlightening, as the person from the Marche and Adriatic who is most interested in the eastern border. In a letter of 11 April 1848 to a Roman newspaper he developed his thoughts as follows: “I maintain that it is absolutely necessary to wage war in the Tyrol… and from here a good number of troops, coming down from Cadore and Friuli, must push forward with courage and speed to occupy Trieste, and offer aid to the partisans and supporters of the Italian cause who are also there… In this prompt occupation of all Istria lies, in my opinion, a very important point for the liberation of Italy and a great pledge of future security… Germany could move strongly to maintain its dominion over Trieste, which city on the other hand breaks the middle of the Italian lands located between the Isonzo and the Quarnaro. Since the time of Augustus, the Julian Alps and the Carnic Alps have marked the borders of Italy, and therefore all of Istria and the coast that runs from Pola to Venice is ours and no flag should fly there except the Italian one… Out of respect for Illyria and Dalmatia, let it suffice for now to note that in those provinces there lives a people in whose discretion it is to declare themselves for the Italian cause or for that of the Slavic peoples; for by race they are Slavic; by customs, by letters, by government they feel themselves Italian. The only thing that matters to us is that they are not and do not want to be Austrians, and that Austria cannot prepare us against attacks and harassment in the ports of Dalmatia." Our most fervent supporter therefore moves between warlike ambitions and strategic realism. But there is also an idealistic realism, if we want to call it that, and it is that of Manin, of Tommaseo, of Valussi: to build for the Venetians, Friulians, Istrians and Dalmatians, and therefore also for the people of Fiume and Trieste, small republics federated among themselves on the Swiss model. We are within the scope of Carlo Cattaneo's thought. Lost because it was contradicted by actual reality. The 2nd period (1849-1866) is characterised by a prevailing realism and possibilism. The failure of '48, of its illusions and its ideological confusions leads Cavour and Piedmont to formulate more concrete plans. And put them into practice. With astute determination and an enveloping strategy, which does not disdain – as we know – feminine graces. Never again will Italy have such a genius at its helm. Yet in a confidential report, which Cavour took with him to Plombières in the summer of 1857 for the meeting with Napoleon III, we can read: “What can Napoleon III do?...England's lever is Austria. It must be broken and it can only be broken by chasing it out of Italy. With France it would be all of Italy…. Once peace was achieved, a League of the three Italies should then be formed: the Upper Italies from Piedmont to the coasts of Istria and Dalmatia with the Bay of Kotor under the Savoy king. The Lower…” (Arrigo Petacco, The Kingdom of the North, Mondadori 2009). But it is almost certain that Cavour did not show that document to the French emperor. If in 1859 he recommended to his friend Terenzio Mamiani from Pesaro, in the midst of the second war of independence, not to speak officially about Istria and Dalmatia so as not to frighten Napoleon III too much, already regretting his help in extending the Savoy annexations to central Italy. In fact, the Franco-Piedmontese fleet had occupied the island of Lussino, celebrated by the population with Italian tricolour festoons. But it was clear that for Napoleon a Savoyard kingdom limited to the north was a good idea as an ally, because it would remain subordinate to him as in the times of his great ancestor. And Dalmatia would have been fine too, with the Dalmatian and Istrian bases and the Napoleonic Road opened by Marmont between the Dinaric cliffs. But a new state that occupied the entire peninsula in the centre of the Mediterranean became, on the contrary, a threat to French ambitions to dominate it. And England's opposing interest in substituting a greater Italy for the Austrian empire came into play, precisely to maintain hegemony over that sea. Cavour returned to the Adriatic question shortly before dying, confiding to his friends after the unification: «…Garibaldi wants to go to Rome and Venice, and I want to go too.  Nobody is in a bigger hurry than me…As for Istria and Tyrol, that's another matter. It will be up to another generation. We have done enough. We made Italy." (Marina Cattaruzza, L'Italia e il confine orientale, Il Mulino 2007) The overwhelming enterprise of the Thousand, planned by Garibaldi with the express but hidden consent of King Vittorio Emanuele II, bypassing Cavour, will in fact pose new problems for Piedmontese diplomacy. Because English support in the conquest of the South disturbs the Mediterranean balance. On the other hand, after the armistice of Villafranca, Austria could not be too frightened on the Adriatic, so as not to tempt it to send its troops – as it had always done – to defend the Papal State, attacking from behind the Sardinian army that had invaded it in September 1860, moving down the Adriatic to meet up with Garibaldi. Supreme unscrupulousness after the slap in Villafranca: using the two great allies against each other. A brigand and a half brigand. If Napoleon III had denied him the Veneto, Cavour took the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the conquest of which he had initially opposed! Among moderate liberals, territorial ambitions towards the East are viewed with embarrassment and as political fantasy. Massimo D'Azeglio, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Piedmont in 1849, in a letter from Pisa dated 15 January 1861, staunchly defends the armistice of Villafranca and the subsequent Treaty of Zurich and takes issue with the impatience of the republicans. “The republican opposition – he writes with biting irony – has revived an ancient malice that dates back to Greek mythology and is then found in tales and romances of chivalry. Eurystheus imposed the Twelve Labours on Hercules. The kings of the Arthurian cycle and of the Round Table propose impossible enterprises to the suitors of their daughters, with the thought that they