Exodus and foibe, italians fleeing from Titus. With the Courier a book for the Day of Remembrance

The communism of Titus, he preached brotherhood between peoples, he managed what he had not been able to achieve the fascism of Mussolini (who was an explicit policy of snazionalizzazione of the component slavic): the uprooting nearly full of a national community. In the western areas of Istria, in important cities such as Rijeka and Zadar, the Italian community, the first of the majority, was almost reduced to zero. The Italian and the italians of those areas were the protagonists of the Long exodus described by Raoul Pupo, in the essay on newsstands on February 9, with the “Courier”. Published after the establishment of the Day of Remembrance which falls on the 10th of February, the book starts from a reflection on why the narration of those events did not become a national heritage, but has remained confined to the interior of the communities that suffered the violence and the exodus. It was about three hundred thousand italians who lost the job, the house, the right to continue to live in the villages and in the cities of their fathers. An eradication of which they spoke little. Just read the manual adopted in high schools until the Nineties to realize the removal collective of a deep wound.

Old refugee istrian waits for the ferry to Italy,

Pupo identifies two causes of obscurity. The first is the straw tail of the communist left, which of Trieste and Gorizia, but also about the exodus of the population julian-dalmatian, he kept a behavior patriotic, to use a euphemism. Just think of the subordination of the partisans of the Garibaldi brigades in the line of slovenia, the slaughter of Porzûs in February 1945, in which the partisans of the Italian communists killed the companions in the struggle of the Osoppo brigade who did not want to submit to the directives of yugoslavia. But also to a bad figure remedied by Palmiro Togliatti, when in the autumn of 1946, after a meeting with Tito, he proposed the sale of Gorizia to Yugoslavia in exchange for the assurance that would have been maintained the approach of Trieste.

the cover of The book of Raoul Pupo, with the preface of Dino Messina “The long exodus” at the newsstand with the “Courier”, 9 February 9,90 euro, plus the price of the newspaper

You can, however, blame culture, marxist all the faults of an oversight that has affected the Country for half a century, driven by governments in majority democratic. There is a reason for international policy which has its origin in June 1948, when the Cominform condemned the policy of Tito. Yugoslavia, in the eyes of the United States, it was not an enemy, but a possible ally to be treated with respect. They were gone the logic that a few weeks before had inspired the tripartite declaration with which the great allied powers promised Italy not only the maintenance of Trieste and of the so-called area A, then under international administration, but also in the area B, controlled by yugoslavia.

Pupo retraces the steps that led Italy to lose a part of the national territory and about three hundred thousand italians to lose the home. A reconstruction that began with the end of the Great war, and with the first steps of the “fascism of the border”, which describes the discriminatory policies of the regime, mussolini towards the populations of the “non-indigenous”, it tells of the beginning of the yugoslav Resistance, the war of occupation to world war ii in 1941, the season of the first cave after the collapse of 8 September 1943, and the terror in the spring of 1945. There is a common thread in the history of Istria, Fiume, of the islands of Kvarner and Zadar, which can be traced back to a historical outline of the nineteenth century and up to our days. This does not mean to establish cause and effect relationships between the different seasons. You can certainly give reason to the communist slovenian Anton Vratuša, in 1944, interrogated by the Italian comrades on the reasons of the infoibamenti, had spoken of violence, uncontrolled, spontaneous and understandable, after twenty years of fascist dictatorship. Not to be fascist to end up in a cave or shot on the edge of a field. Also, the partisans were considered to be enemies, and as well to the communists, if they were not, to the directives of Titus.

The long season of the exodus was the acme between the end of the 1946 and 1947, when in a few weeks almost all of the inhabitants of Pula, 28 thousand inhabitants on 31 thousand, he decided to leave. It was a collective decision, which took place when it became clear that the peace conference was prevailing a-line punitive. A massive collection of signatures to bring to bear in the negotiations with the will of polesine, was useless. To accelerate the exodus contributed to the slaughter of Vergarolla. On August 18, 1946, during sports competitions, exploded with 28 mines underwater crammed on the beach of the town. The victims were 116. The italians did not believe the incident, spoke of the attack. Was the incident in the core of the exodus, even before the signing of the peace treaty of 10 February 1947.

another significant step in the Long exodus as told by Pupo was the October 1954, when with the memorandum of London, it was decided that the passage of Trieste by the allied administration to Italy, but also the definitive stay in the Yugoslavia of the zone B of the free Territory of Trieste, which included major centres such as Koper, izola, Piran. The population, which had resisted to the last, he was disappointed and he gave life to a significant exodus.

The fear of violence, the introduction of a school system that penalised the Italian students, an agrarian reform opponents of the small peasant property, and the persecution of the clergy, the creation of a system that does not leave space for private initiative were all elements that contributed to what Pupo defines “effect of displacement,” in order to hear the Italian exiles in the homeland.

Not all the protagonists of the exodus you will see in the Italy. Many left for the Americas, to Africa, to the Australia. The process of integration in Italy, it was long, painful, and difficult, even if it is supported gradually from legislative measures to facilitate the integration of work and the building work. The book of Pupo has the merit to tell us all of the complexity of this challenging each other, causing us to relive the same time, the pathos of suffering and humiliation suffered by our fellow countrymen.

Wars of persecution. The controversial issue of the eastern border

Out on newsstands Tuesday, February 9, with the “Corriere della Sera” the rate of Raoul Pupo, The long exodus, at a price of 9,90 euro, plus the cost of the newspaper. The book, made in collaboration with Rizzoli, is open from the preface of the Dino Messina, which propose a synthesis above. This is the updated edition by the author of a work dedicated by Pupo at the events which led to the exodus of italians from the lands julian-dalmatian assigned to Yugoslavia following the Second world war. To commemorate those events was established by law on the Day of Remembrance, whose feast day falls on 10 February, to commemorate the victims of the yugoslav partisans, many of whom were thrown into the sinkholes (natural caves typical of Istria and the Karst) and the mass exodus, after the war, the Italian population who would not submit to communist dictatorship was established by the leader of the yugoslav, Josip Broz, universally known with the name of the battle of Titus. Baby analyzes the different aspects of the issue, emphasizing, for example, that the massacres committed by the partisans of the slovenes and the croats were not a simple showdown post-war, albeit conducted in an expanded form, but the “manifestation of an initiative from the top, to be determined by the maximum based policy and conduct with the strength of institutions, because it is seen as strategic for the conquest and the consolidation of power”. In the same way, the exodus of italians from the lands were in the domain of Belgrade was not caused by the expulsion by force, but neither was the result of a free choice. Derived from the situation of unbearable to live that was created because of the policy followed by the forces of Titus.

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