The response of the Vice President of the Regional Council of Tuscany to the President of the Federation of Associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles is published.

We respond to your letter dated July 31, as soon as the Regional Offices have become fully operational, underlining first of all that this is a matter of no small importance, on which we believe it is necessary and useful to clarify. As is known, the project, underway right now, arises from the will of the Regional Council, fully accepted by the Council and implemented by the Department of Culture.

This is no start for the Tuscany Region, which since 2005, the first year of implementation of the law establishing the Day of Remembrance, has seen the introduction of the date of February 10 in the national civil calendar as an opportunity to enrich its commitment to the themes of history and memory. The opportunities for study, dissemination, and initiatives aimed at schools, promoted or received and supported over the past 13 years, do not need to be described analytically, but can only be briefly recalled. They were generally created by the Tuscan system of Historical Institutes of the Resistance and the Contemporary Age, thanks to two conditions: the nature of the national network of Institutes associated with INSMLI (Trieste and its regional institute had long been the site of studies and initiatives on the theme of the Border - foibe and exodus...); the existence of an agreement with the MIUR, thanks to which it was already customary to work with the school on historical themes and the national civil calendar. In particular, since 2007 the Tuscany Region, thanks to the collaboration and activities of the Tuscan Institutes, has supported the production of volumes for teaching, permanent exhibitions, documentaries, research, educational paths for schools, in addition to the organization of public conferences and study trips. The multi-year work of training teachers has allowed us to build a network of expert teachers, which has gradually expanded and today we have thought the time has come to systematize, to disseminate as much as possible knowledge and awareness of topics that are too little known, absent in ordinary school publishing. We have always been aware of the sensitivity of these issues, of the cultural and civil value of memory and of the need for critical elaboration of a historical and educational discourse on these issues. Proof of this is, if nothing else, the variety of interpretative readings that the press reviews of these days are offering us. These are readings that tend to return to ideologizations, which do not belong to the ethics of the teacher, nor to that of the good historian, nor to what we recognize as the will of the Associations to which this letter is addressed, with which the implementing bodies of the regional project have multiple experiences of collaboration. To test this, just look at the sources that were provided to the Tuscan teachers selected for the Summer School and for the subsequent planned study trip to the memory zones of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Istria. The only volume delivered, together with the productions directly promoted by the Tuscany Region and the historical institutes, “Senza più ritorno”, proceedings of a national conference held in Turin in 2011, still very current, organized by several entities, including the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia. The essays contained within are a reflection on “Istrian, Fiuman, Dalmatian Exodus”, as the subtitle says. The essay “Incontro all’esilio” (Encounter in exile) has also been included, a reconstruction of the history of the exiles’ associations, by Marino Micich. We believe that this approach does not deserve the severe criticism of "a priori preclusion" of the Associations, whose cultural initiatives and activities carried out in collaboration with the historical institutes, which your letter mentions, are known to us. By applying the working methodology already tested in the various initiatives carried out on the themes of history and memory, we have given the organization of the Summer School a strictly historical-historiographical approach of a very long period (from the history of the 19th century to the 1990s) and of European scope. An essential clarification: it was not considered that within the broad galaxy of the Associations of Exiles there is no work of a cultural nature, starting from their role in various public and educational initiatives, including ministerial ones. Considering the prevalent nature of places of conservation and valorization of the memory of the Associations, we have considered that their place of choice is in the next phase, that is in the re-elaboration of the historical contents with the contribution of the memory - the planned and already announced public initiative of the end of October - and the journey. There have already been informal contacts in this direction, even during the exploratory voyage. Therefore, your invitation to collaborate fully corresponds to our intention. We conclude by saying that we reject the impulses coming in recent days from some press organs to enter into specious polemics, which must remain foreign to an institutional body such as the Region, which is responsible for seriousness, thoroughness, composure and balance.

With best regards

Monica Barni