Language
English
River, the port of love
Giovanni Comisso in Fiume: The Port of Love by Gabriele Sabatini In the evening of September 12, 1919, Gabriele D'Annunzio climbs the stairs that lead to the balcony of the Government Palace of Fiume. Outside, the crowd rejoices; the poet speaks: «Italians of Fiume! In the mad and vile world Fiume is today the sign of freedom; in the mad and vile world there is only one pure thing: Fiume; there is only one truth: and this is Fiume; there is only one love: and this is Fiume! Fiume is like a bright lighthouse that shines in the midst of a sea of abjection». At dawn that same day, feverish, D'Annunzio had placed himself at the head of his volunteers and from Ronchi (who...
Fiume: The failed start of a revolution
“D’Annunzio passes by with his legionaries: – die, maybe! – Betray, why? Fiume is the flame that burns and devours…”. Students sang these words in the streets of Italy, to the tune of a song that was in fashion at the time, Donna, between 19 and 20. It could have been a love song: but it spoke of war, of death. Perhaps, of revolution. And it spoke of Fiume as it could have spoken of a sweetheart, of a lover. After Trento and Trieste, the young nationalists had thus found their third Great Love, the one worth dying for. But it had all started quietly. With the secret pacts of London on 26 April 1915,...
D'Annunzio's Bloody Christmas in Fiume
Gabriele d'Annunzio's march from Ronchi to Fiume on 12 September 1919 was intended to resolve with a bold coup the impasse regarding the definition of the border between Italy and the newly born Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The annexation of the port of Carnaro to Italy was not contemplated by the London Pact, but was proclaimed by the Fiume National Council on 30 October 1918, appealing to the principle of self-determination of peoples that was part of that 14-point program intended to guarantee peace in the world and on the basis of which President Woodrow Wilson had dragged the United States into the First World War. The redefinition of the border in Dalmatia...
Controversy over Gabriele d'Annunzio and Ronchi dei Legionari
Following the publication of the following article in the Trieste daily newspaper “Il Piccolo” on September 21, 2017, the replies from patriotic associations and exiles were not long in coming. Mesic agrees: the Fiume enterprise will be forgotten The Croatian ambassador in Rome responded to the request of Barone dell’Anpi: «Such anniversaries damage the friendly relations between our countries» by Luca Perrino "A good 98 years of divisions, distinctions, even battles and controversies. The march on Fiume, the one that, on September 12, 1919, saw Gabriele D'Annunzio as its protagonist, is still a topic of discussion in Ronchi dei Legionari. Thus it is that Marco...
