st ud ia universitatis he re di ta ti letnik 11 številka 2 2023 volume 11 number 2 2023 studia universitatis hereditati Znanstvena revija za raziskave in teorijo kulturne dediščine Letnik 11, številka 2, 2023 / Volume 11, Number 2, Year 2023 Glavna in odgovorna urednica / Editor-in-chief Zrinka Mileusnić, Fakulteta za humanistične študije Univerze na Primorskem, Slovenija Urednica številke / Guest Editor Neža Čebron Lipovec, Fakulteta za humanistične študije Univerze na Primorskem, Slovenija Uredniki / Editors Irena Lazar, Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija Alenka Tomaž, Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija Gregor Pobežin, Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija Peter Sekloča, Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija Jadranka Cergol, Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija Uredniški odbor / Editorial Board Vesna Bikić (Arheološki institut Beograd, SANU, Srbija), Zdravka Hincak (Filozofski fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Hrvatska), Matej Hriberšek (Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenija), Tea Perinčić (Pomorski i povijesni muzej Hrvatskog primorja, Hrvatska), Maša Sakara Sučevič (Pokrajinski muzej Koper, Slovenija), Paola Visentini (Museo Friulano di Storia Naturale, Italia), Mojca Ramšak (Filozofska fakulteta & Fakulteta za kemijo in kemijsko tehnologijo, Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenija), Mario Novak (Centar za primijenjenu bioantropologiju (BIOANT), Institut za antropologiju, Zagreb, Hrvaška), Matija Strlič (Fakulteta za kemijo in kemijsko tehnologijo, Univerza v Ljubljani, Slovenija, and University College London, Great Britain), Karol Zielinski (Instytut Studiów Klasycznych, Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, Polska), Saša Čaval (Archaeology Center, School of Humanities and Sciences, University of Stanford, USA , and Inštitut za antropološke in prostorske študije, ZRC SAZU, Slovenija), Krish Seetah (Department of Anthropology, School of Humanities and Sciences, University of Stanford, USA), Martina Blečić Kavur (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Jonatan Vinkler (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Valentina Brečko Grubar (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Katja Hrobat Virloget (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Alenka Janko Spreizer (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Petra Kavrečič (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Marcello Potocco (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija), Jana Volk (Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija) ISSN 2350-5443 · https://doi.org/10.26493/2350-5443.11(2) Mednarodni indeksi | Indexing and Abstracting Anvur · DOAJ · Erih Plus · ROAD · Scopus Navodila avtorjem ter izjava o etiki in zlorabah pri objavljanju so dostopni na Guidelines for Authors and Publishing Ethics and Malpractice Statement are available at https://zalozba.upr.si/issn/2350-5443 Uredništvo | Editorial Office Studia universitatis hereditati Fakulteta za humanistične študije | Faculty of Humanities Univerza na Primorskem | University of Primorska Titov trg 5, SI-6000 Koper · suh.editor@upr.si Izdaja | Published by Založba Univerze na Primorskem | University of Primorska Press Titov trg 4, SI-6000 Koper · hippocampus.si © 2023 Avtorji | Authors Izid je finančno podprla Javna agencija za znanstvenoraziskovalno in inovacijsko dejavnost Republike Slovenije iz sredstev državnega proračuna iz naslova razpisa za sofinanciranje domačih znanstvenih periodičnih publikacij. Revija je brezplačna.Izid revije je finančno podprla Javna agencija za raziskovalno dejavnost Republike Slovenije s sredstvi državnega proračuna iz naslova razpisa za sofinanciranje izdajanja domačih znanstvenih periodičnih publikacij. studia universitatis hereditati st ud ia universitatis he re di ta ti letnik 11 številka 2 2023 volume 11 number 2 2023 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i Vsebina Contents Contenuti 7 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i Neža Čebron Lipovec 9 Editorial Uvodnik Michèle Baussant 13 ‘Between Myself and Myself Lies my True Country’: Exploring the Dissonant Legacy of Colonial Worlds as a Researcher and as an Heiress »Med mano in menoj leži moja resnična dežela«: raziskovanje disonantne zapuščine kolonialnih svetov kot raziskovalka in dedinja Maria Kokkinou 27 Remembering the Former Eastern Bloc: Who Owns the Legacy – the Case of Těchonín Spomin na nekdanji vzhodni blok: kdo je lastnik zapuščine – primer Těchonín Pierre Sintès 43 Tales from the Greek-Albanian Borderland: Memory of Violence and Displacement in Western Epirus Zgodbe z grško-albanskega obmejnega območja: spomin na nasilje in razseljenost v zahodnem Epiru Catherine Perron 67 A Visible Sign with a “Quiet Gesture”? The Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin Vidni znak s »tiho gesto«? Dokumentacijski center za razseljenost, izgon in spravo v Berlinu Petra Kavrečič 91 Everyday Life in the Borderland Area Between Yugoslavia and Italy After WWII, the Case of Northern Istria Vsakdanje življenje v obmejnem prostoru med Jugoslavijo in Italijo po drugi svetovni vojni, primer severne Istre Neža Čebron Lipovec, Aleksej Kalc 111 The Primary School in Postwar Koper/Capodistria as a Social Laboratory Osnovna šola v povojnem Kopru/Capodistrii kot socialni laboratorij st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 8 Leon Vrtovec 133 The Historical Background to the Erection of the Monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper as an Example of a Fascist Cult of Personality Zgodovinsko ozadje postavitve spomenika Nazariju Sauru v Kopru kot primer fašističnega kulta osebnosti st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i © aut hor/aut hors Editorial Uvodnik Editoriale Neža Čebron Lipovec Univerza na Primorskem, Slovenija neza.cl@fhs.upr.si 9 Discussing heritage and memory, togeth-er or separately, has been a central topic over the last two decades in humanities, the social sciences and elsewhere. To the point that it has almost become a buzz word. While memory studies experienced a first boom about two decades ago (see Berliner 2005), interest in heritage first experienced a boom in the 1980s (Lowenthal 1995; Harrison 2013). However, in the last decade or so there has been an impressive global growth in interest, including from other disciplines such as the natural sciences (see Wie- nberg 2021). Currently, different fields are ad- dressing topical issues. In heritage studies, schol- arship is engaging in topics centred on climate change and the Anthropocene. Likewise, the field of memory studies has been expanding with interstitial subjects. For example, environmen- tal history has developed concepts such as “slow memory” (Wüstenberg 2023). At the same time, an established and flourishing perspective in the field of anthropology of memory deals with ab- sence and silence (Trouillot 2015; Baussant 2002; Baussant 2021b; Hrobat Virloget 2023). The lat- ter intersects with topical issues in the field of critical heritage studies, namely that of affect and emotion (Smith, Wetherell and Campbell 2018), along with issues concerning the trajec- tories of (mis)recognition in heritage discourses. Meanwhile, a recent branch of critical heritage studies is focusing on conceptualising the herit- age-border and border-straddling (Harvey 2023), with a call for the reconceptualization of both core concepts, and also of the role of liminalities, bordering practices, transnationalism and the agonism. These broad themes set the framework for thematic issue 2023/II of the Studia Univer- sitatis Hereditati Scientific Journal. The issue gathers together seven papers pre- pared by colleagues from different fields (an- thropology, political sciences, geography, his- tory, architectural history) who participated in a bilateral project of the Proteus research pro- gramme named Pasts without history and dis- placed histories of people without traces, led by leading scholars in the field of anthropology of memory, Michèle Baussant and Katja Hrobat Virloget. The project dealt with the effects of mass depopulations and repopulations, and the consequent radical socio-economic and politi- cal transformations. As the project leaders un- derscored, the intent was to shed light on “the crossed and parallel social constructions of the presence and absence of the other and, therefore, the self” (Baussant 2021a). Since the existing displacement of population analyses were often confined to epistemologies of single disciplines, the Proteus project tried to grasp them together through concepts such as landscape, lived space, home-making, history, objects, practices, and language, this way challenging binary nation- al identities. A transversal concept that emerges from the interstices of memory, places, and her- itage is that of borders and borderlands, mobile, liquid, imagined, or simply newly-made through bordering processes. ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)9-12 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 10 The project included the organisation of several symposia (Prague, June 2021; Paris, March 2022; Koper/Capodistria, October 2022, etc.) and two webinars. One webinar was ded- icated to memory, heritage and the built envi- ronment, entitled “Walking through spaces/ traces of the past(s)” (guests included the sociol- ogist Olga Sezneva and the architect Gruia Ba- descu), and the other was dedicated to the issue of the Roma holocaust in the Czech republic, entitled “Space(s) and politics of memory: the Roma holocaust in the Czech Republic” (with guests Yasar Abu Ghosh, Alenka Janko Spreiz- er and Nina Ludlová). The webinars were organ- ised by the junior researchers in the project team. It was the work of this group of emerging profes- sionals that led to this thematic issue being pro- posed. There was the wish to record some of the research that had been carried out related to the project and that had not yet been published, as well as to promote established research beyond solely national frameworks. The first article, by the anthropologist Michèle Baussant, is the result of an autoethno- graphic reflection of several years of research on the absent and/or silenced memory of displaced people, namely the French-speaking inhabitants expelled from Algeria after the independence war in 1959, and especially of their descendants. The article unveils personal and family attach- ments to lost places in the “hometown” of Al- giers in Algeria, through the use of “broken lan- guage” and inherited attachment and perception of toponymy and sense of place. The imaginary presences, as felt by the second generation, are investigated mainly through the combination of French and Arabic, as well as through the use of local denominations of places from Algeria, transposed to France. By revisiting the linguis- tic, spatial and temporal cartography of attach- ments and detachments among displaced peo- ple, the article illustrates the role of rupture and reinvented continuity. The anthropologist Maria Kokkinou pre- sents a forgotten chapter from Europe’s history, as she deals with the memory, memorialisation and heritageisation of the temporary presence (or passage, or crossing) of Greek refugees in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s and 1960s. After the Greek Civil War, alliances within the commu- nist parties enabled the refugees from Greece to find refuge in different countries of the Eastern Bloc and other Soviet-influenced countries. In some countries, this temporary presence is now acknowledged and heritageised, while in others it is not. This is the case of the present-day Czech Republic and the town of Těchonín, a site of for- mer barracks transformed into a temporary con- valescent home for 600 Greek refugees. A par- ticularity of this research lies in the fact that it was conducted in 2021, during the COVID pan- demic. The fact that only one interlocutor was found indicates that memorial discourse about this historical phenomenon is absent. As a result, the interlocutor’s personal photographs turn out to be the only monuments that serve as a re- minder of this past presence. Greece, its contested northern border with Albania and the related memorialisation and heritageisation processes, are the focus of the pa- per by the geographer Pierre Sintès. The paper presents the region called Thesprotia in Greece and Chameria in Albania, marked by histori- cal turmoil, population change, and the con- sequent polarisation of national discourses. Particular attention is paid to the different tra- jectories of these discourses within the border society and its many groups, namely that of the Chams, the large Albanian-speaking communi- ty, which disappeared from the western section of the Greek-Albanian border after WWII, but has been reactivated as a central memory poli- tics topic since the fall of the communist regime in Albania and the daily migration of Albani- an workers to Greece. A particular theme that emerges from the analysis is the role of past vio- lence and its impact on the structuring of mem- ory narratives. The paper derives from years-long research and fieldwork since the early 2010s, pre- sented here in an ex-post outlook. Catherine Perron, an expert in political sciences, presents a complex reflection on the st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i u v o d n ik • e d it o r ia l • ed it o r ia le 11 permanent exhibition of the recently inaugu- rated Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin by focus- ing on the approaches and discourses presenting the issue of the “flight and expulsion of the Ger- mans”. It then compares different types of mu- seums (Heimatmuseum, Landesmuseum), not from a museological perspective, but through the lens of political history and anthropology. By looking at which objects are presented and how, it addresses the question of presenting loss, absence and violence, and their roles within the different narratives. It concludes with a double critical thought, first by challenging the format of such space between memorial, museum, ar- chive, and meeting place. Secondly, it questions the aim and effect of such new interpretations of difficult history and silenced memories that raise awareness about the issue in an empathic way within the wider society, but do so at the ex- pense of shedding light on the specificities of the flight and expulsion processes. The last three papers are dedicated to issues of historic and current memorialisation narra- tives in the contested region of Istra/Istria, on the border between Slovenia and Italy. The histo- rian Petra Kavrečič reflects on the impact of the bordering process on people’s everyday lives. She focuses on the early post-WWII period in Istria, by analysing the effects of a new Yugoslav-Ital- ian border – established after 1945 and again in 1954 – on everyday life, as well as the economic and social interactions among local inhabitants. From the perspective of social history, she anal- yses the process of “bordering” and the new po- litical division that affected the northern Istri- an territory. Key attention is placed on how past interconnections and relations changed radical- ly and were interrupted after the establishment of the new, previously non-existing border. It re- veals especially how communication, coopera- tion and exchange of goods were able to contin- ue when the border caused a strong territorial division. The historian Aleksej Kalc and the