Trieste is multiethnic, Trieste is the moral capital of the exodus, Trieste is a city contested in the twentieth century by nationalism and totalitarianism, but Trieste is above all a city of culture. This last aspect was discussed at the opening of the fourth day of the Stall. Eastern Adriatic Book Fair currently taking place within the XXXVIII edition of the Turin International Book Fair through a magazine published in the 1920s entitled Female. In the review organized by the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia together with the Multimedia Documentation Center of the Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian culture, in collaboration with FederEsuli, the book by Barbara Vinciguerra (teacher and researcher) was presented. Women's Voices: Femmina Magazine in Trieste in the 1920s (Vita Activa Publishing House, Trieste 2025).

In a meeting coordinated by journalist and ANVGD director Alessandro Cuk, Donatella Schürzel (European PhD in European History) exchanged views with the author, revealing a social and cultural cross-section of Trieste, which had just become part of the Kingdom of Italy after the Great War. "The transition from Austria-Hungary to Italy meant a step backward for women from the emancipation and rights they had enjoyed," explained Professor Schürzel. "The cultural work and social commitment of Giuseppina Martinuzzi, for example, a pioneer in the fight for women's rights in Istria, had been in direct opposition to the conservative views of the Savoy dynasty and, even more so, to the oppressive measures of the Fascists." The magazine Female She boldly and effectively championed this legacy, opening a platform that attracted contributions from the rest of Italy as well: "The magazine was short-lived," Vinciguerra explained, "but it made the rest of Italy aware of the rights women enjoyed in Fiume even before the Carta del Carnaro granted them, and it brought prestige to romance literature, which until then had been considered a secondary genre."

The second part of the morning was dedicated to a roundtable discussion between Davide Rossi (University of Trieste), Renzo Codarin, President of FederEsuli, and Nicole Matteoni, a young member of parliament from Muggia who is working to broaden awareness of the history of the Adriatic border beyond the official observance of Remembrance Day. Last year, the Trieste MP of Istrian origins introduced a bill to establish Vergarolla Victims' Day, naming August 18th as the date, the day on which the first massacre in the history of the Italian Republic took place on the beach at Pula in 1946. "The Constitutional Affairs Committee is overwhelmed with work and has not yet been able to consider my text: I hope for moral persuasion from the exiles' associations so that we can reach approval in time for the upcoming 80th anniversary of the massacre."

Professor Rossi added that Matteoni also called for the Plutone Abyss site to be highlighted, where Yugoslavian communist partisans hurled several victims of their political purge during the Forty Days of Occupation of Trieste in the spring of 1945: "The monumental structure of the Basovizza Foiba does not convey the horror of death in a foiba, as is evident at the nearby Plutone Abyss, which is on private land. However, the attached Documentation Center does an excellent job of providing information to the school groups who come in ever greater numbers on educational trips. I would like to highlight the passion and expertise with which the recently deceased historian Diego Redivo informed thousands of visitors here." Finally, Codarin recalled that the municipal administration of Pula recently unveiled a memorial stone bearing the names of the 64 identified victims of the Vergarolla massacre: "A good sign to consolidate the memory of this tragedy in the city where it occurred, and not just among Italians."

The afternoon program primarily highlighted the Exhibition of Dalmatian Exiles from Istria, Fiume, and Dalmatia, held in the Sala del Grottone within the Vittoriano. Inaugurated at the end of last October, MEDIF now averages well over a thousand visitors a day, much to the delight of architect Massimiliano Tita, curator of the immersive and fully multimedia exhibition: "This exhibition is designed for tourists visiting the Vittoriano monumental complex who know little or nothing about the history of the Julian-Dalmatian Exodus and its tragic antecedents. Admission is free, and by interacting with the panels available in four languages ​​(Italian, English, Slovenian, and Croatian), the LED walls featuring the exiles' testimonies, and the continuously broadcast documentary clips, visitors can choose what and how much to explore during their visit. The aim is to pique their curiosity, providing initial information that can then lead to their own in-depth exploration and further clarification."

The exhibition's guiding thread is the fruit of the work of a scientific committee, which worked with historical rigor in mind: "Much credit for the clarity of the exposition and the effectiveness of the synthesis goes to Professor Giuseppe Parlato, who chaired a broad scientific committee with diverse sensibilities and professionalism," explained Professor Davide Rossi (University of Trieste). "He followed our work until the end of his days. Having passed away on June 2nd, he was unable to see the completed exhibition, but it is to him that we dedicate the gratifying results we are achieving."

