MEMORY DEFECTS? NO, IT’S HISTORY THAT’S MISSING!
by ANNA DI GIANNANTONIO
History and memory: a conflicting couple
We have long since learned the difference between memory and history. We know that in a territory like ours, crossed by great lacerations, memories are different, marked not only by individual experiences, but by the stories and experiences of our parents and our “extended” families: political groups, parties, associations that over time have transmitted their vision of history. Very often individual memories conflict and sharing them is impossible.
But something special happened in Gorizia: the bitter opposition over the celebration of some dates and the judgment to be given of the events of the 20th century still rekindled a clash more intense than what happened in other parts of Italy. What is the reason for the increased aggressiveness? I don’t think it’s the looming presence of history that doesn’t pass, but exactly the opposite: we have little history and too much memory, or rather we are hegemonized by the memory that a certain political party proposes as the “true history” of our territory. What is called the “history of Gorizia” after the Second World War is often nothing more than a consolidated and rigid memory that we can derive from publications, files, newspaper articles, public speeches, written by some protagonists of the time in the heat of the clash for Gorizia’s national belonging. The context of those narratives is important: we are in the period of the long Cold War, which conditioned the economy, urban planning, politics and culture for over 40 years. The image of Gorizia as a martyr city, an innocent victim of the great history for which he had to obtain economic compensation – which he had in abundance – has been a cliché created by these narratives for years. The containment of “Slavic-communism” and the marginalization of suspicious and unidentified “fifth columns” of Tito, often identified with Slovenian priests, are fundamental elements for understanding the city’s events. The documents clearly highlight the economic and social policies adopted to defend Italianness from enemies across the border.
We have been influenced, therefore, by particular memories and visions that can in no way represent all the richness of the positions of the other actors in play. Carlo Pedroni, director of the very active Italian Youth Association, founded to defend the Italian character of the city, wrote in 1952, Gorizia. Chronicle of two years. 5 August 1945 – 18 September 1947. The publication is the attempt of a political party to represent the feeling and identity of the city as a whole. Pedroni tells of Radio Giulia, a radio station installed in Via Cocevia that broadcast local news or news from the CLN of Trieste. On November 18, 1945, he described the “Festival of Labor” in this way, an event organized by the “pro-Yugoslavia” opposing front. From the radio microphones, the songs and anthems of the demonstrators were played and salaciously commented. A satire on the peasants, the harangues, the pioneers, the živele (!) as resistant as the cows pulling the carts. (p.26)
Aggressive language and tones, already unacceptable at the time, which certainly cannot be accepted in 2004, when the book was republished by the National League with this preface. This reprint wants to represent a thank you to Pedroni and to the “young people” of the time of AGI, men who have made the contemporary history of Gorizia, with the hope that it can make us all reflect on the values that someone would like to fade. But above all that it can make today’s young people reflect, in the awareness that only through the knowledge of one’s own identity is one able to understand that of others and appreciate their differences. (p. 2). Not a word of contextualization of Carlo Pedroni’s story who uses unacceptable words to describe the “enemy”, but an invitation to young people to recognize themselves in the presumed “Italian” identity.
If, on the other hand, we go to the history made on the documents, things are very different. Pedroni was an exponent in the post-war period of the Italian Social Movement which explicitly referred to Mussolini’s Republic. The foundation of AGI, which defined itself as apolitical and wanted to aggregate anyone who fought for the Italianness of Gorizia, did not take place on August 5, 1945 on the impulse of a spontaneous movement of young people, animated by the religion of the homeland and by the memory of the Risorgimento and pre-war irredentism, but in June 1945 or even in April of the same year as Roberto Spazzali writes. The historian describes the meeting between Primo Cresta, future president of API, the association of Italian partisans that opposed the communist one, Candido Grassi, commander of Osoppo and the secretary of the National Alpine Association of Udine who gave life to the Gorizia Division, the “armed wing” of AGI, commanded by Air Force General Luigi Corsini. For Franco Belci, these groups acted in harmony with the Anglo-American army and forces of the Allied Military Government, which would not tolerate the presence of armed groups on the territory without their control. But Pedroni is not an isolated case. Even the memoirs of Iolanda Pisani (Cassandra) and Primo Cresta himself have often been used as if they were “objective” reconstructions of local events. And all this happened within the framework of the enormous sums given to the associations that made “propaganda of Italianness”.
Entire generations were formed in the climate of the Cold War. What happened in 1964, almost twenty years after the end of the war, is emblematic. In that year there were strikes organized by students and the right-wing association Young Italy because the Slovenian exponent Michele Rosi (Rosig) had been appointed principal of the Liceo Classico. The report made by the Carabinieri to the Prefect of Gorizia Princivalle on the headmaster is very clear and repeats a fundamental concept: Rosi Michele, already a well-known supporter of the annexation of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia and a “pro-Tito” (Red Slavic) social-communist exponent of anti-national sentiments (careful vigilance), could not be the headmaster of an Italian school. (ASG, Prefecture of Gorizia, Cabinet 1945-1982, Territorial Legion of Carabinieri Udine, Gorizia Group, b.609 f.1054). Hindering the legalization of Slovenian schools, introducing Italian teachers who knew the language in some way, preventing the enrollment and attendance of Slovenian citizens who had opted for Italy and did not have to enroll in Slovenian schools, was a decisive issue in the city, just as the opening of after-school programs was a fundamental interest of the ruling classes. kindergartens, kindergartens, camps organized by the National League and by bodies such as ONAIRC that had the aim of defending and spreading Italian culture.
The dominant narrative should be deconstructed by a serious historical analysis starting from some questions: how do identities are constructed? Are they based on feelings of belonging, ideas and aspirations or also on concrete elements such as the possibility of surviving in a context of lack of housing, unemployment, misery alleviated only by subsidies from Rome? And how are these factors intertwined in the construction of identity? The studies should be compared with what happens across the border. What elements are made up of the identities of those who live in Nova Gorica? What did the border represent for Slovenians?
The possible legacy of Nova Gorica/Gorizia capital of culture.
The common history of the territory in which we live needs research institutes that work together with skills of various kinds. History, anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology are disciplines that can contribute to the study of the formation of identities within a historical and political context that affects them. Many steps forward have been made, especially with regard to the period of fascism and the Resistance. It is a matter of moving forward and understanding what happened next, interweaving the events into an overall picture that includes the history of Italians and Slovenians. We could thus better understand what happened on February 8, 2025 when the flood of moved people celebrating the end of an 80-year separation testified to the joy of living in a unique territory. The task of the institutions is to adapt to this genuine feeling by trying to build a common history, where differences are analyzed and understood with an attitude far from recriminations and complaints. History, which is never neutral, must be guided by the authentic desire to build and spread peace on the basis of mutual knowledge. More than twenty years ago, the Report of the Italian-Slovenian Joint Historical and Cultural Commission took a step in this direction. It is up to us to continue that indispensable path.