architec- tural historian Neža Čebron Lipovec present an interdisciplinary case study about the role of the school, as an institution and as architecture, in the framework of the post-WWII establishment of the Slovene state, within the Yugoslav feder- ation, in the historically multicultural and con- tested borderland region of Istria, between Ita- ly and Slovenia. Two primary schools in the city of Koper/Capodistria are at the core of the anal- ysis. The older of the two schools was built in 1951 and was the first post-war school that ini- tially hosted pupils of both Slovene and Italian mother tongues, and was promoted as a symbol of the brotherhood of the two cohabiting eth- nicities, under the aegis of the communist ideol- ogy. Yet, since the educational system was a pri- mary tool for re-establishing the region’s Slovene identity, after the final integration of the region into Slovenia and Yugoslavia in 1954, the school became a central space for (re)creating the Slo- vene and Yugoslav identity of the northern Istri- an urban space. The article ends with a reflection on the heritage significance of these buildings and the institution itself, especially since both of the two first post-war schools were torn down 15 years ago. The last paper is provided by a young re- searcher from the field of history, Leon Vr- tovec, whose contribution comes from outside the aforementioned Proteus project. The pa- per is dedicated to elucidating the circumstanc- es and factors that contributed to the erection of the monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper/Cap- odistria in the 1930s, during the Kingdom of It- aly. Nazario Sauro was a sailor and a soldier, an active Italian irredentist who was born in Kop- er/Capodistria under Austria and was hanged by the Austrian authorities for having deserted the army. As a result, he was considered a martyr and became a central symbol of the Italian nation- al struggle in Istria. The analysis provides a de- tailed account of the central personalities of the fascist regime, from Rome to the local author- ities who influenced the decision about the site and symbolism of this central landmark in the ethnically contested region of Istria, perceived during fascism as the “finally redeemed Italian st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 12 land”. The erection of this monumental marker of space also performed several interventions in the historic tissue, adjusting the public space to the representational needs of the fascist regime. The seven contributions reflect the varie- ty of disciplines involved and their related epis- temologies and methodologies, in analysing the interlinks between memory and heritage. A par- ticularity that occurs in most of these texts, how- ever, is that they tackle cases of displaced popula- tions or re-settled areas, leading to the question of what and when was memorialised and herit- ageised, and which trajectories of (mis)recogni- tion these processes imply? In other words, what was chosen to be remembered, and what con- cealed, forgotten, silenced, and therefore which sites, objects, material traces or practices were claimed as heritage and by whom. Hence, the analyses presented here invite the reader to re- flect upon the large span of concepts (and the cases that illustrate them) between contested, dissonant, silenced and erased memories and heritages, and on different scales – from local to global. The issues raised by all the papers finally converge in questioning the role of borders, their mobility and (in)visibility. References Baussant, M. 2002. Pieds-noirs: mémoires d’exils. Paris: Stock. Baussant, M. 2021a. ‘About the Proteus Project.’ Defeated Memories/Mémoires défaites, April 21. https://defeatedmemo. hypotheses.org/382. Baussant, M. 2021b. ‘To Not Forget and to Not Remember: The Blurred Faces of Silence.’ Cultural Analysis 19:113–115. Berliner, D. 2005. ‘The Abuses of Memory: Reflections on the Memory Boom in Anthropology.’ Anthropological Quarterly 78 (1): 197–211. Harrison, R. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge. Harvey, D. C. 2023. ‘Borderstraddling Heritage: Defining an Agenda.’ Key- note speech at the 1st conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Chapter, Ljubljana, 29–30 November. Hrobat Virloget, K. 2023. Silences and Divided Memories: The Exodus and Its Legacy in Post-War Istrian Society. Translated by M. Petrović. New York: Berhghan. Lowenthal, D. 1985. The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, L., M. Wetherell, and G. Campbell. 2018. Emotion, Affective Practices, and the Past in the Present. London: Routledge. Trouillot, M.-R. 2015. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon. Wienberg, J. 2021. Heritopia: World Heritage and Modernity. Lund: Lund University Press. Wüstenberg, J. 2023. ‘Toward a Slow Memory Studies.’ In Critical Memory Studies, edited by B. A. Kaplan, 59–68. London: Bloomsburry Academic. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 13 © aut hor/aut horsht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)13-26 Abstract This article focuses on the linguistic, spatial and temporal cartography of attachments among displaced people and how it shaped my research interests. Based on experience and several fieldworks, I retrace the legacy of this cartography through the broken tongues - the different languages they inhabit, and use as a means of preserving their imaginary presence in their native country or countries of origin - that car- ry the ghosts of several languages, place names, daily ritual and commemorative practices, objects, sens- es and sensations. By emphasising the malleability of languages, spaces and material things, I aim to ex- plore how temporality can be traversed, stopped, restarted, turned back and projected forward through places. This exploration leads me to address the diversity of populations and their history of previous displacements – a heterogeneity that images of exiles from Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, or Morocco tend to relegate to the background. This emphasis allows for better understanding of how each border crossing has redrawn the cartography of attachments and detachments, displacements and the crystallisation of social boundaries, and how each rupture has reinvented continuity. Keywords: broken tongue, temporality, cartography of attachments, displacement, colonial worlds Izvleček Članek se osredotoča na jezikovno, prostorsko in časovno kartiranje navezanosti med razseljenimi osebami ter na to, kako je to oblikovalo moja raziskovalna zanimanja. Na podlagi izkušenj in številnih terenov ponovno beležim dediščino teh kartiranj skozi »zlomljene jezike« – skozi različne jezike, ki jih razseljene osebe uporabljajo kot sredstvo, s katerim si prizadevajo ohraniti zamišljeno prisotnost v svoji domovini ali domovinah, ki nosijo duhove različnih jezikov, krajevnih imen, dnevnih obrednih in spo- minskih praks, predmetov, čutov ter občutkov. Skozi poudarek na prožnosti jezikov, prostorov in mate- rialnih stvari raziskujem, kako začasnost prečiti, jo ustaviti, ponovno zagnati, obrniti nazaj in projicira- ti naprej skozi kraje. Skozi to raziskovanje obravnavam raznolikost prebivalstev in zgodovino njihovih preteklih razselitev – heterogenosti, ki jo podobe izgnancev iz Alžirije, Egipta, Tunizije ali Maroka obi- čajno potisnejo v ozadje. Ta poudarek omogoča, da bolje razumemo, kako je vsako prehajanje meje na novo zarisalo zemljevide navezanosti in odtujitev, premikov ter kristalizacije družbenih meja in kako je vsak prelom ponovno ustvaril kontinuiteto. Ključne besede: zlomljen jezik, časovnost, zemljevidi navezanosti, premiki prebivalstva, kolonialni svetovi ‘Between Myself and Myself Lies my True Country’: Exploring the Dissonant Legacy of Colonial Worlds as a Researcher and as an Heiress »Med mano in menoj leži moja resnična dežela«: raziskovanje disonantne zapuščine kolonialnih svetov kot raziskovalka in dedinja Michèle Baussant National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), Université Paris Nanterre, France michele.baussant@cnrs.fr st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 14 I, who received nothing but fear and secret and shame of myself [...] I, who know nothing about myself except what is said about me I, brought up now here, in sickness I, who know nothing, I, who feel I belong to no time, to no country Between myself and myself lies an infinite distance Between myself and myself lies my true country, Algeria (Pascal Bouaziz, ‘Algérie’, 2021) We are in the square in front of the building where I grew up, in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, in a neighbourhood called Mont-Mesly. This neigh- bourhood expanded at the same time as the ar- rival in France of various populations resulting from colonisation and decolonisation. Howev- er, I remember that my grandmother, who lived one floor below us, used to call the trip across the street to the square ‘going to Foum Tataouine’. The few-metre walk seemed like an expedition to a place named after another place in Tuni- sia, which, when my family lived in Algeria, was a metaphor for travelling to a faraway place. I spent part of my childhood in Foum Tatouine without ever going there. I grew up with the im- age of a dual space and a divided consciousness passed on to me by the adults. They carried im- ages, smells, sounds and ways of doing things so powerful that these marks were not erased dec- ades after they had to rebuild their lives else- where (Benvenisti 2002), totally separated from Algeria. I could not share the meaning of their loss. I could not exchange memories about a coun- try I never lived in. However, Algeria was like a shadow over the conversations, the tears and the laughter, intertwined with a sense of disarray, alienation and loneliness. It was always there, twisting the meaning of words, the so-called naturalness of practices, the evidence of distanc- es between places, the existence of borders be- tween spaces and things that die in time. It re- minded us of a time independent of space. This article1 aims to highlight this linguis- tic, spatial and temporal cartography of attach- ments, how it shaped my understanding of the world and my research interests as a descend- ant of specific displaced people: people who have nothing to do with persecuted romantic heroes, 1 This article takes up part of an article published in French (Baussant 2023), but develops it considerably in thought and content. It is based on a research financially support- ed by the CNRS Convergences MIGRATIONS Institute, reference ANR-17-CONV-0001. Figure 1: An afternoon in ‘Foum Tataouine’, Algiers, 1974, 1975? (source: Michele Baussant Personal Archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ‘b et w ee n m ys el f a n d m ys el f li es m y t ru e c o u n t ry ’ . .. 15 with refugees representing a just cause. They be- longed to a ‘prosaic’ mass of people expelled or asked to leave because of their active or passive association with the colonial system.  Without pretending to be exhaustive, I would like to re- trace the experience and legacy of this cartogra- phy through the words that carry the ghosts or corpses of several languages (Mauthner, quot- ed in Ravy 1996, 447), place names, daily, ritu- al and commemorative practices, objects, senses and sensations. By emphasising the malleability of languages, spaces and material things, I would like to explore how temporality can be traversed, stopped, restarted, turned back and projected forward through places. This exploration leads me to address the diversity of populations and their history of previous displacements – a het- erogeneity that images of exiles from Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia or Morocco tend to relegate to the background. This emphasis allows an un- derstanding of how each border crossing has re- drawn the cartography of attachments and de- tachments, displacements and the crystallisation of social boundaries, and how each rupture has reinvented continuity. ‘To Begin Where I am’2 My article stems from a long research experience based on multiple fieldwork - from France to Al- geria, Egypt and the Israeli-Palestinian areas, the United States and several European countries, addressing dynamics of diasporisation, de-di- asporisation et re-diasporisation (Trier 1996) among specific displaced minorities, such as Eu- ropean of Algeria and Egyptian Jews3. These populations share several migrations – towards or within colonised territories, between empires, and finally, outside them-, their internal heter- 2 I borrow this subtitle from the title of Czesław Miłosz’s book. 3 For Europeans of Algeria with fieldwork in France from 1996 to 2001, and in Algeria in 2003- and for Egyptian Jews, with fieldwork in France, Egypt, Israel, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy and Switzerland, from 2008 until now. These fieldworks are rooted in a clas- sic ethnographic methodology combining in-depth qual- itative interviews, participant observation, and archival work. ogeneity and, in some cases, their liminal posi- tion as ‘subalterns’ identified with the colonial empires. This work, initiated in the early 1990s, en- compasses two research fields  – memory4  and massive population displacements. It addresses a paradoxical observation concerning those defined by researchers as privileged or co-ethnic migration5  (Čapo Žmegač 2010): although everything that refers to their past became not relevant, even disqualified - from the most per- sonal and ordinary moments to major historical and political events – and rarely exchanged ex- cept within close relational circles, it still sticks to the present through languages, emotions and practices. I worked on and with people who, for a long time, felt that they were forbidden to talk about their past, that nobody was listening to them. It nurtured their sense of being out of His- tory to the point where, ‘in the end, some could no longer remember what they did or did not have to say about it’ (Milosz 2001, 13). I tried to understand the impacts of a morally problemat- ic condition of an exile not socially recognized as such, undermining their solidarity and isolating 4 It falls today under the umbrella of memory studies. This field did not exist when I began my research which draws on the cumulative knowledge on memory issues forged through approaches both complementary and dis- tinct and from disciplines such as History, sociology, an- thropology and the social sciences of politics. These disci- plines all played their part in gradually developing knowl- edge and a shared understanding of the concept. They pro- duced a range of definitions (Lavabre 2000), strengthening its increasingly metaphorical character and the tendency to speak of ‘memories’ as subjects, acting, thinking, trav- elling, fragmenting, multi-directional, communicative, transcultural, traumatic, giving second place to the ac- tors who produce and carry them. As for me, I opted for the pioneering work of Maurice Halbwachs (1939; 1941; 1994; 1997) and the extensive analysis of memory provid- ed by Marie-Claire Lavabre (1994; 2000), which circum- scribed the collective memory as the homogenisation of representations of the past or the reduction of the diversi- ty of memories that occurs when a shared experience is re- counted within a group, a family, a party, or an association, in the present.  5 This term is particularly problematic when used to de- scribe heterogeneous minorities that underwent numer- ous internal or external displacements to countries colo- nized by European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries and then dispersed outside these countries following their independence. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 16 them. And still… I observed not the content of what they said or didn’t say, but their way of mix- ing and using language as a means of preserving their imagined presence in the country or coun- tries from where they came. They lived around several centres, built several ‘over there’ from dif- ferent ‘here’ that coalesced, reordered temporal- ities and reintroduced continuity in fragmenta- tion and disruption.  Research experience may be understood in terms of a journey: ‘we leave from home, we cross the world, and we return home, even if it’s a dif- ferent home than the one we left behind, because the departure, the original split, gave it its mean- ing’ (Magris 2001, 13–14). I imagine this article as a kind of suitcase, a travel kit, which (pp. 9–10) is part of the jour- ney: on departure, when you pack the few things you think you’ll need, always forget- ting something essential; on the way, when you pack what you want to take home; on the way back, when you open your luggage and no longer find the things you thought were important, and things appear that you didn’t remember you’d packed. The same thing happens with writing; something that, while we were travelling and living, seemed fundamental has vanished, on paper, it’s no longer there, while something that, in life  - in the journey of life - we had hardly noticed takes shape imperiously and imposes itself as essential. Still, every journey has a point of departure. What was mine? My research grew out of hy- brid spaces between different places, people and fieldwork, languages and countries, my incapac- ity to put down roots anywhere, in a liminal ex- perience of encounters and openings that made me at home and a stranger to each place wher- ever I lived. These crossroads, intersections and hybrid spaces gave rise to this unconventional writing style for attempting to convey the pro- found non-linearity, uncertain and fragmentary nature of my work’s premise – my embodied ex- perience and my ‘perceptual knowledge’ (Mac- Dougall 2006, 5) of the displaced – layers of (in) visibility in discursive and non-verbalized forms of the presence of the past. It begins with sounds and languages as a way to highlight the key role of fragments of worlds, memories, places, times and practices and the qualitative relationships between these fragments, however dissonant: not as a puzzle or a whole to be completed but as so many pieces adding new layers of meaning. The Broken Tongue: Worlds Within Us I grew up among displaced people6 before grow- ing up to study them. I experienced a dissonant world where the spectres of past worlds and all the absent things and people were exceeded in all parts of the social and material space surround- ing me. I first associate this absence and disso- nance with an expression: ‘To have a broken tongue’. This expression remained enigmatic for a long time in my mind. Brodsky, in particular, summed up the link between exile and language in a few illuminating words (Brodsky 1995, quot- ed in Heller-Roazen 2008, 49): To be an exiled is like being a dog or a man hurtled into outer space in a capsule (more like a dog, of course, than a man, because they will never retrieve you). And your cap- sule is your language. To finish the meta- phor off, it must be added that before long, the capsule’s passenger discovers that it grav- itates not earthward but outward. This capsule contained the language of the exiled, their broken tongue. 6 This term was discussed by many scholars in different countries that experienced massive fluxes of populations due to decolonisation, as evidenced by Pamela Ballinger, Michele Baussant, Jasna Čapo Žmegač and Andrea Smith. Such people’s departure was often portrayed as inevitable (a consequence of decolonisation, their alleged lack of at- tachment to Algeria, or, for Jews, their association with the colonial power), not forced, and as a quasi-internal displacement. Moreover, the trajectories of some of them are marked by multiple displacements throughout sever- al generations and are sometimes ignored or marginalised in analyses that long tended to consider them as homoge- neous populations with the same roots and a shared sense of belonging. See Ballinger (2012), Baussant (2002), Čapo Žmegač (2010), and Smith (2003; 2009). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ‘b et w ee n m ys el f a n d m ys el f li es m y t ru e c o u n t ry ’ . .. 17 What could a broken tongue mean? As a child, I imagined people’s tongues were broken. Later, I wondered how French or Arabic, like an object, breaks. I remember Françoise, who left Egypt in 1967 and her ‘broken Arabic’; Yves, who ‘broke’ in a continuous stream of French, Hebrew, English and Arabic, all spoken fluent- ly but always with errors and a hesitation that never left him; Jacob, who in French avoided us- ing letters unpronounceable for him, because they ‘broke’ his language and revealed his for- eignness, like this librarian, quoted by C. Nag- gar: ‘I have the accent of a language I don’t know, Arabic. The accumulation of rs sometimes pre- vents people from understanding me. To avoid repeating myself, I choose words without r’s: café au lait instead of café crème’ (Naggar 2007, 119); Carole broke the thread of our exchanges by mixing languages because such an object could only be said in Arabic, and such and such food could only be expressed in French. Not that they were all the same. Not that she could not trans- late them in either language, attribute the same meaning to a word from one language to anoth- er, but simply that each thing had its value in a specific language that could not be the same in another. Translating it into another language would always be a failure. This broken language was a singular, unique language, an idiom for each of us, and always more than a language, sometimes drawing unpre- dictable trajectories of meaning and interrupted histories, spaces and journeys. It was an every- day, trivial world, made up of words and phrases expressed in French but which came from else- where, with mysterious meanings for those out- side this world, where to say that a woman was ‘in position’ meant that she was pregnant, where one could have la scoumoune7 and where peppers were called piments. Several languages  – Arabic, Spanish, Ital- ian, Greek, Hebrew, German, and English  – 7 A term designating bad luck, associated in France with Ar- abic, but probably popularised by the Italians who settled in Algeria and then by the Europeans in Algeria and com- ing from the Italian scomunica, which itself comes from the Latin excomunicatio. melded into one, mainly French, always insuf- ficient for expressing pictures, sounds, odours, colours, objects, food, values, landscapes, sit- uations, and practices. Those most used could sometimes be the mutest, breaking into ex- changes, marking gaps. This broken tongue both echoed what linguists call a ‘substrate’ – ‘the per- sistent remainder of one tongue within another, the forgotten element secretly retained in the ap- parently seamless passage from one language to the next’, ‘superstrates’  – the changes brought upon the tongue of one people through its adop- tion by another – and ‘adstrates’– changes in one language due to the proximity of its speakers to another idiom to which it is related (Heller-Roa- zen 2008, 78–79). Thus, to have a broken tongue covered sev- eral meanings: to speak different languages with- out feeling that one knew any one of them ‘cor- rectly’; to possess no language of one’s own, no language that one masters; to break, to damage the language by incomplete knowledge of it; to mark a language used in everyday life with syn- taxes, pronunciations, turns of phrase which re- vealed other languages, sometimes silent, some- times resurgent; to not be able to produce a well-crafted narrative in a language one had mas- tered; to consistently fail to speak about some- thing and to say at the same time that which was unspeakable; maintaining a difference, preserv- ing the stranger within (Derrida 1993); to car- ry in the body the mark of a rupture, of an ab- sence, a kind of ‘ghostly matter’. This mark also exists among the descendants: ‘The words of the language I don’t know,’ writes Carole Naggar, ‘are dead people attached to my living ankles’; they make her ‘feel like a stranger in France, in this country whose language I speak with- out an accent’ (Naggar 2007, 94), reminding us that words, like languages, cannot be a shelter, a home nor even less a homeland (Cassin 2013). The broken language also meant the ability of the people around me to transform or not the timbre of their voice, using different languages and different words. All year round, my parents seemed to go inside themselves, except for one st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 18 month in the summer when they would meet up with their friends from Algeria in the South of France. Even in their homes’ privacy and deal- ings with neighbours, they were careful to speak as neutral French as possible, not to have an ac- cent and to use the ‘right’ words. Rare were the moments, usually of anger or emotion, when an expression, a turn of phrase, a sentence in Arabic or an accent came out. In the summer, they sud- denly began to speak a different language, to in- habit other gestures. It was as if they were redis- covering their naturalness and, with it, their joie de vivre. They could not belong to either Algeria or France, so they strove to appear to be from ‘no- where’, ‘no time’, and ‘no country’. Their moth- er tongue was not ‘the only possession that could not be taken from them’ as an indestructible part of identity, a home and a homeland (Cas- sin 2013). They had no mother tongue, or sever- al which coexisted and constantly acted as smug- glers behind each other: they were ‘all exiles, like transhumants who have burnt their ships’. They ‘[would] never again find [their] past intact, any more than the mythical bell towers of [their] childhood, the splendid charm of drowsy syn- agogues or the cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer at dawn. [They were] from here and there. Indefectibly’ (Hassoun 1993, 66–67). This concomitance of languages was not only the lasting mark of exile but also the im- print of a past of linguistic coexistence made up of mixing, division and a desire for separation. The complexity of this phenomenon has been exacerbated by the interference, in some cas- es, of religious affiliations and by a colonial po- litical context that has created a conflictual and emotional relationship with languages. The pre- dominance of French reflected this phenome- non of linguistic hierarchy, which served as a norm for social divisions and sheltered external antagonisms. But as the most culturally valued language by many of these displaced persons, French was in a situation of insularity: both with the demographic majority, Arabic-speak- ing and/or Berber-speaking, depending on the country, and with the linguistic community in France. This sense of insularity, the feeling of belonging and being excluded, followed people into exile, with their ‘broken tongue’: it pointed not to a hyphenated identity but a mark of their othernesses, their double or triple unbelonging and a cultivated feeling of division. As they re- flected in their language, they could not choose between their different allegiances: or rather, they choose one or the other, and neither the one nor the other. From Home, Other Worlds Beyond Sight People went into exile either from Algeria, Tu- nisia, Morocco, or Egypt; with them, their lan- guages and memories. What does it mean for languages to be in exile? How do we grasp exile in language and retrace a biography of the stra- ta of tongues like we can build a biography of in- dividuals? Furthermore, what to do with blank pages, particularly those concerning the pres- ence of other languages that a priori have noth- ing to do with the political and cultural con- text of the countries in question and their use in naming places and objects? How did they be- come part of these countries’ past? Just as I learnt the broken tongues of the people I grew up with, I shared their lost land- scapes, absent relatives, and blank pages as a part of myself. It was a legacy from an era of histo- ry that just cannot be eradicated, the era of col- onisations and decolonisations. But at the same time, these broken tongues as post signs of mem- ory also bore the mark of silence surrounding my family’s life in Algeria. However, silence does not mean oblivion; it encompasses different ways of dealing with the past  – ‘don’t remember, don’t talk about, don’t know, and don’t care.’ It is not a ‘complete absence of sound. Rather, it refers to the absence of certain discourses about the past’ (Xu 2022, 69). Algeria was present in the exchanges and ex- pressions, inhabiting the memories and shaping the memories of inhabiting. In the social housing estates of the grey suburb of eastern Paris where I was born, disintegrated colonial worlds consti- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ‘b et w ee n m ys el f a n d m ys el f li es m y t ru e c o u n t ry ’ . .. 