will find death; and the demagogy dominant in Naples (just liberated by Garibaldi and acquired by the Savoy kingdom) presented Count Cavour with the modest program of flattening Verona, Mantua, Legnago and Peschiera, freeing Venice in the spring, the Tyrol, Trieste, Dalmatia, etc. Occupy Rome by sending the Pope and the French elsewhere, and crown the work by crowning Victor Emmanuel in the Campidoglio! At this price Vittorio Emanuele could hope for their approval. If not, no!” In 1866 Cavour is no longer there. And the caution of the new Kingdom of Italy is even greater. The ally this time is Prussia, determined to take away the hegemony over the German Confederation from the Habsburgs. But Trieste, Gorizia, Trentino and the County of Pisino are integral parts of this Confederation. Garibaldi tries anyway. He enters Trentino, but has to give up the planned landing in Dalmatia, which is not part of the German Confederation, following the defeat of Persano at Lissa. Croatian literature still believes that Italy wanted to take over Dalmatia that year and celebrates Lissa as its victory, clearly siding with the Habsburg cause and rejecting any Risorgimento-style desire for independence. But Garibaldi's memoirs on his plans must be the subject of reflection "... it was the intention in the higher spheres, so as not to gather so many volunteers together, to divide them in two and leave half in southern Italy, with certain pretexts divulged to mask the flaw... Here I must do justice to the king: from the first moments - we read there in fact - in which he communicated his intention to propose me to the command of the volunteers... he shared with me the idea of ​​throwing ourselves on the Dalmatian coasts for which I would have come to an agreement with Admiral Persano, and it was said that this decision was absolutely opposed by his generals, and in particular by General Lamarmora. The decision to push towards the Adriatic pleased me so much that I had Vittorio Emanuele pay my compliments for the fruitful and grandiose concept. The concept was truly too beautiful to be understood by certain minds of the Italian Aulic Council, and I was soon able to persuade myself that holding back five regiments of volunteers in the south was nothing other than distrust... What a magnificent horizon presented itself to us in the east! On the Dalmatian coast with thirty thousand men, we really had to overthrow the Austrian monarchy, how many sympathetic and friendly elements we found in that part of Eastern Europe, from Greece to Hungary! All warlike populations, enemies of Austria and Turkey and who need little push to raise them against their rulers..." Mazzini in August 1866, indignant at the outcome of the war, reaffirmed Italy's rights over all of what would later become Venezia Giulia, going so far as to say that "Postoina and Carsia, administratively subject to Ljubljana, were also ours." Therefore he was not concerned with the ethnic composition of the territory, giving value to the orographic data of the "natural border". (M.Cattaruzza, op.cit.). This is no small claim. But he doesn't mention Dalmatia. The Genoese poet developed his thought thus: “The Turkish Empire and Austria are irrevocably condemned to perish. Italy's international life must tend to accelerate its death. And the hilt of the iron that is to kill them is in the hands of the Slavs. Once the supreme hour has sounded for the revolted peoples, the western coast of the Adriatic would become our base of operations for effective aid to our new allies. Our warships will redeem the violated honor of the flag by conquering from the Slavs of Montenegro the outlet they need, the Boka Kotorska Bay, and from the Slavs of Dalmatia the main cities on the eastern coast. Lissa, rightly called by others the Malta of the Adriatic and the site of our undeserved defeat which it is important for the honour of the fleet to erase, would remain an Italian station.” It was in that summer of 1866, amidst uncertainties, fears and ambitious projects, that our destiny as Italian Dalmatians was consummated. Lissa's bad luck was the conclusion. The 3rd period (1866-1915) can be defined as one of official renunciation and cultural ferment. On the one hand, we have the governments of Florence and Rome abandoning any claims not only on Dalmatia, but also on Trentino, Trieste and Istria. On the other hand, a movement, numerically minority but very active on a cultural level, operated in the opposite way. If in 1869 the ship “Monzambano” was already sent to Dalmatia for nautical reconnaissance and as a sign of friendship, only to then have the pleasant surprise of Sebenico (with about twenty sailors wounded by Croatian nationalists), paradoxically with the rise to power of the Historical Left the attitude of rapprochement with Austria will take shape with a coherent and rigorous diplomatic action, at least on the surface. Depretis, who became prime minister in 1876, called the aspirations for Trento and Trieste “de vieux cancans”, without renouncing the Frenchisms of the Piedmontese ruling class. It was his government that established the Triple Alliance in 1882. From that moment on, the Italian government authorities did nothing but hinder and even criminally persecute those who supported the “completion” of the Risorgimento. The failed attack on Oberdan and his hanging in December of that same year were an occasion for the entire radical and republican left, which remained faithful to its original ideals, to harshly criticize the Depretis government and then that of Francesco Crispi, who continued along the lines of his predecessor. During Oberdan's commemorations, the street riots, especially in Rome, but also in Udine and elsewhere, were harshly repressed. The Oberdan Circles, which arose mainly in central Italy, and which in 1887 numbered 47, were definitively dissolved by Crispi in 1890. That year the Minister of Finance, Sismit-Doda from Ragusa, was forced to resign for having participated in a banquet with irredentist overtones in Udine. During this period, Dalmatian exiles, such as those from Istria and Trieste - who had taken refuge in the Kingdom after being expelled from the Austro-Hungarian public administration or in