The newspaper of the indigenous Italian community in the former Yugoslavia The Voice of the People always dedicates space to the world of exiles. Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin in particular creates in the Saturday edition an interview with a representative of the Julian-Dalmatian community in exile or an in-depth analysis on a specific topic that has relevance to the Adriatic diaspora. 

On Saturday 29 June he interviewed the outgoing President of the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Exiles, Prof. Attorney Giuseppe de Vergottini (the Federal Council will meet on 6 June to elect his successor). 

The question is direct, immediate. What was it for you to be a de Vergottini?

"I believe it constituted a commitment to coherence with what was done in the past by those members of the family who demonstrated that they wanted to feel deeply Italian. I am thinking, to limit myself to a very brief quote, of those who in 1848 went from Parenzo to Venice to participate in the government of the republic of Manin and Tommaseo, of those who in 1861 were an active part of the Diet of No One, of those who in 1918 were president of the Committee of Public Safety in the passage of Parenzo to Italy, of those who in 1943 lost their lives as a prominent member of our community. The de Vergottini family is linked to the historical reality of Parenzo, a city in which it established its own destiny between stability and success but, with the change of history, also with much pain".
Giuseppe de Vergottini, lawyer, university professor, is the president of FederEsuli, the association that brings together most of the acronyms that gave voice to the Julian-Dalmatians in Italy during the exodus, especially after the institution of the Day of Remembrance.

What are the values ​​that have never been lost during the exodus?

“The choice of exodus was above all a choice of national belonging and freedom: in 1945 the Yugoslav occupation had prevented April 25 and Tito's national communism jeopardized those values ​​that the Italians of Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia had preserved and handed down. Wherever the exiles went they gave proof of honesty, industriousness, trust in the institutions and sincere democratic patriotism and these are principles that have also been handed down to subsequent generations, who are now rediscovering their roots with curiosity and affection”.

The role of President of FederEsuli is neither easy nor simple. This coordination at the top, given the changed conditions of associationism, what does it represent and how should it evolve also in view of the next elections at the top?

“The associations that are part of it each have their own characteristics that must be taken into account by the Federation. Presiding over FederEsuli therefore requires a collegial management of our activities that takes into account these specificities, but it is towards the institutions that there must be unity and the representative interlocutor of our world must be unique. Leaps forward or rearguard battles do not concern us, the path followed during my mandate has been linear and unanimously shared. Today the associations represent above all a historical testimony, a source from which to draw to find the memory of the exodus and it is a job that all our associations carry out correctly and with excellent relationships in the territory. But at the same time they constitute the basis for the transmission of our historical memory to the young. Questions regarding the rights of exiles still remain open and it is here that the voice must be unique and recognized by the institutions, which often do not always have the sensitivity or knowledge to understand the various facets of our microcosm”.

How do you view the attempts and examples of “cultural return” in the lands of the Eastern Adriatic?

"These are commendable initiatives that must be supported and developed. The first step was the recognition of the native Italian communities as our interlocutors, without ideological prejudices and avoiding dusting off oppositions and responsibilities that fell on the first generation of exiles and those who remained. Demonstrating a renewed unity between the descendants of those who left and those who remained represents a strength in institutional relations, especially for the Italian Communities, in which the new generations are discovering their national roots and look with curiosity at those who have preserved their dialect, traditions and culinary habits in exile. For our part, we have understood that if that small percentage of the Italian component in the eastern Adriatic had not remained, today only the stones would remain to testify to the historical legacy of those lands, as if they were the ruins of an ancient civilization. The cultural return strengthens the roots of second and third generation exiles and helps promote events that reaffirm Italianness without reducing it to folklore and without renewing revanchism that has no reason to exist in today's European context. Going to Pola, Fiume or Zadar is now like going to any Italian location, there are no borders, there is no currency exchange and hearing the Istrian-Venetian makes us feel at home”.

Over the years, relations with the Government have consolidated, even if not all the round tables have yielded results. Have any successes been achieved?