19 tuted the background of most inhabitants: espe- cially Algerian Jews, Algerians transformed into ‘foreigners’ once Algeria was independent,8 as well as Europeans of Algeria. The latter formed a rather heterogeneous mix of ‘settlers’ and ‘ar- riving’ populations (Byrd 2011), mainly from the European shores of the Mediterranean, labelled pieds-noirs during the Algerian War – ‘invisible migrants’ (Smith 2003) – with whom Algeria no longer wanted to deal and whom France had to integrate while imagining that their history was not entirely its history. Other populations, exiles from other Maghreb or Mashrek countries, were also present. These buildings of the housing estate, most people said, had been built for them. They formed a landscape without a past where Algeria was rarely mentioned. With little or no reference to it, perhaps most of their inhabitants had come to believe they had never lived in Algeria. Col- onisation was an officially closed history, rele- gated to a past ‘irrelevant to the present’ (Barnes 1990, 28). However, it sealed their destinies and 8 After independence, Algerians with civil status under local law lost their French nationality, except for those who sub- scribed to the declaration of recognition of French nation- ality before 22 March 1967 (order of 21 July 1962). expectations. And it persisted, despite its se- lective and generalised disavowal, in France, in the society to which they had been transposed. Sometimes, a remnant, a faint trace, or a tena- cious ‘presence’ (Stoler and Cooper 2013) in the negative, its complex experience translated into a living, multiform presence, something that is and yet is not (Trouillot 1995). This ‘visible’ in- visible occupied a substantial place, sometimes expanded, sometimes constricted. What we saw was doubled by what we did not see: from the outside, buildings of identical design and appearance and streets named after famous French places or people, with discreet markers (shops, synagogues or prayer halls); in- side the buildings, markers based on family names, religious, local and sometimes nation- al references, and multiple ritual temporalities. This marking reshaped borders, hierarchies and encounter zones. All at once, palimpsest and heteroglossia (Bakhtine 1970), sedimentations of time and places were revealed there, symbols and images, separate and dispersed pieces, lacu- nar, mourning memory, ‘where the part is worth the whole and more than the whole that it ex- ceeds’ (Derrida 1988, 54). This space was never for putting down roots, even less so for all those who lived there with a sense of not being where they should be. It was ‘a doubt’ (Perec 1974), from which the other places of these ‘interrupted’ lives were reflected, ‘cracks’, ‘friction points’, a ‘hiatus’. In discovering France, they realised that Algeria imagined and lived as a contiguous extension of the ‘French na- tion’, was, in fact, another land. It was enough to walk a few hundred metres in the old histor- ic district of this suburb to feel that ‘que ça se co- ince quelque part, ou que ça éclate, ou que ça se cogne’ (‘that it sticks somewhere, that it bursts, or that it knocks’) (Perec 1974). Haunting mod- ifies the experience of being in time and how we sequence the past, present and past, present and future (Gordon 2008). These spectres are neither invisible nor excess: their whole essence ‘resides in the fact that they possess ‘a real presence that claims its due and demands your attention’. The Figure 2: ‘What we saw was doubled by what we did not see’: a double cartography of my childhood building (sketch by Michele Baussant 2023) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 20 haunting, ‘unlike trauma, has the particularity of producing a something-to-be-done. It corre- sponds precisely to that moment (which can last a long time) when things are no longer in their place, where cracks are revealed, and where dis- turbed feelings can no longer be put aside’ (Gor- don 2008, 18). This doubt allowed neither blindness nor the anaesthesia of daily life. Other conscious- ness strata took shape between the apartments’ walls (Benvenisti 2002) without real spatial at- tachment in the here and now. Few or no images fed the imagination, only names, objects that en- gaged the senses, encapsulated spaces engraved with the memory of the intimacy of homes, daily exchanges, shared places and dichotomous envi- ronments, ‘white spots’ on the physical and men- tal maps of the colonial lived space. Next to the copper tray, one of the few objects my family brought back from Al- geria, was the street of Dr. Trolard in Algi- er, where my father used to live; from the liv- ing room table, the street Michelet, not far from the f lat where my father’s family stayed; from the stove, we found the street of Bab Azoun, a place my paternal grandmother of- ten mentioned, asking me if I remembered it too, even though I wasn’t born in Algeria. Near the painting of the great-uncle, stood Bab el Oued, where my mother grew up; in the bathroom, we were at La Marine, a work- ing-class district of Oran; and with the smell of oranges, revived La Redoute, the last neigh- bourhood my family lived in before leaving. More rarely, to evoke a distant expedition, in the sand garden just in front of the building, Tizi Ouzou, Foum Tataouine, towns in Alge- ria that were regarded as very remote. I could see that neither the rue de Bab Azoun nor the rue du Docteur Trolard were there, but I could see that they were invisible, that they were not there, and at the same time, that they were a real presence that partly shaped our daily space and our exchanges. The objects, build- ings, squares and shops that made up the new landscape grew out of the home. They partic- ipated in the production of time spaces put into perspective, reshaped by an entre-soi, rela- tionships that made it possible to read the new world in which they had to rebuild everything again. Mirrored Time And Space Something was broken definitively in Alge- ria and continued simultaneously in France over there. Everyone left Algeria, and Algeria left everyone. And through this double move- ment, they all found themselves in the middle of the Mediterranean, leaving and seeing them- selves left. The Mediterranean became an elas- tic space, the point from which my interlocutors Figure 4: Algiers in Créteil (sketch by Michele Baussant 2023) Figure 3: Next to or under the copper tray, the Trolard Street in Algiers (source: Photomontage by Michele Baussant 2023) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ‘b et w ee n m ys el f a n d m ys el f li es m y t ru e c o u n t ry ’ . .. 21 moved and connected their Algeria to Marseille, Carnoux, La Ciotat, Créteil, Lyon or Alicante, transformed into synecdochal places (Baussant 2002). Here, in Nîmes, a shrine dedicated to the Virgin of Santa Cruz, the sanctuary, which du- plicates the first sanctuary in Oran while adapt- ing its architectural forms to the context of ex- ile and France, symbolised Oran, Oranie and Algeria; a Saint Michael’s Day procession in the streets of La Ciotat ‘revived’ the village of Mers el Kebir, where the same procession once took place on Saint Michael’s Day, and was a copy of the one that was held on Procida, an island in the Bay of Naples. They also reinscribed alternative histo- ries and multiple topographies produced by and within the colonial framework. The diver- sity of the people living in this framework and who reshaped the landscape according to their needs, partially erasing or superimposing them- selves on previous landscapes, inspired them. I learned about people’s attachment to crossing the visible and invisible frontiers of these sedi- mented topographies of places and times. I expe- rienced it before understanding later how their memories of exile in Algeria or Tunisia, Moroc- co and Egypt covered up the experiences of oth- er exiles and referred to other absent people and places. For those born in Algeria, their relation- ship with the country was not just one of living there and being uprooted from it. It was also the story of other journeys, those of their ancestors, to Algeria, of different times and places they brought with them and anchored in that coun- try. The particularity of these cartographies of time and space shaping daily life also lay in this succession of multiple mobilities over the mid- term, whether integral parts of a life project or forced upon them. It blurred the relationship be- tween here and elsewhere, at once the place of settlement, the cultural homeland, the land of birth, the land of ancestors, the land of passage, in a temporality and a relationship to space that produced translations but never the possibili- ty or the projection of a return. Each departure, each installation, was a new origin, a new filia- tion, without erasing the previous strata. By moving to Algeria and back in trans-co- lonial and trans-imperial spaces during the co- lonial period, their ancestors had imagined here their substitute lands for Spain, Italy, Malta and their sometimes completely displaced villages: in Oran, the tutelary figure of Nuestra Señora d’El Salud, better known as Our Lady of Santa Cruz, symbolised an ‘eternal’ portion of Toledo9 and Spain at the same time as it became a relay point with French shrines such as Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseille. In Aïn-Tedelès, a village in Oranie, a new plantation of a grove of Aleppo pines became a Bois de Boulogne to recall France and Paris, which also existed in Algiers, while in Mers el Kebir, the villagers of Procida ‘gathered’ around the statue of Saint Michael. Multiple strata, therefore, linked long and short temporalities, distinct places, people and objects, landscapes, values and heterogeneous re- sources: Procida recomposed in Mers el Kebir, then Mers el Kebir and Procida in La Ciotat, and Mers el Kebir and La Ciotat in Procida. Materi- al artefacts brought back from Spain, Italy and Malta to Algeria, then from Algeria to France, Spain, Italy or Malta, duplicated, recreated, tak- 9 In 1509, the Cardinal of Toledo, Ximénès de Cisneros, ac- quired the spiritual administration of the city of Oran and its territory, which were attached in perpetuity to the ar- chiepiscopal see of Toledo. Fig. 5: In the middle of the Mediterranean, somewhere between Algiers and Marseille or Marseille and Algier? Year unknown, before 1962 (source: Michele Baussant Personal Archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 22 ing root, circulating, linking transposed land- scapes, extraterritorial,10 duplicated, sedimented. The transmitted practices make them live in the heart of memory environments; places and their names symbolise districts, then cities that ap- pear to be regions that refer to countries, which are enlarged to metropolises and former colonial spaces, operating unequally between the differ- ent territories. The particularity of these cartog- raphies of time and space that shaped daily life also lay in this succession of multiple mobilities over the medium term, whether integral parts of a life project or imposed by force. It blurred the relationship between here and elsewhere, at once a place of settlement, a cultural homeland, the land of birth, the land of ancestors, a land of passage (Ragaru 2010), in a temporality and a relationship to space operating translations but never the possibility or the projection of a re- turn. There was nowhere to return to. Even if they could dream of being ‘retrieved’, this dream takes the form of a disavowal, as Brodsky notes, as ‘they will never retrieve you’ (Brodsky 1995, quoted in Heller-Roazen 2008, 50).  These different strata of consciousness and their multidimensional spaces have taught me to question the evidence of a shared past with fixed and assured content, and the elasticity of tem- 10 Like the castle of Julhans in Roquefort la Bédoule, which would symbolise an extraterritorial past Algeria. porality. This latter could also take many forms. Every year at the same time, on the same Ascen- sion Day, in ‘Oranîmes’, ‘here became there,’ and ‘yesterday, now’, a ritual time that can be per- formed in any space. Each year, the same event began again without being an exact repetition of the previous one. This event is in preparation throughout the year and organises the ordinary year to return to this gathering day. While evoking their fulfilment and a bet- ter life in France compared to Algeria or Egypt, these displaced people mobilised the present sit- uation of these countries. However, each time they expressed their current difficulties of life in France, they used as a point of comparison yes- terday’s Algeria or Egypt, the present here and the past there becoming contemporary (Ragaru 2010, 58). Trips back are the yardstick for gauging a stop in time for the countries they left behind while they have continued to evolve elsewhere:  We left Algeria with people we knew, and then when we go back, we do not know any- one! [...] I went back to the courtyard where I used to live [...]. It moved me. Where my par- ents used to live, an Arab was living there, a Moroccan who let me in. My mother’s furni- ture was still there, they kept it, even the pic- ture frames. [Interlocutor François]11 For François and others, displacement is a posteriori, a pause in time and a bifurcation of time: that of the people in Algeria, trapped in ‘an immobile, regressive temporality’ (Ragaru 2010, 57), and that of the displaced people, who have remade their lives elsewhere.  Nevertheless, this perception sometimes coexists with an opposite feeling, the impres- sion that they have remained frozen in time and space, out of place, out of time, without place or time, as is typical of those who are absent. As Daniel Heller-Roazen stressed (2021), there are many ways to be absent and then many catego- ries of absentees who compose, in fact, a mul- titude: they could be the missing persons, per- 11 François, born in Oran in 1934, lives in Nîmes. Former civ- il servant. Interviewed in Nîmes, in 1997. Figure 6: ‘Ici c’est là-bas’ (meaning ‘Here is down there’), Oranîmes, 1996 (source: Michele Baussant Personal Archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ‘b et w ee n m ys el f a n d m ys el f li es m y t ru e c o u n t ry ’ . .. 23 sons who became non-persons in their societies of departure and come into being through un- explained disappearances; the diminished in- dividual, physically present in the societies yet whose rights and prerogatives are reduced; or the deceased, ‘a person who ceases to be some- one, without, for that matter, becoming any or- dinary thing’ (Heller-Roazen 2021, 6). A displaced person covers some of all these categories, transforming the dead left behind, those who flee and do not return, those who stay and keep the furniture and frames, those who become exiles who are not expected, not wanted, into absentees, and ghosts, as pointed out by Pas- cal Bouaziz (2021) in his song ‘Algeria’: When we went to Oran in 2004 with my lit- tle family of fake Jews who had disappeared inside themselves on pilgrimage, there was no doubt Algeria. You gave us that, Alge- ria. You gave us that, Algeria, along with the fear, the unease and the anguish of walking through your ghostly streets. But we were the ghosts walking through a ghost coun- try. We were the only tourists. The town was full of people who seemed to be alive, who looked at us like ghosts but didn’t say a word to us. [...] We were like the ghost town, Oran, which hadn’t moved for decades. We walked as Jewish ghosts, Jewish ghosts in a ghost town. And we walked into the old Jewish quarter that had disappeared, we Jews who had disappeared from themselves. We walked into the Jewish quarter that had disappeared. We walked like living ghosts from another country. We hardly dared to be there. We whispered like ghosts. We hardly dared to make a sound. And we ar- rived at Grandpa’s bakery. And we went into Grandpa’s bakery. And I saw that the boss knew who we were. And I saw that the boss did not want to know who we were. And I saw that Algeria was still afraid of us coming back. But there is no need to be afraid, Alge- ria. There is no need to be afraid. Who still dreams? Who still dreams of returning?’ Who Still Dreams? I grew up in a dissonant world with no corre- spondence between words and images, where everything I saw hid invisible worlds, past times sticking to the present, exotic and out of place, both literally and figuratively: a past that tells of the ‘disappeared’ people, places and objects among which I grew up. But where had they dis- appeared to, since I could point to these plac- es on a map, to see on current photos that they still existed, to touch the copper tray in the liv- ing room and talk about it with the people who had brought it back from Algeria? Something about them could no longer be seen even when they were there. They were out of sight. But for those who remembered them, it was at the same time as if, paradoxically, in a strange blindness, they were still there and continued to exist. I dis- covered and experienced them like a short-sight- ed person, covered by a veil where I could only make out the outlines without ever being able to avoid their presence. This dissonance shaped my research and my quest to see. I may have thought that I had discov- ered by chance the Mas de Mingue neighbour- hood in Nîmes and its pilgrimage to the Virgin of Santa Cruz, transposed from Oran (Algeria), to which I dedicated my Ph.D. in anthropolo- gy. While some people decried the event and the memories exchanged between Europeans from Algeria as a nostalgia - for some dubious - for the colonial world, I learned something else: a place of reunion and mourning, a space of devotion or a third space linking divided and hierarchical times, places and identifications. The sedimenta- tion, superimposition, discordance of the traces of memory, and the evocations and groups that carried them created a breach, opening in the now and the here in different places and times, beyond even Algeria and France. They reflected multiple interpretations of spatialities and histo- ricities, dense and loose points of identification (Rossetto 2018) and relationships, even conflict- ual ones, to different territories beyond Algeria and France. The horizon of existences did not align with state borders: their relevant territories st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 24 resided in relationships, not in ‘being here’, but in being together. Materiality and place remain a central theme in the social sciences and works on exile. Objects, places, and buildings are often viewed as points of stability and memory frames, as a form of continuity to an interrupted human life, assuming that ‘living matter and its history be- stow on the object a presence, which activates its entire surroundings’ (Borcherdt 2021). The plac- es and objects left behind became powerful at- tachment forms of memory and belonging, as Halbwachs (1941) pointed out. However, this fo- cus on materiality is likely because it is easier to know what one does with space than to know what one does with time (Heschel 1951). There has never been an easy answer for me on what to do with space. Of course, like many other re- searchers, I have long focused on the things and people that occupy space and how they inhabit it. However, the different sedimentations of lan- guages, places and names in which I lived made me doubt that material things give meaning to the temporality of individuals. Instead, the op- posite, temporality, gives meaning to the mate- rial world. During my childhood, I observed not an ar- chitecture of places but an architecture of the time, a palace in time (Heschel 1951) that re- shaped filiations and affiliations, linking them in continuity beyond the loss of places that broke them. A palace built from practices, mem- ories, names, languages, sounds, smells, and in- visible objects made visible that we can feel, understand, and touch without ever knowing them. Not a dream of return, a transmission: I, the child of exiles, explore the halls of this pal- ace of time, my home, with all the living and the dead I recognise as mine. References Bakhtine, M. 1970. Les problemes de la poétique de Dostoïevski. Lausanne: L’Âge d’Homme. Ballinger, P. 2012. ‘Entangled or “Extruded” Histories? Displacement, National Refugees, and Repatriation after the Second World War.’ Journal of Refugee Studies 25 (3): 366–386. Barnes, J. 1990. Models and Interpretation: Selected Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baussant, M. 2002. Pieds-noirs: mémoires d’exils. Paris: Stock. Baussant, M. 2023. ‘De quels exils sont faites les mémoires?’ In La mémoire collective en question(s): hommage à Marie-Claire Lavabre, edited by S. Gensburger and S. Lefranc, 439–449. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Benvenisti, M. 2002. Sacred Landscapes: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Borcherdt, G. 2021. ‘Byung-Chul Han: How Objects Lost Their Magic.’ ArtReview, August 11. https://artreview.com/byung- chul-han-how-objects-lost-their-magic/. Bouaziz, P. 2021. ‘Algérie.’ Track 2 on Mendelson, Le dernier Album. Ici D’Ailleurs, IDA149, compact disc. Brodsky, J. 1995. On Grief and Reason: Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Byrd, J. 2011. The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Čapo Žmegač, J. 2010. ‘Refugees, Co-Ethnic Migrants, and Diasporas: Blurring the Categories.’ In Co-Ethnic Migrations Compared: Central and Eastern European Contexts, edited by J. Čapo Žmegač, C. Voß, and K. Roth, 177–194. Munich: Sagner. Cassin, B. 2013. La Nostalgie: quand donc est-on chez soi? Paris: Autrement. Derrida, J. 1988. Mémoires pour Paul de Man. Paris: Galilée. Derrida, J. 1993. Le monolinguisme de l’autre. Paris: Galilée. Gordon, J. 2008. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ‘b et w ee n m ys el f a n d m ys el f li es m y t ru e c o u n t ry ’ . .. 25 Halbwachs, M. 1939. ‘La mémoire collective chez les musiciens.’ Revue Philosophique 127 (3/4): 136–165. Halbwachs, M. 1941. La topographie légendaire des Evangiles en Terre Sainte. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Halbwachs, M. 1994. Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Paris: Michel. Halbwachs, M. 1997. La mémoire collectiv. Paris: Michel. Hassoun, J. 1993. L’exil de la langue. Paris: Point Hors Ligne. Heller-Roazen, D. 2008. Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Heller-Roazen, D. 2021. Absentees: On Variously Missing Persons. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Heschel, A. 1951. The Shabbat: Its Meaning for Modern Man. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Lavabre, M.-C. 1994. Le fil rouge: sociologie de l mémoire communiste. Paris: Fondation nationale des sciences politiques. Lavabre, M.-C. 2000. ‘Usages et mésusages de la notion de mémoire.’ Critique Internationale 7 (1): 48–57. MacDougall, D. 2006. The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography and the Senses. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Magris, C. 2001. Déplacements. Translated by F. Brun. Paris: Vuitton. Milosz, C. 2001. To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays. Translated by M. Levine and B. Carpenter. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Naggar, C. 2007. Égypte: Retour. Paris: Misraïm. Perec, G. 1974. Espèces d’espaces. Paris: Galilée. Ragaru, N. 2010. ‘Voyages en identités: Les espaces-temps de l’appartenance des Turcs de Bulgarie installés en Turquie.’ Critique Internationale (47): 37–60. Ravy, G. 1996. ‘Je transportais dans mes mots les cadavres de trois langues: les années de jeunesse à Prague de Fritz Mauthner.’ In Allemands, Juifs et Tchèques à Prague: Deutsche, Juden und Tschechen in Prag, Bibliothèque d’études germaniques et Centre-Européennes, edited by M. Godé, J. Le Rider, and F. Mayer, 439–449. Montpellier: Université Paul-Valéry. Rossetto, P. 2018. ‘Dwelling in Contradictions: Deep Maps and the Memories of Jews from Libya.’ Ethnologies 39 (2): 167–187. Smith, A. 2009. ‘Coerced or Free? Considering Post-Colonial Returns.’ In Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World, edited by R. Bessel and C. Haake, 395–414. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, A., ed. 2003. Europe’s Invisible Migrants. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Stoler, A. L., and F. Cooper. 2013. Repenser le colonialisme. Paris: Payot. Trier, T. 1996. ‘Reversed Diaspora: Russian Jewry, the Transition in Russia and the Migration to Israel.’ Anthropology of East Europe Review 14 (1): 34–42. Trouillot, M. R. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, MA: Beacon. Xu, B. 2022. ‘Listening to Thunder in the Silence on Tiananmen: Politics and Ethics of the Memory of the June Fourth Movement.’ China Information 36 (1): 68– 89. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 26 Summary This article focuses on the linguistic, spatial and tempo- ral cartography of attachments among displaced people from the colonial worlds and how it shaped my research interests. These displaced have nothing to do with ro- mantic heroes persecuted, with refugees representing a just cause. They belonged to a ‘prosaic’ mass of peo- ple expelled or asked to leave because of their active or passive association with the colonial systems. Without pretending to be exhaustive, I retrace the experience and legacy of this cartography through the words that carry the ghosts or corpses of several languages, place names, daily, ritual and commemorative practices, ob- jects, senses and sensations. This exploration leads me to address the diversity of populations and their history of previous displacements – a heterogeneity that images of exiles from Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia or Morocco tend to relegate to the background. I explore how each border crossing has redrawn cartography of attachments and detachments, displacements and the crystallisation of social boundaries, and how each rupture has reinvented continuity. Through the malleability of languages, spac- es and material things, I am interested in how temporal- ity is traversed, stopped, restarted, turned back and pro- jected forward through places. This focus leads me to question materiality and place as points of stability and memory frames, as a form of continuity to an interrupt- ed human life and to give priority to temporality and time in our understanding of the material world: a time that reshapes filiations and affiliations, linking them in continuity beyond the loss of places. This reflection on time and materiality is finally a way to better under- stand the issue of absentees and non-persons related to displacement, transforming the dead left behind: those who flee and do not return, who stay and keep the fur- niture and frames, who become exiles, who are not ex- pected, not wanted, into absentees, and ghosts. Povzetek Članek se osredotoča na jezikovno, prostorsko in časov- no kartiranje navezanosti med razseljenimi osebami iz kolonialnih svetov in na to, kako je to oblikovalo moja raziskovalna zanimanja. Razseljene osebe nimajo zveze z romantičnimi preganjanimi junaki, upravičenimi be- gunci. Te osebe so pripadale »prozaični« množici ljudi, ki so bili izgnani ali pozvani, da odidejo zaradi svoje ak- tivne ali pasivne povezanosti s kolonialnimi sistemi. Ne da bi se pretvarjala, da sem izčrpna, ponovno beležim iz- kušnje in dediščino te kartografije skozi besede, ki no- sijo duhove ali trupla več jezikov, imen krajev, dnevnih, obrednih in spominskih praks, predmetov, čutov ter ob- čutkov. Skozi to raziskovanje obravnavam raznolikost prebivalstev in zgodovino njihovih preteklih razseli- tev – heterogenosti, ki jo podobe izgnancev iz Alžirije, Egipta, Tunizije ali Maroka običajno potisnejo v ozad- je. Raziskujem, kako je vsako prehajanje meje na novo zarisalo zemljevide navezanosti in odtujitev, premikov in kristalizacije družbenih meja ter kako je vsak prelom ponovno ustvaril kontinuiteto. Skozi poudarek na pro- žnosti jezikov, prostorov in materialnih stvari razisku- jem, kako začasnost prečiti, jo ustaviti, ponovno zagnati, obrniti nazaj in projicirati naprej skozi kraje. Na osnovi tega poudarka podvomim o materialnosti in kraju kot točkah stabilnosti ter spominskih okvirih kot obliki, ki daje kontinuiteto prekinjenemu človeškemu življenju, in v našem razumevanju materialnega sveta dajem pred- nost začasnosti ter času: času, ki preoblikuje sorodstva in pripadnosti, ki jih povezuje v kontinuiteti onkraj izgu- be krajev. Ta razmislek o času in materialnosti je končno način za boljše razumevanje vprašanja odsotnih in ne-oseb, povezanih z razseljevanjem, ki preoblikuje mrtve, ki so ostali za nami, tiste, ki bežijo in se ne vrnejo, tiste, ki ostanejo in obdržijo pohištvo ter slike, ki posta- nejo izgnanci, ki niso pričakovani, ki so nezaželeni, v od- sotne in duhove. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 27 ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)27-41 © aut hor/aut hors Remembering the Former Eastern Bloc: Who Owns the Legacy – the Case of Těchonín Spomin na nekdanji vzhodni blok: kdo je lastnik zapuščine – primer Těchonín Maria Kokkinou Researcher affiliated to the Anthropology of Politics Laboratory, LAP, EHESS, Paris, fellow at the Institute Convergence Migration, ICM. mkokkinou03@yahoo.com Abstract This article explores the recent history and heritage significance of Těchonín, a site former barracks turned into a convalescent home between 1950 and 1962. In this period, the facility hosted 600 refugees of the Greek civil war (1946–49) who were sheltered in Czechoslovakia. The article aims at exploring what long-lasting legacy the minorities have established and what formal recognition ought to be attrib- uted to them in commemorative monuments. The analysis of the issue is based on first-hand accounts from a refugee as well as on other private photographic archives of the refugee families in Těchonín. Keywords: legacy of minorities, monuments, Greek civil war refugees, Czechoslovakia, photographs Izvleček Članek je posvečen polpretekli zgodovini in pomenu dediščine Těchonína, mesta nekdanje vojašnice, med letoma 1950 in 1962 spremenjene v okrevališče. V tem obdobju je objekt gostil 600 beguncev iz grške državljanske vojne (1946–1949), ki so bili na Češkoslovaškem dobili zatočišče. Članek raziskuje, kakšno dolgotrajno zapuščino so ustvarile manjšine in kakšno formalno priznanje bi jim morali pripisa- ti v javnih spomenikih. Analiza teh vprašanj temelji na prvoosebnem pričevanju begunca ter na gradivu iz drugih zasebnih fotografskih arhivov begunskih družin v Těchonínu. Ključne besede: dediščina manjšin, spomeniki, begunci grške državljanske vojne, Češkoslovaška, fotografije Introduction What do the tombs of Greek refu-gees (photo 1) in a Czech cemetery opposite a military barracks in the North Moravia region of Silesia, in the village of Těchonín in the Czech Republic, tell us? Apart from showing us the (ultimate) pass- ing away from life to death for refugees, these tombs announce, through the declared absence that the annihilated body engenders, a presence that preceded it. And when we speak of the dead body of a refugee, we are also speaking of a ‘dis- placed’ body. These are the remains of a passage, perhaps, the passing vestiges that the refugees in Těchonín have left us. As a final trace, these tomb crosses open up a breach in the personal and col- lective experience of refugees in Eastern Europe, which lies between their previous existence and their definitive disappearance, inviting us to link the past with the present. In their book entitled Dissonant Heritage, Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996, 189–190) ask ‘what durable heritage the minorities are creating, and what recognition should be granted them in formal monuments’. In this paper, I investigate long-lasting legacy that the rather unknown minority of Greeks in Czechoslovakia has established and the forms st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 28 of formal recognition that ought to be attributed to it in commemorative monuments. Between 1950 and 1962, the military bar- racks in question, located in the village of Těchonín, were converted into a place to live and care for refugees from the Greek civil war (1946–1949) who were seriously injured, dis- abled (blind, paraplegic, etc.) and/or unable to work. During this period, they housed around 600 of the almost 12,000 refugees who came to Czechoslovakia. The latter were part of the 55,000 refugees scattered across Eastern Europe following the Greek civil war and were accepted as such by the People’s Democracies for a period of almost thirty years (see table 1). The Greek civil war that unfolded in 1946– 1949 between two opponents, the Commu- nist Party of Greece (in Greek Kommounis- tiko Komma Elladas, KKE) and its military branch, the Greek Democratic Army, (in Greek Dimocratikos Stratos Elladas, DSE) on the one side and on the other the national army of the Greek state, assisted initially by the British and then the American army, as the two political op- ponents claim to establish two different politi- cal visions; one from a socialist perspective, as the communists of that period understood so- cialism end, on the other hand a conservative/ liberal, or the remaining of Greece in the west- ern pole of influence. Greek civil war, is