any case prevented from carrying out their professional activities due to their pro-Italian positions - were kept under surveillance by the royal police, in close collaboration with the Austrian police and "services". The latter underlined the subversive and anti-monarchic nature of every irredentist demonstration, such as the inauguration of Dante's tomb in Ravenna, to which Dalmatians, Julians and Trentines brought oil for the votive lamp. Although these reports were in stark contrast to the expressions of mourning that took place in the Austro-Italian territories and also in Dalmatia for the assassination of Umberto I. The accusations are therefore partly true, partly invented to gain the trust of the Italian police forces. What had happened in the meantime on a cultural level? Depretis' rise to power, after the "transformist" agreement in parliament, split the Italian left. Men who had fought with Garibaldi in the same battles found themselves pitted against each other. And irredentism was born precisely from the discontent of the radical and republican left in the face of the pro-Austrian and pro-German policies of the Depretis and Crispi governments. The first to use the term “unredeemed lands” was Matteo Renato Imbriani at a conference in Naples in 1877, from which the “Association for Unredeemed Italy” was born. Personalities such as Garibaldi, Avezzana, Saffi, Bovio, Cairoli, Cavallotti joined it. The definition was successful and the Trentino, Julian and Dalmatian exiles in Italian cities contributed to this success. Dalmatia does not always appear in irredentist propaganda, so much so that "Dalmatians almost always feel forgotten if not excluded" (Attilio Tamaro, entry "Irredentism" in the Italian Encyclopedia, 1933). But both their presence in the associations that spread it and the indeterminacy of the eventual eastern borders meant that this movement ended up also including Dalmatia. A little-known Friulian historian, Giuseppe Marcotti, will dedicate his attention to Dalmatia in particular, fully grasping in 1885 the process of decline of Dalmatian Italianity with the progressive awareness of a Croatian national identity ("young nation rich in greed and audacity"), which spreads precisely among the Dalmatian Croats, abandoning Habsburg loyalty to embrace the cause of a Yugoslav union, after the Serbian successes in the Balkan wars (L.Monzali, op. cit.) It is interesting at this point to note how the attitude of the government of Rome was in harmony with that of Vienna, presenting to the Italians of Austria, as the only hope of salvation from Slavic hegemony, loyalty to the Habsburgs within the framework of autonomy, thus muting the ambitions of uniting with the Italian state. The invitations of the Consul in Trieste Durando and of the Ambassador Nigra in Vienna, through his collaborator, the diplomat Avarna, are explicit (Luciano Monzali, Italiani di Dalmazia - Le Lettere, 2004). The Adriatic claims – they argued – would have turned all the southern Slavs against Italy, welding a part of them, Croats and Slovenes, to the Austrian monarchy. This was then the line followed by the Dalmatian autonomist leaders, such as Luigi Lapenna and in Zara the mayor Niccolò Trigari. This will not prevent the Imperial-Royal Police from calling members of the autonomist party “Italian partisans”. The strategy of the Italian governments is also linked to another geopolitical perspective that will prove to be equally unsuccessful. The idea – promoted among the first by Cesare Balbo – was to divert the imperialist tendencies of the Danubian monarchy towards the south of the Balkans up to the Aegean, after the Austro-Hungarian agreement of 1867, in order to obtain territorial compensation in the north-east of Italy. But this idea was showing signs of weakness, because on the one hand it ignored the aspirations for independence of the Serbs and Bulgarians and for the completion of the national unity of Greece (whose "natural" borders reached the Bosphorus and Asia Minor), on the other hand if it could help for Trentino it worsened the Italian prospects in the Adriatic, since the territories eventually conquered in the Balkan hinterland would have increased the need for outlets to the Adriatic much more than what Austria-Hungary had in 1867. However, in 1883, with a typically Italian contradiction, Crispi, while publicly condemning irredentism and dissolving the Roman Committee for Trento and Trieste, decided to secretly subsidize organizations for the defense of Italianness in the irredentist territories, including Dalmatia. In fact, the irredentist inspiration gave rise first to the “Pro Patria” and then to the Dante Alighieri Society, on the initiative of the Triestine Felice and Giacomo Venezian, with the aim of defending the Italian presence almost everywhere outside the borders of the Kingdom, but above all in the Austro-Italian territories. The same policy of covert subsidies was then extended to the National League, which was fundamental in defending the Italian schools in Istria and especially in Dalmatia, as the Austrian authorities gradually suppressed them towards the end of the nineteenth century in the Dalmatian cities where they existed, from Arbe to Traù, to Cattaro, to Curzola, to Lesina. As the years passed, it became increasingly evident that the Slovenian and Croatian pressure on the entire coast of the Empire, from Gorizia to the Bocche, had the declared support of the government authorities. The fall of the autonomist junta of Baiamonti in Split in 1882, under threat from the imperial fleet, was just one example. In Italy, these events fueled the growth of anti-Austrian sentiments in public opinion, as had already happened with the Austrian conquest of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878, reawakening the demand for "compensation" on the eastern border. This happened with the Piran uprising in 1894 against the planned introduction of Italian-Slovenian bilingualism, which was in fact rejected due to the firm opposition of the people of Piran and all the Italians of Istria. Such as the incidents in Trieste in 1898 after the assassination of Empress Elizabeth in Geneva by an Italian anarchist or the clashes between Italian