Starting from research begun in 1998 by the Society of Fiume Studies in collaboration with the Croatian Institute for History in Zagreb, Marino Micich reconstructs the fate of the Italian population of Fiume from the Second World War to the mass exodus of approximately 300.000 Italians from the Julian, Fiume, and Dalmatian lands.

The events from 1940 to 1954 are retraced: the Yugoslav military occupation in 1945, the harsh repression of the new communist regime, the violence suffered, and the slow disappearance of Italian identity in the city of Rijeka and the nearby Istrian lands.

A tribute to historical memory, but also an invitation to young European researchers to explore the complex historical and political events of the territories bordering the eastern Adriatic, still the subject of partial and instrumental narratives.

An essential read for anyone who wants to understand, recount, and pass on the complex epic of the Italians of Fiume, Zadar, and Istria.

Marino Micich, Farewell to Fiume!: The Fiume epic from World War II to the great exodus. 1940-1954, Mursia, Milan 2025, 344 pp.

River, the our Fiume has been emptied of its Italian soul. What remains of us at that extreme edge of our border? From the avalanche that overwhelmed us, the stones of our homes and our temples emerged.

THE AUTHOR – Marino Micich (Rome, 1960), director of the Historical Archive Museum of Fiume – Society of Fiume Studies, is a member of the government commission for the honors to the relatives of the foibati pursuant to Law 92/2004. He has written various essays including The Julian-Dalmatians in Rome and Lazio (2004) Foibe, Exodus, Memory (2023) Why Remembrance Day? Law 92/2004 turns twenty. (2024). With Mursia he published Togliatti, Tito and the Julian March (2025)