not only part of a national (Greek) history, but of a Eu- ropean one, as it is the first episode of the Cold War to be fought in Europe, involving Western powers with those of the Eastern Bloc both geo- graphically and politically. Most of the military operations of the civil war were conducted in the northern part of the country and forced both DSE fighters and the civilian population to flee the country through neighbouring countries, i.e., Albania, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia. With the term ref- ugees, the Greek and foreign-language litera- ture describes the DSE fighters and civilians, i.e., women, men, elderly, and children, both Greek and Slavic speaking population who fled Greece during the war. Even before the end of the civ- il war, the KKE had come to an understanding with the fraternal communist parties of the so- called Est bloc asking them to host the refugees. Thus, during the war and when the war was over, in August 1949, the refugee population was dis- tributed among the countries of the former east- ern bloc, a small part remained in the former Yu- goslavia, mostly Slavic-speaking refugees, and a smaller part in Albania, unlike to Bulgaria which hosted almost 3 thousand people.1 1 The literature, from a historical point of view, on the Greek Civil War is extremely rich. However, the issue of the refu- gees of the civil war and their stay in the countries of east- ern Europe has been studied by anthropologists, histori- ans and sociologists. Although the majority of the litera- ture is mostly in Greek, there are nevertheless English-lan- guage sources, indicatively for the civil war, e.g.: Carabott and Sfikas (2017); Panourgiá (2009); Baerentzen, Iatrides, and Smith (1987); Danforth and Van Boeschoten (2012). Figure 1: Athina M. in front of E.M.’s tomb in Těchonín, around 1958. (source: Personal archive of Savas) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 29 Refugees from the civil war, proved to be Greeks by origin,2 were allowed to return to Greece in 1982; some of them had already re- turned in 1975 after the fall of the military dic- tature which lasted 7 years, 1967–1974 (Anastas- sakis and Lagos 2021). Despite the repatriation of most of them, another part of them decided to settle permanently in the host countries. In ex-Eastern Europe, the former refugee population is no longer associated with refugee status; on the other hand, in some countries, this population has been granted national minor- ity status by the state, as is the case in Hunga- ry and the Czech Republic (Sarikoudi 2014, 237; Yupsanis 2019, 14). This allows them to claim a ‘lasting’ Greek presence in the country. I argue that although refugees of the Greek civil war have remained in host countries for more than 30 years their life in former Eastern Europe was characterized by a condition of to 2 The law on repatriation (Joint Decision no. 106841/ 29.12.1982 of the Ministers of the Interior and of Public Order 1982) had a double effect: on the one hand, it al- lowed the return to Greece of a large part of the refugees as Greek citizens, and, on the other hand, the same law placed outside the national body, and consequently outside the nation-state, another part of refugee–the ‘non-Greeks of origin’ –, in this case the Slavic speaking, or Macedonian refugees, who were Greek citizens but, as they belonged to a linguistic minority that spoke other languages, they were not considered to be Greeks by origin. cross (passer in French); I suggest that to cross os- cillates between move away, which becomes ab- sence – most of the refugees were repatriated – and presence, for those who definitely decided to stay in the ex-host countries, but altered presenc- es, because those refugees who remained are no longer recognized as such but designated under another status (Greeks from...) 3. I use the verb ‘to cross’, or ‘crossing’, in the spatial sense of the term, (to cross the borders, such as lands, walls, seas, etc.) in the case of refugees from the civ- il war, to move from northern Greece to neigh- bouring countries, then to cross one Eastern country to another, but also to cross, in the op- posite direction, from the host country to the country of origin. I also use to cross in the po- litical and social sense (Van Gennep 1981; Dubet 2018); from banishment living to Greece, be- cause refugees were considered enemies of the nation by the Greek state, to be hosted as refu- gee by Eastern countries; I understand to cross as a movement towards different social attributes and legal status; from stateless and undocument- ed – because the refugees from Greece had been 3 In the former host countries, the refugees who remained after 1982 set up Greek associations. Such associations can be found in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, etc. Table 1: Population of refugee numbers by country Country and population in 1950 - Children Adults 0-7 8–17 Total 18–55 +55 HUNGARY 7.253 472 6,6 % 2.465 33,9% 2907 4.316 59,5% ? BULGARIA 3.021 86 2,9% 586 19,4% 672 2.349 77,1% ? ROUMANIA 9.100 225 2,4% 4.959 54,5% 5184 3.916 43,1% ? POLAND 11.458 274 2,1% 2.875 24,8% 3149 8.409 73,1 ? GDR 1.128 193 17,1% 935 82,9% 1128 - - CZECHOSLOV. 11.941 846 7,1% 3.436 28,8% 4282 7.659 64, 1 ? USSR 11.980 - - - 33,9% - 11.980 TOTAL 55.881 2 096 15.256 38.629 Source: Central Committee of the KKE 2010, 329 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 30 stripped of their nationality  - to nationals, for- eigners or minorities. To cross then conjugates the social and po- litical space of refugees in time, that of the past and that of the present, where, in particular, to cross, which has since passed, has left few traces and claims to be recognized. It is this pasted crossing, which leaves few traces that is also indicated by the commemo- rative plaques on the former living quarters of the refugees, installed by those refugees who re- mained still in the countries of reception. What lasting legacy does the minority of Greek refu- gees in eastern Europe, and more particularly in Czechoslovakia, have the right to claim in this condition of crossing sited between presence and absence? These plaques, which are not ‘relict physi- cal survival from the past’ (Tunbridge and Ash- worth 1996,1), affirm the crossing of the Greek in Hungary. How can we speak of a lasting legacy, and especially what legacy is that of the crossing of Greek refugees in Eastern Europe in general, and in the specific case of Těchonín in partic- ular? From this arises the central research ques- tion of the present paper: What are the trajecto- ries of memorialisation, or even heritageisation, of this movement of the Greek minority in to- day’s Czech Republic? And, consequently, what could be the forms of formal recognition that ought to be attributed to it in commemorative monuments? State of the Art on the Issue Anthropological work on refugees from the Greek Civil War in Northern Macedonia, Hun- gary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria (Monova 2002; Fokasz 2013; Sarikoudi 2014; Kokkinou 2019) respectively, and historical work (Lam- batos 2001; Daskalov 2008; Tsekou 2010; Tsivos 2019; Semczyszyn 2016) on refugees in Tash- Figure 2: The tobacco factory, in Hungarian Dohánygyár, where some of the refugees were received when they arrived in Budapest (photo: Kokkinou, 2021) Figure 3: A commemorative plaque placed by the ref- ugees on the front wall of Dohánygyár which states (in Greek): ‘In memory of all the Greek refugees who found from 1949 to 1966 in this place a new homeland and a peaceful and happier life’; placed in 2003 by the Greek community in Hungary (photo: Kokkinou, 2021) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 31 kent, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland of- ten multi-sited – combining ethnographic field- work and archival sources located in Greece and post–socialist Europe have one thing in com- mon: they examine the lives of refugees and their descendants such as it is (tel quel). Using life his- tories and archival sources, they analyse, on the one hand, the memories and experiences of the war and, on the other, the collective life of the different generations of refugees during the pe- riod of exile, bringing to light common/contig- uous issues relating to nationality, citizenship and national and local belonging, in particular, in the case of Slave-speaking population; the vio- lence they have suffered and then to forms of po- litical, even communist instruction, and finally to the imaginary of return. While these various studies make it possible to draw links and analo- gies between the lives of refugees in the different host countries, they remain compartmentalized into case studies, often focusing on the refugee population. Methodology In order to identify the different trajectories of memorialisation, or even heritageisation pro- cess (Harvey 2001; Harrison 2013) of Greeks in Czechoslovakian, I use ethnographic data which were collected during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although I was living in Prague during this pe- riod, travel restrictions did not allow fieldwork in the site of Těchonín, while the interview with the interlocutor was conducted online using the photo elicitation method. The only interlocutor in this ethnograph- ic research is Savas, born in 1952 and aged 69 in 2021 when the interview was conducted. Savas is a second-generation refugee, born in the Czech Republic from refugee parents and who, being a child of the period in question, bears the mem- ory of his life there, from 1954 to 1962, when his family left Těchonín. According to him, it’s im- possible to find any other interlocuters about Těchonín since the other tenants were at the pe- riod already adults and the most of them have passed away. That being said, and from a disciplinary point of view, this ethnographic research is char- acterized by incompleteness; there is no satura- tion of information, and this is explained by the fact that the interlocutor in question is a witness and may be the only one that I could find. To what extent does the testimony of a single per- son describe a social reality? ‘Testimony’, notes Annette Wieviorka ‘especially when it is part of a mass movement, expresses, as much as individ- ual experience, the discourse or discourses that society holds, at the moment when the witness is telling his story, on the events that the wit- ness has lived through’ (Wieviorka 1998, 13). Sa- vas’ desire to speak out, to make the history of Těchonín known, even knowable, reflects what the refugees’ commemorated plaques in tobacco factory, Dohánygyár, located on Budapest have done: to leave a trace that attests to their pres- ence in the country. The Presence of Greek Refugees in Eastern Europe: Multiple Legacies at Stake The case of Těchonín, is a representative exam- ple of the issue of multiple inheritance. Howev- er, what remains of the period when the refugees were received in the military barracks, are their photographs in situ, in their private collections, Savas collection, which represent part of their lives. Another, central source is the testimony of Savas. Can the memory of the use of the build- ing, which no longer bears any trace of its for- mer function, photographs of life in situ, and the graves of its former ‘tenants’, build a ‘lasting her- itage’ (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996) about the reception of refugees? Is this reception, embod- ied in places of coexistence and habitation dot- ted around Eastern Europe, as in the case of the Těchonín, a legacy to be preserved, and if so, for whom? Images stimulate the evocation of memo- ry alongside the mental images that subjects call upon in their narratives. Using photographs, the actors in the case of Těchonín, ‘do not only elab- orate other narratives’, as Maurice Bloch (1995, st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 32 64) suggests, the photographs also allow us both, interlocutors and researchers, to escape from our own representations of the period in question but also to understand, through the narratives of the refugees in their photographs, the social- ist period in which these images were taken. For the people involved, they are also a way of pre- serving their memory before they disappear. The narrative(s) on the reception of Greek refugees in Eastern Europe is, therefore, on the verge of writing another narrative that becomes a multiple heritage issue, because it contains the memory of the foreigners and defeated of the Greek civil war during the socialist period in the countries of Eastern Europe. In these two pasts, the narratives that form a link between Eastern and Western Europe, passing through the local to the national, encourage us to revisit the social- ist past (and its ‘vestiges’) from the point of view of refugees. The Arrival of Refugees in Eastern Europe: a Three-stage Installation After the defeat of the DSE in 1949, a forced ex- odus of refugees from Greece took place. The agreements concluded earlier between KKE and East European Communist Parties resulted in the dispersal of refugees throughout the so- called Eastern bloc: from Bulgaria to the distant city of Tashkent in Uzbekistan. The adult refugee population, composed of men and women (partisans and civilians) and el- derly people, were initially provided with tempo- rary accommodation in places such as camps: in Berkovitsa in Bulgaria (Kokkinou 2019, 37), in Mikulov, Lešany and Svatobořice in the Czech Republic (Sarikoudi 2014, 99), or at factories such as Dohánygyár in Budapest, (Fokasz 2013), while children who arrived at the host countries before the end of the war, particularly in 1948, were accommodated in places specifically pre- pared for them, a kind of boarding school, or in Greek, pedikos stathmos (Danforth and Van Boeschoten 2012). The return of the refugees to Greece was not as immediate as had been estimated, and the set- tlement of the refugees, although intended to be temporary for them, quickly became necessary for the host countries. So, as soon as 1950, a sec- ond redistribution of refugees, ordered accord- ing to labour needs, was put in place, this time within the country, sending them to different towns and villages with, in parallel, the process of reuniting families, whose members had been scattered across different countries. This process lasted almost 10 years, and it also led to a further displacement of refugees within the bloc. In the Czech Republic, healthy and able-bodied refugees were scattered throughout the Moravia region; in Krnov and Jesenik (Sa- rikoudi 2014, 100). Some of them also found themselves in the Silesia region, where the village of Těchonín was also located, living in forcibly emptied houses belonging to Czechs of German origin who had been expelled from Czechoslo- vak territory following the end of the Second World War. However, as Sarikoudi (2014, 100–101) notes, it soon became clear [to the authorities] that these regions were unable to offer work to all the refugees who were sent there. Many in- dustries had closed before the war, and even those that were open were remote, which, combined with the poor transport network, meant that Greeks could not be employed there. The Czechoslovak CP, (Komunistická strana Československa, KSČ), therefore de- cided to promote these new workers in the industrial sector, particularly in the textile industry. From the spring of 1950, the refu- gees began to leave their original homes and were sent to villages such as Zláte Hory, Re- jviz, Jindřichov, Janornik, Žulová and Buk- ová, in the Jesenik prefecture. Heavy indus- try workers also travelled to neighboring regions such as Šumperk and Dvůr Králové. The Case of the reception Centre in Těchonín The military barracks in Těchonín were used by the Czechoslovak Red Cross and re- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 33 named Domov ČSČK (in the Czech lan- guage Dům Červeného kříže  - Centrum péče Československého červeného kříže), Red Cross House  - Care Centre of the Czechoslovak Red Cross as a convalescent home for refugees from 1950–1951 until 1962, when the barracks re- turned to their original use, and refugees un- fit for work moved on to other towns. Among the tenants of Domov ČSČK was the family of Savas, who lived there between the ages of two and seven (born in 1952), and today bears witness to this place. In his unpublished memories dedi- cated to this period of his life in Těchonín, enti- tled ‘Těchonín, Memories of ’, Savas (n.d.) notes that: I wanted to write a few words about Těchonín (Tiechonín) because very little is known about it and I have found almost nothing written about this place, which for several years took in sick and injured politi- cal refugees and their families.4 Těchonín is not unique; such places also existed in other countries, such as the town of Bankia in Bulgaria (Kokkinou 2019, 122). What is the interlocutor claiming through his text on Těchonín other than to produce a trace of a res- idue of the refugees’ crossing through the East- ern bloc, that is none other than memories and photographs? If for Savas leaving a ‘remnant’ in Těchonín is synonymous with producing part of the histo- ry of refugees in socialist countries, for us the de- bris of this passage allows us to retrace, through testimony and photographs, part of the life of refugees in the countries of Eastern Europe and a glimpse of their reception in so-called social- ist Europe. On Site: Snapshots of Community Life5 In Techonin, the refugees were housed in the soldiers’ dormitories, most of the them were there alone, while those who were there with their families had their own flats. This was the case of Savas’ family, who lived with his parents and sister in an equipped flat, the family of the 4 Unpublished article, written in Czech, sent to me by the contact person. 