During the roundtable discussion coordinated by Francesca Traldi (Secretary General of FederEsuli), a presentation film of MEDIF, produced by Capitale Cultura, was screened. Renzo Codarin, President of the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Rijeka, and Dalmatian Exiles, also spoke: "This exhibition was born from a suggestion from President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to the leaders of our associations on the sidelines of one of the first institutional ceremonies of Remembrance Day. That influential impulse has led to the work of key figures in our world, such as Senator Lucio Toth and Professor Giuseppe de Vergottini: I have had the honor of inaugurating an exhibition that seeks to tell our story from a European perspective, marked by dialogue."

Memories of Italian Zara This is the title of the publication coordinated by Professor Elio Varutti and produced by the ANVGD provincial committees of Udine and Pordenone. It was then presented in a session coordinated by Alessandro Cuk, journalist and national vice president of ANVGD, who praised the activism and variety of initiatives led by ANVGD Udine in particular. Bruna Zuccoli, president of the Udine committee, thanked the Dalmatian exiles who made this intense collection of testimonies possible: "Engineer Silvio Cattalini, who preceded me for many years as president of the Friulian ANVGD, passed on to us his love for his native Dalmatia, and with this work we have continued along this path, to give voice to the memories of those whose childhoods were marked by exile, by the bombings that razed Zadar, and by refugee camps."

The ship Toscana It has become the symbol of the exodus not only from Pula but from the whole eastern Adriatic, but «we want to remember here that with the conflict still ongoing it was the vessel Sansego to save thousands of Zadar residents – added Bruno Bonetti, vice-president of the Friulian association – Italian Zadar lives on in these memories, where upon their entry into the pile of rubble to which the Dalmatian capital had been reduced in November 1944, the Yugoslav communist partisans could well say that Zadar, the cornerstone of indigenous Italianness in Dalmatia, was dead and from now on there would only be Croatian Zadar».

 

Today, Italian students can discover the history, traces, and current institutions of the Italian presence in the Eastern Adriatic thanks to the Remembrance Trips funded by the Ministry of Education and Merit through an amendment to Law 92/2004 establishing the Day of Remembrance, approved in 2024, marking the twentieth anniversary of the bipartisan approval of that measure. "Participation in these trips culminates in a learning journey and student engagement that must have developed over time through teacher participation in seminars and the submission of classwork in the national Remembrance Day competition. Each year, a call for applications is published, and interested schools must submit an educational project," explained Caterina Spezzano, director of the MIM. «With the collaboration of the associations of Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian exiles who take part in the ministerial working group, various itineraries have been prepared, which have a common initial section that includes stops at the Museum of the 900th Century in Mestre (M9), the Basovizza foiba and Warehouse 18, but then there are different continuations in Istria, Rijeka or Zara, where students will be able to discover the persistence of the culture, traditions and the Italian language». The example of how effective this educational proposal is was given by Professor Elvira Feleppa, whose very young students of the Comprehensive Institute September from Benevento told the large audience present about the stages, knowledge, and suggestions of the recently completed Journey of Remembrance. Words of praise for these initiatives were then expressed by Professor Giusy Ratti Parlato, widow of the professor who had devoted himself so much to the training of teachers on these topics and to the creation of the Teaching Guidelines for the Adriatic Border.

Vigodarzere is dedicated to the journeys along the Dalmatian coast and to the nineteenth-century reports written by Nicolò Giaxich, Marco Casotti and Gino Cittadella Literary Portolan of Dalmatia, in the 19th century, between verse and prose by Francesca Favaro, published in the prestigious "Jolanda Maria Trèveri" Historical Research Series of the Dalmatian School of Saints George and Tryphon in Venice. The work was presented by the author together with Lorenzo Salimbeni (Communications Manager for ANVGD): it features numerous references to the great Dalmatian Niccolò Tommaseo, who combined his patriotism with the sensitivity necessary to understand the diverse character of his home region. "The descriptions of routes and landscapes I have collected here," explained Favaro, who teaches at the Tito Livio High School in Padua and holds a contract in literary history at the University of Venice, "tell us of a Dalmatia rich in languages ​​and cultures, all sharing a profound Christian faith. The authors I have analyzed praise the closeness to the pristine nature in which young Dalmatians grow up, far from the corruption and allure of urban life."

In the spirit of an Adriatic koinè, these travel reports extend as far as Montenegrin Dalmatia and the magnificent Boka Kotorska Bay: Montenegro's vain steps toward the European Union could soon strengthen the cohesion of the extended Dalmatian region, even if "local peculiarities, nationalist visions, and historical legacies have developed that could complicate the reconstruction of a common identity, the rebirth of the Dalmatian nation outlined by Tommaseo. But we want to remain hopeful," explained Professor Favaro.