"The best results have come on the school side: the Working Table Ministry of Education - Associations of Istrian, Fiuman and Dalmatian Exiles has worked admirably during each legislature and with whatever majority the head of the department in Viale Trastevere expressed. Much of the credit goes to Professor Caterina Spezzano, our interlocutor and invaluable collaborator within the Ministry: thanks to her availability, the passion she has put into bringing out our history in schools and the people who have represented our associations at the Table we have achieved incredible results. We started with the national refresher seminar and a school competition and today we also have regional training seminars, a summer school of advanced training, students and teachers who participate in the February 10 Competition with ever greater awareness and a very important document such as the Guidelines for Teaching the Adriatic Border. Teachers who have trained in this field have then written educational publications and have created the operational notebooks that with a multimedia approach reconcile the guidelines with the immersive experience of M9 – Museo del '900, which is dedicating more and more attention to our history. In the last legislature, however, the technical table Presidency of the Council of Ministers – Associations of Exiles was never convened: in the past months a coordination table for the events of the Day of Remembrance has worked well, which had its most brilliant result in the Treno del Ricordo. However, we are waiting to return to talk about the still unresolved problems that concern us”.

His friendship with President Sergio Mattarella has led to very important Days of Remembrance. In which direction are we going?

"President Mattarella's progressive approach to our history has made it possible to make the institutional ceremonies of the Day of Remembrance not a repetitive ritual, but rather an event that has given ever greater prestige and visibility to the pages of national history that concern us. Our witnesses welcomed at the Quirinale and present in the front row, the awards given to the winning students of the February 10 Competition, the brief but significant reports that our representatives gave and the interventions of the Head of State have given visibility, beyond the live television, to our story. Mattarella has recognized the very important role of the associations of exiles in the preservation of the history and memory of the foibe and the exodus when few were talking about it. Now the surveys show that knowledge has expanded, so the Day of Remembrance and the holding of official ceremonies must not forget the historical references, since there are still so many topics to refer to, but we must look above all at the future perspective: defining the identity of the latest generation of exiles, reaffirming the relationship with compatriots from beyond the Adriatic and contextualizing the foibe and the exodus as phenomena of European relevance”.

We need dialogue with Slovenia and Croatia, what are the points to be taken up and redefined?

"With Slovenia and Croatia there has been recognition of mutual suffering in the era of opposing nationalisms and totalitarianisms and the awareness emerges that Titoism has brought mourning and oppression to all the national communities of Venezia Giulia. The identification and adequate reporting of the burial places of the Titoist massacres is a path that also concerns the many Italian deportees and kidnapped who never returned to Trieste, Gorizia, Fiume, Zara and Istria. We hope to be fully involved in the research underway in Slovenia and Croatia in order to obtain important results such as the recovery and identification of the remains of Senator Riccardo Gigante and the other victims of the mass grave of Castua and of the marines shot in Ossero. Good neighborly relations have led to the sharing of policies aimed at security and the fight against illegal immigration. Many hope that the issue of the Treaty of Osimo will be reopened, in which the burden of compensation for the abandoned assets in the former Zone B falls on Ljubljana and Zagreb as successor states of Yugoslavia".

Is a monument to the exodus in Istria possible? Desirable?

“Mapping and marking the foibe and burials with appropriate multilingual signs is one of the short-term objectives that we have set ourselves and on which we are working. In various local contexts, the Italian community is perfectly integrated into the social and institutional fabric of the city and the history of the fracture represented by the exodus is well known. Visually remembering the burial sites of civilians is an objective in line with the values ​​of European civilization but above all a Christian duty that should be felt by the Croatian and Slovenian component of the territory. We hope we are not wrong. At the moment we have obtained a certain consensus from the Italian Union alone. We will see.
In theory, there would be grounds for a monument to remember fellow citizens who were forced to abandon their city, taking their dialect, traditions and memory with them to Italy or even the world. Even more so since Slovenians and Croatians were also involved in the exodus, preferring to opt for Italian citizenship rather than witness the consolidation of Tito's dictatorship".

Interview by Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin a Joseph of Vergottini
Source: The Voice of the People – 29/06/2024