5 The photographs and the account of the collective life of refugees on the spot are taken from Savas’s. Figure 4: Savas’ family: his parents and his two half-brothers, he and his sister in the barracks, n.d. around 1957 (source: Savas’ personal archive) Figure 5: Civilians from barracks, picking flax in the cooperative, n.d. around 1958 (source: Savas’ personal archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 34 person in charge of Domov ČSČK, another ref- ugee family, and so on. Apart from the Czech staff in charge, some refugees also worked in the barracks: Savas’ fa- ther as a translator, while at the same time being responsible for reuniting the families of the ref- ugees;6 his mother in the kitchen, like another refugee; or even outside the barracks: in cooper- atives (photo 5), in forestry work and field work, hoeing beetroot and cabbage, harvesting flax, ce- reals, chamomile, etc. Lastly, some women worked in the village textile factory (Figure 6). Life in the barracks was punctuated by meals, medical visits, and communal life; Savas recounts that some of the refugees played musical instruments (Figure 7), another had created his own garden, and some were busy repairing old cars that were aban- doned next to the barracks outpost. He ends his text ‘Těchonín, Memories of ’ by writing that: I would like to mention here that the Greeks were very disciplined throughout their stay in the barracks and that they got on very well with the Czech inhabitants of the village, even in terms of friendship and coopera- tion, and I don’t remember seeing the slight- est conflict. 6 According to Savas, Těchonín was ‘a gathering point for children in Czechoslovakia who had parents in other so- cialist countries to whom they went to join them’. From Testimonial to Archive: or Additions and Gaps Although most refugees from the civil war were of rural origin, they did not form a homogene- ous group, either ethnically  – among the refu- gees there were Slavic speaking refugees, who identified themselves as Macedonians and who, although Greek citizens, constituted a linguis- tic minority with its own identity  – or politi- cally; not all the refugees were communists, and among those who were, we find ideological dif- ferences, both then and now, to which I shall re- turn (Kokkinou 2019). It was during the exile the first crisis within Greek Communist Party - KKE broke out, also in relation to the living conditions of the refu- gees there and the reasons for its defeat. Known as the ‘Tashkent events’, which took place in Au- gust-September 1955, in the wake of de-Stalini- zation, the party crisis arose in the same year as the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union Com- munist Party (CPSU), in the city of the of Tash- kent. Here 12.000 refugees, mainly supporters of the DSE, were taken in, half of them mem- bers of KKE. This crisis was characterized by violent incidents culminating in bloody clash- es among communists, sparked by the dismiss- al of the party’s former general secretary, N. Za- hariadis, on the one hand, and the election of K. Koligianis in his place on the other, which divid- ed KKE members into supporters of one or oth- er of the party’s general secretaries (Kokkinou 2019, 213). Following the dismissal of the former secretary, the new leadership proceeded to expel party members who were supporters of Zahari- adis and to intensify ideological control of com- munist refugees in all host countries. In this context of political and ideological upheaval within KKE, the position of the Com- munist refugees in the face of the Soviet army’s invasion of Budapest in November 1956 pro- voked intense political conflicts which, however, were not openly expressed (Fokas 2016). What is more, the archives we have do not mention any involvement of Communist refugees in the events in Budapest, still less on the side of the Figure 6: Workers at the textile mill, n.d. around 1954 (source: Savas’ personal archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 35 ‘counter-revolutionaries’. However, as the histo- rian K. Tsivos, mentions, a rumour spread that the refugees supported the Soviet intervention, a rumour  – unfounded  – that was also spread by the radio station Free Europe (Tsivos 2022, 72). Among the incidents against refugees, men- tioned in the KKE archives, are threats to em- ployees and residents of a pedikos stathmos in Ballaton Kenese by Hungarian demonstrators, and the death of a 17-year-old refugee in the Sta- lin-Varos region (Tsivos 2022, 72–73). As a result of this situation, the historian continues, the ref- ugees asked to leave the country, a proposal that was adopted both by the head of KKE in Hun- gary and by the Hungarian Communist Party, which asked for refugees to be sent to other so- cialist countries. In December 1956, 800 of them arrived in Těchonín. However, the behaviour of these refugees was completely different from that of the tenants of the barracks. In his report, the director of Těchonín (Tsivos 2022, 72) not- ed that: With the Greeks from Hungary, we were confronted with phenomena of extreme nationalism, Western mores and attitudes, particularly among young people, hostile attitudes towards the Soviet Union and its army, while, according to some complaints, certain political refugees should not have come here because they sided with the coun- ter-revolution at the time of the events [in Budapest]. Savas, who recalls the arrival of refugees from Hungary at Těchonín, does not com- ment on the context of their departure or the di- vergence of positions within KKE at the time. However, in his interview about Těchonín and its importance for the lives of refugees in Czech- oslovakia, he notes that: for me it is important and it was important this system, this socialist system showed me that at the time, at the beginning of popular democracy, [that] it could help people, that is to say those who were in a difficult situa- tion [...]. Often, but not always, refugees’ accounts of their time in the host countries, especially those who remained loyal to KKE even after the end of exile, play down the tensions that arose within the refugee population and/or between KKE ex- ecutives on the spot and the refugees. They also often avoid commenting on the unfavourable conditions in which some refugees found them- selves because of their ideological differences, al- though in some cases this was an open secret. Their accounts presented the refugee commu- nities as a coherent whole, without antagonisms and closely linked to the Party. This practice of embellishing refugee communities with regard to outsiders, i.e. those who are not our commu- nist comrades, can be explained, on one hand, by the polemics created about the history of the civil war and its memory in Greek society, and particularly in Greek historiography, and on the other hand, by the widespread anti-communism in Eastern Europe on the other (Blaive 2020), which have produced within refugee communi- Figure 7: Těchonín’s musicians tenants, n.d. around 1957 (source: Savas’ personal archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 36 ties a form of ‘protective’ narration of their his- tory and their past. Back to Těchonín or the Paradox of Images? The ‘Hungarian Greeks’ did not stay in Těchonín for very long; soon after their arrival, in March of the following year, they were sent to industri- al towns near the German-Polish border (Tsivos 2022, 74). In this way, the barracks, which had (for a short time) also been transformed into a place of shelter, returned to their original use as military barracks. We have not found photographic record of the crossing of the ‘Greeks from Hungary’ to Těchonín, and paradoxical as it may seem, among the photographs of Savas, there are no photographs showing sick people convalescing in the barracks. Savas personal photographic ar- chive from Těchonín do, in fact, show us a life around this place of care, to such an extent that, looking at them, one wonders whether they can be associated with the place where they were tak- en, since none of the clues, apart from the back- ground showing buildings which, however, bear no sign of a health care establishment, or of the Red Cross, provide any indication of a specific place, located either in a town or in a city (and therefore in a country). Is it possible, moreover, that these photographs could have been taken not in a convalescent home but in other plac- es, located in the towns or villages where the refugees lived and who, on one occasion or an- other, found themselves together? Didi Huber- man (2003, 49–49) writes about the four pho- tographs of Auschwitz: ‘The images are nothing but torn shreds, bits of film. They are therefore inadequate: what we see [...] is still little com- pared to what we know.’ Savas’ photographs of refugee life in Těchonín represent a piece of refugee life in ex- ile; Looking at these photographs, we realize that we do not know who took the photos, who the people in the photos are – with a few excep- tions – or on what occasion they were taken. Yet, despite these gaps, these photographs make us aware of certain aspects of refugee life beyond Těchonín. The first thing that the Savas photographs on refugees reveal is the place of the family in life in exile. Their family photographs immor- talize the repair of family ties severed by the ex- odus, a primary preoccupation of refugees in ex- ile. In addition to their use as souvenirs of this reunion, which can be found today in the photo boxes of its members, the family photos served another purpose: they were both the message and the herald of this reunion, which their dis- patch to the countries of the Eastern Bloc and to Greece heralded. Family portraits  – well- dressed and carefully presented, prepared to take the photo – were a widespread communication practice among refugees scattered across differ- ent host countries and those who remained in Greece. They are photographs that migrate, mi- grant-photographs, in the form of postcards of families that circulate among refugees. Among these photographs we find unplanned snapshots, taken at random, but also just the opposite, pho- tographs taken carefully, by people who have taken the time and care to prepare themselves, with a view to being seen. In both cases, these photographs convey the message of a reunion (occasional or permanent) between members of the same family in one country, or the fact that the refugees pictured were living well where they were, thanks to their appearance – well-dressed in the host country. Savas’ photographs on Těchonin also show what would come to characterize the lives of ref- ugees in exile: their proletarianization. Although the refugees initially settled in rural areas, most of them being of rural origin, the introduction of heavy industrialization by the countries of East- ern Europe soon transformed this population from farmers into workers. Finally, the life of the refugees in the coun- tries of Eastern Europe included socialization among themselves, part of which was the crea- tion of musical groups and choirs created by the refugees, which were a way of linking them to- gether. Involving people of all ages, older and st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 37 younger, these groups encouraged the transmis- sion of language and national sounds from old- er to younger generations. The participation of these groups in festivals held in other towns and then in other countries  – a strong incentive to take part  – created encounters and friendships between refugees living in other countries, and links with ‘our own’ people who, like them, were refugees elsewhere A sort of prelude about the social life of ref- ugees on the host countries also gives, musician’s photography (Figure 7). Savas remembers during his interview: I saw that they were coming and I wished they would, and I expected it, there were too many young people coming, young children with suitcases, they were coming to see their parents who lived there (in Těchonín), but they were also coming for another reason, there was, let’s say, not a festival, but choirs from different towns would gather there, because this continued after the ‘50s, when the refugees started to organize themselves here, i.e. in every big town, there was a dance and singing choir and they existed (every- where) in the Czech Republic, […] there was one in Jeseník, in Ostrava, in Krnov, […] they used to get together in Jeseník to hold a fes- tival, they used to come a lot in the summer, all afternoon, [I’d see] expeditions with suit- cases, young children, let’s say 18 to 30 years old, [they] used to come there, and I always listened to the rehearsals in the summer, from morning to night […]. I would listen to the accordion, the mandolins […] they would give a performance or a program to those who were there, but the important thing was to establish a sort of link with the oth- er Greeks. Τhe most important element that Savas Těchonín’s photographs highlight is the fact that the refugees from Greece made up a ‘col- lective being’, in the sense that A. Piette notes: ‘What is a collective being, if it is not in a sit- uation the liaison of human beings? We would say that it is support, associated with a set of rules and points of reference’ (Piette 2010, 