and German students at the University of Innsbruck in 1904, in which Dalmatian students had participated. The most famous poets of the time supported the Adriatic cause. Giosuè Carducci dedicated one of his “Barbarian Odes” (1877 – 1889) to Trieste and Istria: “Molossus growls, oh ancient Italic verses…'When?' the young people tremble who just yesterday saw the Adria laugh blue from San Giusto. Oh, the beautiful sea of ​​Trieste…fly from San Giusto over the Roman ruins! Greet Giustinopoli in the Gulf, the gem of Istria, and the green port and lion of Muggia; greet the divine laughter of the Adria as far as where Pola displays its temples to Rome and Caesar!.. Then…in the face of the foreigner who, armed, camps on our soil, sing: Italy, Italy, Italy!” D'Annunzio in 1895, on his journey to Greece with Fenoglio, touched the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts for the first time, remaining fascinated by them forever. He dedicated one of the most delicate poems of Alcione, “La Loggia”, to Capodistria: “September, your younger brother April/ the remains of San Marco were in bloom/ in Capodistria, when we sailed/ the native sea that Trieste bites/ with its strong piers/ for tenacious love./ Capodistria, succinct Adriatic flower!/… In the shadows you can hear that dialect/ that recalls Rialto and Cannaregio./ A dove coos on the beautiful frieze.” But he already mentions Dalmatia in the sonnet to Gubbio: “Agobbio, that craftsman of Dalmatia/ who made the beautiful mountain of Urbino/ a refuge for the Muses, tempered the harshness of the Apennine/ in warfare with his grace” (Elettra, 1907). There is not yet the epic fervor of the “Three psalms for our dead” of 2 November 1915 (“All the cities of my language are mine, all the shores of my vestiges… But in Zara is the strength of my heart, on the Porta Marina stands my faith/ in Santa Anastasia my vow burns… Roar, oh city, with your lions! I will give you the morning star. I will come to you and bring your banners from under your altar table. I will explain them in the east wind…”). or in the Canticle for the Octave of Victory of November 1918 (“And Zara is the first, our Zara, fortress of faith…O blessed Sebenico, who have the deepest eyes…O Traù, my sweet woman, you who are the most golden among the Dalmatian women1…”) But it was already a sign that one of the most prominent intellectuals of Italian and European culture of the time was turning his aesthetic interest to this theme. For what it's worth, even Italian tourist guides breathed the same climate if the publisher Treves dedicated a guide in 1881 to "Venice and the Veneto - Trento-Trieste - Istria". Overall, however, the traditional irredentist movement, inspired by Mazzini and democracy, showed a slow decline on the political level between the two centuries and thus a more aggressive version of it emerged, with strong nationalist tones, as in Ruggero Timeus. The fact is that in 1907 the Italian Foreign Minister Tittoni happily endorsed the words of the Austrian governor of Trieste Hohenlohe, that "irredentism was dead". Minister San Giuliano also repeated it in 1910. A singular statement if it was precisely in those years that the irredentist turn of the Corriere della Sera, the most authoritative Italian daily newspaper, took place, with the correspondence of Luigi Barzini who denounced the hardship of the Italian population of the Austrian provinces. But Slataper also bitterly stated that "irredentism, in the history of united Italy, represented more of a state of mind than a factor with concrete political efficacy" (M. Cattaruzza, op.cit.) A few years later he would be proven wrong by the facts, and by himself, who would leave his life on Podgora in 1916, near that Carso that he loved and to which he had dedicated his best prose. And we have arrived at the 4th period (1915-1947), that of emotional exaltation and dramatization, which will end in dramas and tragedies. In this phase, irredentism revived by merging with the vast interventionist movement, probably a minority in the country and limited to the bourgeois and intellectual classes, but represented by very lively forces on a cultural and economic level. At this point Dalmatia becomes an essential factor in the "Adriatic question". I don't really believe in the theory of a "Masonic conspiracy" to destroy very Catholic Austria. If there had been one, they should have understood it first in Vienna, avoiding falling into the Sarajevo trap. It is certain that the patriotic fervor of the Italian squares was exploited by those who had an interest in Italy's intervention alongside the Entente. And Dalmatia became a knot of conflict and the object of bilateral and multilateral negotiations between Rome and Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London and St. Petersburg. Reading the diplomatic correspondence of those first frenetic months of 1915, one realizes that Vienna's concessions were truly very little. And not the “quite a lot” that Giolitti was talking about. The maximum that was achieved on the eve of the denunciation of the Triple Alliance was the Trentino and the Right of the Isonzo. Not Gorizia, not Trieste, not Istria. Let alone Dalmatia! In those uncertainties, a constant conflict in Italian political culture also came to light, between the appeal of Western liberal conceptions, represented by France and the Anglo-Saxon countries, and the attraction towards the philosophical and juridical currents of German idealism. If on the media level, at the congress in Rome of the “Trento and Trieste” on 29 March 1915, Enrico Corradini hoped for the liberation of Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia, on the diplomatic level the Italian maneuvers were no less explicit and audacious. On March 4, the ambassador in London Imperiali dictated Italy's conditions for entering the war with the Entente: Trentino up to the Brenner Pass, Trieste and Istria up to Volosca, Dalmatia between Fiume (to be given to Croatia!) and Narenta with all the islands to the north and east, Valona and Saseno in Albania, the Dodecanese (already occupied in 1911), compensations in Africa and Turkey (Antalya and the surrounding territory). The Bay of Kotor could go to Montenegro, to