Erecting fascism: nation, identity, and space in Trieste in the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

This article discusses the transformation of the urban space after World War I in the former Habsburg port city of Trieste. It reveals the key role played by the newly annexed northeastern Adriatic borderland in the national symbolism of postwar Italy, and it indicates how slogans and notions of Italian nationalism, irredentism, and fascism intertwined and became embodied in the local cultural landscape. The analysis is mostly concentrated on the era between the two world wars, but the aim of the article is to interpret the interwar years as part of longer term historical developments in the region rather than a break in its history. Looking at how monuments, buildings, and spatial planning in general functioned as ideological and national marking, and how this helped to shape the nation in a multi-ethnic town, this article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of changes as well as continuities in the modern history of south-central Europe. It argues that even if the cityscape had undergone drastic changes in its aesthetics after World War I, its ideological language was rooted in prewar nationalism and continued to support the local urban palimpsest in the Cold War.

Keywords:

• Fascism
• Italy
• Trieste
• cultural landscape
• memory
• identity

Notes

1. On first mention, place names are listed in all languages historically used publicly in the locality since the beginning of the twentieth century. Subsequent mentions refer to the language in the nation-state context today (i.e. Italian in current day Italy, Slovenian in current day Slovenia, and Croatian in current day Croatia).

2. For the 100th anniversary of his death, not only commemorations but a hagiographic exhibition entitled “Nazario Sauro. Iconografia di un eroe 1916–2016” (Nazario Sauro. Iconography of a hero) was displayed at the Civico Museo della Civiltà istriana, fiumana e dalmata in Trieste.

3. Renzo De Felice (1974), one of the most famous historians of fascist Italy, termed the period between 1929 and 1936 “the years of consensus” for Mussolini and his regime.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Executive Agency [655609] and Javna Agencija za Raziskovalno Dejavnost RS [J6-6833].