Building Italianità in Northern Adriatic: the case of organized migration of population from Pola/Pula

Abstract

The article analyzes the process of building italianità in the case of migration of population from Pola/Pula that started as early as May 1945 and culminated in an organized process that officially began on 23 January 1947 and lasted until 20 March that same year. The article sheds light on the premises of that identity by analyzing complex activities of the Italian authorities who wanted to “defend Italianism” in Pola/Pula, as well as in other border areas of former Venezia Giulia. At the state level, they were mainly carried out by the Office for the Julian March/Ufficio per la Venezia Giulia and following reorganization beginning at the end of 1946 by the Office for Border Areas/Ufficio per le Zone di Confine, and at the local level by a network of pro-Italian organizations and groups. Analysis contributes to the understanding of the top-down and bottom-up italianità building process. On the local level, common identity was built upon the myth of the patria, reiteration of traumatic/“wounded” memories and victim presentation of the “Italian” population, fear to be separated from the patria, and unjust peace treaty propaganda. Simultaneously, the “Italian” population understood the Italian state as their defender.

Keywords:

• identity building
• “defense of Italianism”
• pro-Italian organizations
• organized migration
• Pola/Pula

ORCID

Miha Kosmač http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3365-3871

Notes

1. I use both the Italian and Croat or Slovene names for Istrian cities, since the area is multiethnic and multicultural, even though the Italian administration and later the Allied Military Government only used the official Italian names.

2. The term, “organized migration of population,” is more neutral than the term found in Italian archival material “exodus/esodo” or “evacuation and organized evacuation of population” that is used in the different levels of the Allied Military Government reports. The migration of population from Istria was influenced by several factors: ideological, political (the roles of Yugoslav and Italian states) – including post-war economic and social violence.

3. Since its reorganization at end of the year 1946 Office for Border Areas (Ufficio per le Zone di Confine).

4. Officially, the Office for the Border Areas (UZC) operated since 1 November 1947.

5. Since the 1950s, the expressions esodo/exodus and esuli/exiles, with their religious and national implications, have been used in Trieste, while the Italian public used the word profughi/refugees. Based on the 1947 Peace Treaty, optanti/optants was the term adopted and used in Yugoslavia. The words esodo and esuli became widespread in Italy after the end of the Cold War. Under the influence of politicization (in 2004, the Republic of Italy declared 10 February the “National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe” (Il Giorno del ricordo), media campaigns and historical revisionism, the migration from Yugoslavia was presented as an exclusively “monolithic and nationally based process.” This fact insinuates that the actions of the Yugoslav authorities against the Italian population in Istria and Dalmatia were carefully planned (see Ballinger 2003, 77, 169–170; D'Alessio 2012, 288–289, 295; Sluga 2001, 166; Volk 2004).

6. In the local dialect, the foiba is a deep karst sinkhole typical of the Istrian landscape (Pirjevec 2009).

7. The vocabulary of “ethnic cleansing” (pulizia etnica) emerged out of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and appeared to offer “evidence” of the Slavs’ essential nature and to corroborate the exiles’ claims to have been forced out of Istria (Ballinger 2000, 2004, 148; Baracetti 2009). As Purini presents in connection with the vocabulary of “ethnic cleansing,” the pro-Italian propaganda also used the terms “national genocide” (genocidio nazionale) and “Julian holocaust” (olocausto giuliano) (Purini 2010, 223–224).

8. The radio was established on the initiative of the CLN and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and broadcast from Venice since November 1945. His main contributor was Pier Antonio Quarantotti Gambini (Spazzali 2013).

9. At its third meeting in Paris (25 April–12 July 1946), the Council of Foreign Ministers determined the terms of Italian war reparations and confirmed the establisment of the FTT (on 3 July 1946). Having discussed four demarcation proposals, the Council eventually decided that the French variant be used as a basis for the Paris Peace Conference, which brought together 21 victorious countries. According to the French plan, Istria was to be divided into two parts, Zone A and Zone B of the FFT, with Italy having to cede its major part, including Pola/Pula, to Yugoslavia (United States Department of State Foreign Relations of the United States 1970, 536–538; 751–754).

10. Major J. A. Kellett (AMG – Chief Welfare Officer) reported to HQ AMG 13. Corps that he considered that 20,000 inhabitants of Pola/Pula might leave, but in addition there would probably be a small movement into Pola/Pula of certain pro-Italians from the surrounding parts of Zone B – probably not more than 2500. The figure was based on the fact that pro-Italians from places like Rovigno/Rovinj, Pisino/Pazin, and central Istria would probably make their way to Trieste (ACS, 12, pp. 2–3).

11. Cattunar (2012, 706–707) explains the development of the term patria, which was first used as a synonym for “nation.” But under the influence of national and patriotic discourse, it became a synonym for “homeland” (in connection to “fatherland” or “native land”). Furthermore, it was frequently understood as a mythical expression for proper “Italian culture or civilization.” 

12. As early as 24 August 1946, the local CLN “Exodus Assistance Committee” envisaged measures necessary for the migration of population from Pola/Pula and relied on the assistance from the Italian government – as regards the transport of migrants and their property, and the organization of accommodation centers for refugees in Italy – as well as the assistance of other organizations, such as Lega Nazionale, Italian Red Cross, and the AMG (ASC–CRI, 2, pp. 1–2). 

13. As Ballinger argues, exiles from Istria claimed to have staged a “human plebiscite” or “people voting with their feet” that demonstrated both the peninsula's true, Italian character and the illegitimacy of Yugoslav rule (Ballinger 2003, 195).

14. Ministry of Internal Affairs organized inside the UVG special Office (Ufficio staccato di Venezia dell’Ufficio per la Venezia Giulia) the priority of which was to organize “exodus” of the population not only from Pola/Pula but also from other parts of Zone B Venezia Giulia. 

15. Infoibatore was a pejorative fascist word for former partisans who, according to fascists, threw people into foibas.

16. For more on the withdrawal of the Allied troops from the Venezia Giulia, see United States Department of State Foreign Relations of the United States (1972, 515–568).

17. According to the data provided by the Office for Border Areas of the Italian Council of Ministers, at least 6000 people left Pola/Pula even before the organized migration officially started. The organized migration involved transports with the ship Toscana (owned by the private enterprise ACOMIN) and with the fleet owned by the company Istriana, which transported 11,797 and 10,340 migrants respectively. At least 3200 migrants (from total 28,137) were of Slavic origin and had arrived to Pola/Pula from Zone B (PCM, PCM–UZC, 10, pp. 12–13).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) as part of the research project: “Sites of Memory, Sites of Barrier: Memory and Identity in the Italo-Slovene Borderlands in the long Twentieth Century”.