gain its support or as a favor to Queen Elena. On March 20, the British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey sent a memorandum to the Marquis Imperiali in which he observed that "the Italian demand for Dalmatia and the claim for the islands of Quarnaro left Serbia with very limited opportunities and conditions for its access to the sea and it remained divided into its Yugoslav provinces, which had rightly looked to the war as one that would assure them the legitimate aspirations of expansion and development of which they had until then been deprived". On March 29, Imperiali delivered a new memorandum to Grey in which the Italian demands on the southern border of Dalmatia were reduced. But he felt that he could not give up more. On April 2, in a dialogue between Sonnino and the Austrian Foreign Minister Stephan Burian, the Italian side proposed the creation of an autonomous and independent state that would include the Isonzo area with Gorizia, Trentino and northern Istria. The islands of central Dalmatia to Italy (Kurzola, Lesina, Vis, Lagosta, Meleda and Pelagosa). The proposal is rejected. On 26 April 1915 Imperiali reached an agreement (London Pact) with the Englishman Grey, the Frenchman Cambon and the Russian Benchendorff: to Italy all the territories on this side of the Alpine ridge of the Julian Alps, Dalmatia up to Cape Planca with all the islands to the north and east of the Dalmatian coast; to Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro the Hungarian coast with Fiume, the "Croatian coast" with Novi and Carlopago, and the islands of Veglia and Arbe and the rest of Dalmatia from Traù to the Bay of Cattaro. On May 3, Italy denounces the treaty with Austria-Hungary and Germany. On May 5th D'Annunzio delivered his famous Quarto speech. The attitude of Vittorio Emanuele III is significant. He orders the civil and military authorities not to attend the demonstration, but sends a telegram of encouragement invoking the unity of the country and the completion of the work begun by his Great Ancestor and the “Duce of the Thousand” up to the “Alpe d'Oriente”. He then praises "the exiles from Trieste and Istria, the Adriatic and the Alps of Trento, the proudest and most candid, who gave the huts they built the names of the enslaved lands, as if to wish for and announce their redemption". He does not explicitly name Dalmatia, but includes among the exiles the Adriatic and among the "huts" that the organizers had built in Quarto there were also those named after the Dalmatian cities and islands. In the demonstrations of the days preceding May 24, the “Radiant May” – as it was called – the crowds in the squares invoked all the territories beyond the Adriatic, inside and outside the London Pact. Among the organizers were many Dalmatians who had taken refuge on the Peninsula, such as the future senators Antonio Tacconi and Roberto Ghiglianovich, persecuted by the Austro-Hungarian authorities for their open irredentism. The intervention divided all political forces and schools of thought. In the press, those in favour were Corriere della Sera, whose director was Arturo Colautti from Zadar, Il Popolo d'Italia, L'Idea Nazionale, and L'idea Democratica. Against Il Giornale d'Italia, the Nuova Antologia, La Tribuna, La Stampa, L'Avanti, L'Avvenire, L'Osservatore Romano and L'Unità Cattolica. If the official organs and the leaderships of the Socialist Party and the trade unions declared themselves neutralists, a large fringe of their members were among the most spirited interventionists, such as Bissolati, Mussolini, De Ambris and all the socialists of the irredeemable regions such as Battisti and Sauro. Among the Catholics, Don Luigi Sturzo, the future founder of the Partito Popolare, sided with the intervention and during the conflict numerous Catholic associations encouraged their members to volunteer in arms and to defend "the Fatherland", especially after the defeat of Caporetto. The hierarchies were generally very detached if not hostile. The interventionist movement thus brought together the nationalist right of Federzoni and Timeus/Fauro, the radical, republican and “democratic” left, as well as part of the Catholic and socialist world, as well as a part of the moderate liberals. It is argued that it was a minority movement. But how to measure it in an era of poor literacy and popular participation in political life? It was a period of great exhilaration, not tempered by the tragic experience of the first battles on the Western and Eastern fronts, which had revealed how deadly, in terms of human lives, the new armament of the armies had become. The meeting between Giolitti and Salandra, the prime minister who resigned and was confirmed within a few days, at the latter's home on 9 May 1915 was dramatic. Giolitti confirmed his opinion that “war is a grave danger given the conditions of the country and could turn into a damage even if victorious”. As many as 350 deputies and 100 senators left their business cards on Giolitti's table to show their solidarity. However, they voted confidence in the Salandra government, which they knew was interventionist. The declaration of war, however, was the king's initiative without consulting parliament, as the Albertine Statute permitted him. In the intellectual world, opinions were divided. Inside the Florentine magazine “La Voce”, to which Slataper, Giani Stuparich and other irredentist had contributed, Papini sided with the intervention, while Angelo Vivante was clearly against it and denied Italy's rights over Trieste itself. Salvemini was among the interventionists. Italy could not - in his acute analysis - renounce the completion of unification without denying the Risorgimento, and therefore the very source of national independence (M. Cattaruzza, op. cit.). But he clearly expressed his opposition to the claims on Dalmatia. “To demand all or almost all of Dalmatia is to make compromise impossible, it is to push all the South Slavs to join forces with Austria against Italy”. Referring to Mazzinian thought, he envisioned a confederation between Carinthia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria, to stem German imperialism towards Balkan and Danubian Europe, which our excessive