On Saturday, December 2nd, at 11:00 a.m., in the Bazlen Hall of Palazzo Gopcevich (via Rossini, 4 – Trieste), as part of La Bancarella. Eastern Adriatic Book Fair (an exhibition curated by the Multimedia Documentation Center of Julian, Istrian, Rijeka, and Dalmatian Culture, in co-organization with the Municipality of Trieste and the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia), the book " On the Edge of the Foiba. Stories and Events of Italianness" (Pages, Rome 2016) by researcher and journalist Lorenzo Salimbeni will be presented. Salimbeni will speak with Professor Davide Rossi (Adriatic Coordination Association).

This collection of scholarly essays and popular articles identifies the politics of opposing nationalisms fomented by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in its final phase as the element capable of altering the centuries-old balance between the Italian and Slavic communities of the eastern Adriatic, thus initiating a perverse mechanism of opposition that would lead to the massacres in the foibe carried out by Tito's National-Communist partisans. The review of characters and episodes shows how Adriatic Italianness was therefore jeopardized on three occasions during the last century and a half: first by Habsburg denationalization policies aimed at rewarding Slavic loyalty and repressing irredentist ambitions; then by Tito's ethnic cleansing, represented by the massacres in the foibe, the deportations to concentration camps, and the repression of political opponents carried out by the OZNA, which created the conditions for the exodus of 350.000 Istrians, Fiume, and Dalmatians; and today, finally, by the reductionism regarding the number of victims, the justification of the massacres, and the downplaying of the deep roots of Italian culture in these tormented lands.

Info: ufficiostampa@salonebancarella.it