territorial claims ended up favoring. But interventionism was also influenced – as is well known – by vitalistic currents of thought, such as Papini or Marinetti, who saw in the war as such a factor of regeneration of a small, flaccid Italy governed by a moderation that compressed the vital energies of the nation. Doubts about Dalmatia are also evident in the irredentist positions. If in the interventionist committee formed in Rome in September 1914 we find with Salvatore Barzilai, Albino Zenatti, Ettore Tolomei, Ruggero Timeus also Antonio Cippico from Traurino, open therefore to the most extensive claims, in the memorial “The natural borders of Italy”, that Tullio Mayer and Francesco Salata from Chersin delivered to Sidney Sonnino, in March 1915 the opportunity to also annex Fiume was expressed, while that of part of the Dalmatian coast should have been considered only if at the end of the war Austria had remained master of the eastern Adriatic. Even Minister Sonnino ended up adhering to this line. The contrast was therefore clear between those who, like the Dalmatian and Julian exiles, saw the main enemy in Slavic expansionism, and those who instead identified it in the Habsburg monarchy. In the midst of the war, in January 18, the Democrazia Sociale Irredenti was formed in Milan, to which Ernesto Sestan, Giovanni Semich and Dante Lipman belonged, of democratic-socialist inspiration, whose objectives included the renunciation of Dalmatia, in exchange for Fiume and only Zara. It was the first time that the fate of the capital of Dalmatia was distinguished from the rest of the region, by virtue of its maintained Italian character. (Cattaruzza, ibid.). It must be taken into account that, according to reliable estimates, the exiles from the unredeemed territories were already over 40.000 in 1914, reaching over 80.000 when Italy entered the war. If the former mostly belonged to the higher social classes, persecuted in some way by the imperial authorities, the latter, authentic refugees, also came from the humbler classes, often identifying themselves with the category of the "regnicoli", that is, those who, despite having lived in Austrian territories for generations, had maintained Italian citizenship (coal miners, boat masters, industrial managers, small traders, etc., coming to Dalmatia from families of Friulian, Marche, Romagna, Apulian origins, etc. ). And as refugees they were treated in “collection camps” throughout the Kingdom (Parliamentary report on the unredeemed territories). They amounted to approximately 60.000, in conditions that were not always optimal. Among the most influential Dalmatian exiles were certainly Ghiglianovich, Cippico, Tacconi, Alessandro Dudan and others. Luigi Ziliotto remained in Zara as mayor and was interned by Austria, like Natale Krekich, in May 1915 with the entire council belonging to the autonomist party. He was among those 50.000 Julian-Dalmatians and Trentino people in the internment camps between Styria, Bohemia, Hungary, etc. Given these premises, the uncertainties about the fate of Dalmatia were renewed at the end of the conflict. Italian public opinion was divided between those who wanted at least the promises of the London Pact to be kept, those who wanted more, Fiume and Dalmatia under Cape Planca, those who wanted to renounce it altogether so as not to antagonize the Serbs and Croats, and those who envisaged "free states", as was later the case for Fiume in the Treaty of Rapallo in November 1920. I need not remind you of the patriotic passion of our cities, from Arbe to Cattaro, and of the efforts made in Rome, Paris, London, Washington by our leaders, exiles and those freed from Austrian internment. The Senate recognized his value by dedicating a bust to Roberto Ghiglianovich in the corridors of honor of Palazzo Madama. We are trying to achieve the same for Luigi Ziliotto, appointed senator at the end of the conflict. Nor the Fiume enterprise begun in September 1919, which includes Zadar, Sebenico, Split, Traù. Curzola and Veglia participated “with trepidation”, as they said then, but also with a contribution of blood. In that short season, even in Italy, popular demonstrations in favor of the annexation of Dalmatia and Fiume, more or less spontaneous (like all street demonstrations), were frequent and almost oceanic, even with dramatic outcomes, as in Rome on May 24, 1920. If there were those who fervently supported them, there were obviously those who opposed or derided them (“Dalmatian is not a geographical origin, but a profession”). Like the national newspapers, the political parties represented in parliament had different attitudes. If the socialists intended to limit our claims by taking note of the birth of a new state that united the South Slavs and therefore of the inappropriateness of denying it the natural outlets to the Adriatic, the liberal-nationals, present in the government, tended to confirm the London Pact at least as far as the Julian ridge was concerned, renouncing Dalmatia except Zara, as later happened in Rapallo. Furthermore, the idea of ​​asking for compensation for this renunciation on a colonial level resurfaced in our diplomacy. The result was the cession to Italy of a small northern triangle of Kenya with Kismayo, to be united with Italian Somalia. Today it is the scene of bloody clashes between Islamist and government militias, supported by Nairobi and Addis Ababa. This is how the myth of the “mutilated Victory” was created among the discontented, a D’Annunzio expression that had the usual disruptive result of his literary inventions. This is not the place to address the controversial issue of how much this myth influenced the birth and political victory of fascism. Certainly, this was not an insignificant factor in his consensus. But the roots of the phenomenon must be sought elsewhere, as Renzo De Felice courageously revealed: in the deep crisis of the traditional democratic and liberal parties, in the divisions between reformist socialists, maximalists and communists, with the resulting disorders and the rising political criminality in extremist groups, in the delay of politically organised Catholics, who did not yet know how to take advantage of the universal suffrage won in 1911; not least in the economic crisis caused by war debts, by the end of military contracts, by the demobilization of the armed forces. The street riots with deaths and injuries did not only concern Venezia Giulia, but all the Italian regions, from Puglia to Piedmont. Even in those years after the First World War, Italian intellectuals were divided on the problem of the so-called “Third Shore”. To give just one example, Piero Gobetti declared himself in 1918 to be clearly against the union of Dalmatia with the Kingdom, based on the realistic consideration that in order to acquire 40.000 Italians into the national territory, hundreds of thousands of Slavs would end up being included. At the level of public opinion, however, the enthusiasm for the "brothers of Dalmatia" was notable, even among the lower classes, more due to a patriotic feeling arising from the sacrifices of the war than to a true knowledge of the situation and its problems. It was in those years that the street names of Italian cities were enriched with Vie Zara, Piazze Fiume, Lungomari Spalato. After the resolution of the Fiume question in 1924, the enthusiasm subsided, transforming itself on the one hand into satisfaction of the political classes for the problem that they had got out of the way, and on the other into a protest for the “mutilated victory”, very useful in rallies and commemorative speeches. Meanwhile, the fate of the Italian Dalmatians outside of Zara is what you know. By retaining their Italian citizenship, as most did, they lost all political rights, becoming strangers and irrelevant in the public life of their cities. By losing it they gradually ended up with the next generation in a slow but inexorable Slavicization. After the anti-Italian violence of the years 1918-1920, this condition of civil inferiority also induced at least ten thousand native Italians to abandon Dalmatia. Among them we remember Giovanni Soglian, who later became the superintendent of education in Split in 1941-43, Vincenzo Fasolo, one of the most famous architects and urban planners between the 1941s and XNUMXs, Lallich, a painter of the Roman school, Manlio Cace, who also returned to Sebenico in XNUMX, the Lubins, Mazzonis and Nutrizios of Traù, the Missonis of Ragusa and many others, who lost their lives in World War II for the Italian nature of their land. But how did other Italians see us in those years of the twenty-year fascist period? Zara was a destination for school trips and for Dopolavoro, whose Sunday outings were enchanted by its “Venetian grace”. Soldiers and officials, teachers and employees who arrived from the Peninsula felt a little disoriented at the beginning, in a psychological condition not dissimilar to those who went to a colony or to Sardinia... Many tried to leave as soon as possible to less exotic places. Others became fond of the city, absorbing its spirit of carefree gaiety and passionate patriotism. They were becoming more Zadar-like than the Zadar-people. In Italian sports fields, people were amazed by the ancient Slavic, German and Hungarian surnames that brought Olympic laurels to Italian teams. In the early years, some groups of squadristi from the opposite bank came to Zadar to give lessons in Italianness to the Croatian and Serbian minorities. They came back empty-handed because their methods did not please the young people of Zadar, whether they were fascists or not. For us Italian Dalmatians they sounded like an insult. The fact is that in the 1924 elections in Zara it was not the PNF that won, but a centrist liberal-national list. In Julian historiography there is talk of a “border fascism”. In the Italian Zara I don't know how much this expression corresponds to reality. Extremist positions will be found in Split in 1941-43 in a condition of strong numerical inferiority of the Italian element and of a communist citizen terrorism that had no space in Zadar. On the diplomatic level, the Neptune Convention of 1925 settled the last cross-border issues, especially in Rijeka and Zadar, with the creation of three zones around the small Zadar enclave, where the movement of goods and people was permitted, so as not to sever the vital relations between the city, its hinterland and the islands of the archipelago. It is clear that the fascist regime tried to mitigate the isolation of our city with the introduction of the free port and some public works, which were part of the general policy of the party in terms of education of young people and health. The Zadar entrepreneurs knew how to profit from these provisions, giving the city twenty years of prosperity. However, the problem of Dalmatia and the unquenched aspirations of the Italian Dalmatians to reopen the border issue remained a stumbling block in Italian-Yugoslav relations, which the government in Rome sought to overcome within the framework of a broader policy towards the Danubian area and the Balkans. The Ciano-Stojadinović pact of 1937, with the renunciation of any Italian territorial aspiration, created no small amount of apprehension both in Venezia Giulia and in Zadar, as did Mussolini's speech in Piazza dell'Unità in Trieste in September 1938 in which, after having announced both the racial laws and the rapprochement with Yugoslavia, he felt he had to say: “Do not sometimes have the impression that Rome, because it is distant, is distant. No. Rome is here…” The coup d’état in Belgrade in March 1941, the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6 changed the tone again. All the claims were put forward again (“from Arbe to Spizza”) and the regime's propaganda became more vibrant with the annexation to Italy in the spring of 1941 of the new Dalmatian provinces of Split and Cattaro and the enlargement of the province of Zara to Sebenico and Tenin. Let us remember, however, that in the new annexed territories the Yugoslav administration officials largely remained in place and Serbo-Croatian remained the official language in a bilingualism similar to that of the Austrian era. For example, cooperatives were called “zadrughe” with the indication bilingual or trilingual, in Cyrillic characters, if the municipality was also inhabited by Serbs. Nevertheless, the annexation, due to the very serious problems created by the ferocious cross-guerrilla warfare that arose throughout the Dalmatian hinterland, reinforced the opinion of most Italians that our region was a tangle of inexhaustible troubles. September 8th confirmed how a large part of the Italian soldiers felt in Dalmatia as if they were in a foreign land, when, throwing down their rifles and cartridge pouches, they shouted that they wanted to “return to Italy”, to the dismay of our people, who felt betrayed. They thus denied the heroism of their comrades who fell with honour, including the Dalmatians, to defend us from enemy threats. Subsequent events, the crisis between the Allies and Tito in the “race for Trieste” condemned Dalmatia to total abandonment. De Gasperi made a last attempt at the Paris conference to save Zara, proposing a Free State that would include Fiume, Zara and the islands of Cherso and Lussino. It was clear how far these proposals were from history, given that Italy's weakness did not allow it to defend even Trieste in 1947. This does not mean that the press of Italy divided between North and South was not interested in the tragedy of Zara, almost destroyed by the bombings, and in our exodus. But the government of Rome, under Allied protection, could do nothing but send ships of the Royal Navy in the summer of 1945 to collect the Dalmatian refugees who had taken refuge in Lussino. The 5th period is that of oblivion and political censorship, the damnatio memoriae. You have also experienced this first hand. It was as if Zadar had never been Italian and that talking about Dalmatia was just neo-fascist propaganda. Our cities and islands became Krk, Rab, Pag, Zadar, Sibenik, Trogir, etc. in the press, in publishing, in tourist brochures. Nobody cared that 80% of the population of Zadar had opted for Italian citizenship and that after the London Memorandum of 1954 a last wave of Italian citizens of Zadar chose the path of exodus, when the last schools in our language were abolished and the desire to eradicate every trace of our presence became clear. It must be recognized that the Catholic Church never ceased to show some respect for our story, as happened in the rare meetings of the representatives of the Julian-Dalmatian Diaspora with the Popes. This attention was also due to the presence in Italy of many exiled priests, such as our bishop Mons. Munzani, Don Scutarich, Mons. Duke, Don Luigi Stefani, Mons. Lovrovich, Father Flaminio Rocchi, and the persecutions that all Catholics suffered at the hands of Tito's communist regime. Only we know how much we suffered in the immediate post-war period, especially the families sheltered for years in refugee camps, from the political ostracism that the Italian communist militancy implemented with obstinate persistence, even with episodes of violence. The 6th period, which we can call a reawakening of attention on the historiographical and sentimental level, is the one that goes from 1991 to today. The sad and long forty years of silence ended in fact when the bloody dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation showed the world how ephemeral that political construction was, how oppressive and economically unsound the vaunted “Yugoslav model” was, and what atrocities the opposing factions were capable of. A breach was then opened in the public opinion of the country that our associations have been able to intelligently widen, bringing our story of Julian-Dalmatians back to the light of national memory. In this historical rediscovery, in which writers and journalists of all political persuasions participated, Dalmatia also returned to the attention of the nation. The words of the Presidents of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano contributed greatly. It was Ciampi who stated in a New Year's message that "the names of Fiume, Pola and Zara are in the hearts of all Italians". We haven't heard anything like this in decades. The laws approved by parliament, almost unanimously, in the early 2000s confirmed this attention with the introduction of the Day of Remembrance of the Foibe and the Exodus, the protection of the historical and cultural heritage of the Italians of the Eastern Adriatic, the legislation on the Registry of us exiles and on the subsidized purchase of public housing, were the tangible sign, albeit modest, of this return to the surface of the karst river of our history and our culture. And yet, honestly, it is difficult for us to understand why the awarding of the gold medal to our city was ever made official. The Veneto Region, like other regions of the Peninsula, wanted to enact laws to protect our cultural tradition, so as not to let centuries of Italian life in our Dalmatia fall into oblivion. Today, looking to the future – as I mentioned a year ago and as we are already doing – our goal has become even more ambitious: to regain the attention of Croatian culture and public opinion in recognizing the existence of a deep-rooted Italian presence along the Dalmatian coast. It is a very noble task because it does not want to reopen old mutual wounds, but to reconstruct a memory that does not disavow a priori the plurinational character of our land. The objectivity of our positions, the renunciation of territorial claims (still so alive among the countries of the former Yugoslavia between Slovenia and Croatia, Croatia and Bosnia, Bosnia and Serbia), the recognition of the minority character of the Dalmatian Italianity in the face of an undeniable Croatian majority of the population, according to the teachings of that great Dalmatian and Italian who was Niccolò Tommaseo, must serve to overcome the negationist tendencies of Croatian nationalist extremism and Tito's communist nostalgia. Even the affirmation of the autochthony of the Latin and Italian presence in Dalmatia, beyond the "Venetian colonization" from the 1796th century to XNUMX, must be supported by us with historiographical and documentary seriousness, ready even to accept what the Italian nationalist propaganda wanted to ignore. The truth always triumphs. And we must not be afraid to proclaim it with our heads held high. When we know how to stay within the limits of reality, reality itself proves us right. And no one can deny it.