361). Forged by common experience of war and dis- placement, albeit varied according to age, and place within the war: partisans, civilians, adults, and children, the sub-categories of this ‘collec- tive being’, such as children, able-bodied adults and disabled people, lived together in the new frameworks of life in exile assigned to them by their host socialist countries. This form of living collectively, among their own people, alongside their life with the natives has enabled refugees, during exile, to build their lives, and gradually to adapt to the host societies. By Way of Epilogue What do the photographs of refugees tell us about the crossing of refugees through Eastern Europe in the past, and what can they reveal to us today? According to Sanjay Subrahmanyam (2014, 14–15), to better comprehend how a global histo- ry is created, both currently and in the past, we must highlight a fact that may seem ap- parent: history is an egocentric narrative. The concept of the ‘self ’ in history progress- es from one’s family, clan, and ethnic group, to their city, homeland, or region, and ul- timately to the nation-state, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing on- wards. Despite this egoistic tendency in historical narratives, it is imperative to ac- knowledge the existence of others? In line with this thought, the experience of the crossing ‘Czechoslovak Greeks of Tehonin’ recounts the history of post-war Greece, as well as of Communist Czechoslovakia. The recep- tion of refugees from Greece in Czechoslovakia, as elsewhere throughout Eastern Europe, reflects the polarity of the post-World War II world, on the one hand, and on the other, a conception of the reception of refugees collectively, in terms of a group, unlike the post-1989 period where this reception policy is becoming more of a case-by- case examination. Today, in a unified Europe st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 38 with little inclination to welcome foreigners, this history of welcoming refugees, or to put it otherwise, the Communist past of welcoming refugees, is gradually being erased, since it is part of the Communist past that the former Eastern Bloc countries no longer wish to remember. For refugees in Greece, on the other hand, this com- munist past is a past of hospitality was the op- portunity for them to survive and build a life, while waiting to return to Greece without hav- ing to prove their condition as exiles. During interviews with Savas, I enquired about his fascination with the Těchonín case. Aside from its history as a convalescent haven that saved 600 refugees, Savas emphasized the significance of Těchonín as the foundation for his family’s existence: ‘Without Těchonín, we wouldn’t be here today.’ Savas’s recollection of Těchonín illuminates a familial history rooted in refuge, not only for himself, but also for others. This history also un- derpins a sense of welcome and gratitude in East- ern countries. Consequently, the family’s histor- ical memory intertwines with a collective history of refugees from the Greek Civil War, spanning beyond Czechoslovakia (Figures 8 & 9). As Halbwachs observes (1997, 63), this is a shared connection: It is insufficient to piece together the image of a past event in order to form a memory. The reconstruction must rely on communal data or ideas held by both us and others, as these continually exchange from one person to another and vice versa. This type of shar- ing is only achievable if we are all part of the same society. While the history of Savas is collective, it may not necessarily be deemed as a lasting her- itage produced by its subjects. The testimony of Savas is the sole source available to us of the pe- riod in question. Nonetheless, the photographs of the location expand upon his testimony. Im- ages of refugees represent more than solely an in- dividual, and their tangibility permits us to un- derstand and visualize the collective hardships endured, that have been manifested in places of refuge. These captured images of life reveal a his- torical narrative that spans generations – those featured in the photograph, the one who holds it and the one who will inherit it. During the interview, Savas emphasized the importance of documenting the history of Těchonín, stressing the need for wider recogni- tion beyond the former refugees in Czechoslova- kia, many of whom are not acquainted with it. He ended the interview by expressing his desire for proving the existence of Těchonín’s by help of research, stating: ‘I am currently 68–69 years old and unsure of my longevity. I am likely one of the last individuals with such a connection [with the Techonin site] and therefore hope evidence of its existence will be proven.’ Photo 8: The director of the Těchonín and partners of the Red Cross, around 1960 (source: Savas’ personal archive) Photo 9: Savas’s sister with a Czech nurse in Těchonín, around 1958 (source: Savas’ personal archive) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 39 The written trace is essential to keeping the history of refugees in Těchonín alive. Who should claim ownership of the history stemming from the refugees’ traces, and via which criteria do countries within the former Eastern bloc re- gard these refugee traces as heritage worth pre- serving? Savas (n.d.) in ‘Těchonín, Memories of ’ concludes by highlighting that: a monument was erected, with the assis- tance of Těchonín’s municipality, near the village cemetery, where 104 Greeks were laid to rest, back in 1979. The monument com- prises a large stone sourced from a nearby stream, on which a marble plaque has been affixed. The plaque bears the inscription: ‘With this monument, we honour the mem- ory of deceased Greek citizens who resided in the Czech Republic from 1949. May their memory endure’. The monument in Těchonín commemo- rates a chapter in the history of the transit, the crossing of refugees to Eastern Europe, prompt- ing queries on the selection of this site for un- well refugees. It speaks of an ‘antagonistic’ me- morialisation, since it is situated between those who want to remember their time in the so- called communist countries and those who want to forget the so-called communist past. In this sense, the presence of the refugees materialis- es the question posed by P. Lagrou is it ‘possible for Europe to become an area of shared memory’ (Lagrou 2011, 281–288). The refugee monuments erected by and for refugees demand the voices of refugees to be comprehended, including their testimonies and photographs. Although not comprehensive, these traces allow insight into the history of refugees in Eastern Europe, shed- ding light on this part of the region’s past. These traces allow us to understand the passage of refu- gees in Eastern Europe while highlighting what past the present wants to remember. References Anastassakis, O., and K. Lagos. 2021. The Greek Military Dictatorship: Revisiting a Troubled Past 1967–1974. New York: Berghahn. Baerentzen, L., J. O. Iatrides, and O. L. Smith. 1987. Studies in the History of the Greek Civil War 1945–1949. Copenhague: Museum Tusculanum Press. Blaive, M., ed. 2020. Perceptions of Society in Communist Europe: Regime Archives and Popular Opinion. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Bloch, M. 1995. ‘Mémoire autobiographique et mémoire historique du passé éloigné.’ Enquête 2 (2): 59–76. Carabott, P., and T. D. Sfikas. 2017. The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict of Exceptionalism and Silences. Abingdon: Routledge. Central Committee of the KKE. 2010. The 3rd Conference of the KKE, 10–14 October 1950: Proceedings; Proposals, Speeches, Decisions. Athens: Synchroni Epochi. Danforth, L. M., and R. Van Boeschoten. 2012. Children of the Greek Civil War, Refugees and the Politics of Memory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Daskalov, G. 2008. Greek Political Refugees in Bulgaria 1946–1989. Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski. Didi-Huberman, G. 2003. Images Malgré Tout. Paris: De Minuit. Dubet, F., ed. 2018. Politiques Des Frontières. Recherches/Fondation pour les sciences sociales. Paris: La Découverte. Fokas, N. 2016. ‘What to Do as Greeks: The Greek Political Refugees during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Based on the Reports of the Central Committee of the KKE on the Party Organization in Hungary.’ Arhiotaxio 18:38–50. Fokasz, N., ed. 2013. Identitások Határán: Közösségi Élet És Beilleszkedési Stratégiák a Magyarországi Görögök Körében 1949–2012. Budapest: Új Mandátum Könyvkiadó. Halbwacs, M. 1997. La mémoire collective. Paris: Michel. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 40 Harrison, R. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge. Harvey, D. C. 2001. ‘Heritage Pasts and Heritage Presents: Temporality Meaning and the Scope of Heritage Studies.’ International Journal of Heritage Studies 7 (4): 319–338. Joint Decision no. 106841/29.12.1982 of the Ministers of the Interior and of Public Order. 1982. Official Journal, Vol. B, no. 1. Kokkinou, M. 2019. ‘Instituer l’attente: la DOMÉ et les réfugiés politiques de la guerre civile grecque (1949–2010).’ PhD diss., School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. Lagrou, P. 2011. ‘Europe as a Place for Common Memories? Some Thoughts on Victimhood, Identity and Emancipation from the Past.’ In Clashes in European Memory: The Case of Communist Repression and the Holocaust, edited by M. Blaive, C. Gerbel, and T. Lindenberer, 281–288. Innsbruck: StudienVerlag. Lambatos, G. 2001. Ellines politiki prosfiges stin Taskendi 1949–1957. Athens: Kourier. Monova, M. 2002. ‘Parcours d’exil, récits de non-retour: les Égéens en République de Macédoine.’ PhD diss., School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. Panourgiá, N. 2009. Dangerous Citizens: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State. New York: Fordham University Press. Piette, A. 2010. ‘Comparative Ontographies: Divinities and Collective Beings.’ Ethnologie Française 40 (2): 357–363. Sarikoudi, G. 2014. ‘Opsis tis zois ton ellinon prosfigon stin Tsehiki Dimokratia, proin Tsexoslovakia, mia antthropologiki proseggisi.’ PhD diss., Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Savas, K. P. N.d. ‘Těchonín, Memories of.’ Unpublished written material. Semczyszyn, M. 2016. ‘The Communist Security Apparatus and Greek Refugees in the Polish People’s Republic.’ Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki 24 (2): 196–210. Subrahmanyam, S. 2014. Aux origines de l’ histoire globale. Paris: Collège de France. Tsekou, K. 2010. Prosorinos diamenontes: ellines politikoi prosfuges sti laiki dimokratia tis Voulgarias 1948–1982. Thessaloniki: Epikendro. Tsivos, K. 2019. O megalos kaîmos tis xenitias : ellines politikoi prosfiges stin Tsehoslovakia, 1948–1989. Athènes: Alexandria. Tsivos, K. 2022. ‘Yperoria kai Kinitikotita; metakinisi 800 prosfigon apo tin Ouggaria stis Tsehoslovakia meta ta gegonota tou 1956.’ Arhiotaxio 24:65–77. Tunbridge, J. E., and J. G. Ashworth. 1996. Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: Wiley. Van Gennep, A. 1981. Les rites de passage: étude systématique des rites. Paris: Picard. Wieviorka, A. 1998. L’ ère du temoin. Paris: Plon. Yupsanis, A. 2019 ‘Cultural Autonomy for Minorities in Hungary a Model to Be Followed or a Futile Promise?’ International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 26 (1). https://doi. org/10.1163/15718115-02601004. Archives Savas, Personal archive of photographs. Summary Following the Greek civil war (1946–49), around 55.000 people were dispersed to Eastern Europe, which ac- cepted them as refugees. This population, composed of men and women, old people and children, Greek-speak- ers and Slav-speakers, Communists and non-Commu- nists, was prevented from returning to Greece for over thirty years. Although most of the refugees returned to Greece once the Greek state had given them per- mission to do so, another part of them decided to stay in their former host countries for good. The obligatory stay of refugees in the former Eastern Bloc countries is today dotted with traces of their presence, as evidenced by commemorative plaques and monuments attesting to their passage to the socialist countries. Based on the st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i r em em be r in g t h e fo r m er e a st er n b lo c : w h o o w n s t h e le g a c y  – t h e c a se o f t ěc h o n ín 41 example of Techonín, a village in Silesia in the Czech Republic where military barracks were transformed into a convalescent home for sick and severely disabled refugees in the period 1950–1962, this article aims to dis- cuss the relationship between minority, heritage and memory by attempting to answer what lasting legacy the minority of Greek refugees in Eastern Europe, and more particularly in Czechoslovakia, is entitled to claim in this condition of former welcome? What are the tra- jectories of memorialisation, or even heritageisation, of this movement of the Greek minority and what forms of formal recognition should be attributed to it in com- memorative monuments, are some of the questions that this article poses and attempts to provide some food for thought. Based on an ethnographic research carried out under exceptional conditions, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, and using the photo elicitation method, we present the testimony of a former refugee on the case of Techonín, trying to understand how individual memo- ry leads to collective heritage. Povzetek Po grški državljanski vojni (1946–1949) se je okoli 55.000 Grkov porazgubilo po vzhodni Evropi, ki jih je sprejela kot begunce. Temu prebivalstvu, moškim in ženskam, starejšim in otrokom, grško govorečim in govorcem slo- vanskih jezikov, komunistom in nekomunistom, je bila več kot trideset let preprečena vrnitev v Grčijo. Čeprav se je večina beguncev vrnila v Grčijo, ko jim je grška dr- žava to končno dovolila, se je del teh oseb odločilo za vedno ostati v nekdanjih državah gostiteljicah. Prisilno bivanje beguncev v državah nekdanjega vzhodnega blo- ka je danes zabeleženo v sledovih njihove prisotnosti, o čemer pričajo spominske plošče in spomeniki, ki pripo- vedujejo o njihovem prehodu v socialistične države. V pričujočem članku ob primeru šlezijske vasi Těchonín na Češkem, kjer so v obdobju 1950–1962 nekdanje vojaš- nice spremenili v okrevališča za bolne in hudo invalidne begunce, razmišljam o razmerju med manjšino, dedišči- no in spominom ter poskušam odgovoriti na vprašanje, kakšno trajno zapuščino ima manjšina grških beguncev v vzhodni Evropi, zlasti na Češkoslovaškem, pravico za- htevati glede na preteklo bivanje v tej državi. Kakšne so poti memorializacije ali celo dediščinjenja tega premika grške manjšine in kakšne oblike uradnega priznanja bi mu bilo treba posvetiti v spomenikih? To so nekatera od vprašanj, ki jih preizprašuje ta članek in poskuša ponu- diti nekaj gradiva za razmišljanje. Na podlagi etnograf- ske raziskave, izvedene v izjemnih razmerah, v času pan- demije covida-19, in z uporabo metode fotoelicitacije predstavljam pričevanje nekdanjega begunca o prime- ru Těchonín ter poskušam razumeti, kako individualni spomin vodi do kolektivne dediščine. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 43 © aut hor/aut horsht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)43-65 Tales from the Greek-Albanian Borderland: Memory of Violence and Displacement in Western Epirus Zgodbe z grško-albanskega obmejnega območja: spomin na nasilje in razseljenost v zahodnem Epiru Pierre Sintès TELEMMe, Aix-Marseille-Université - CNRS, France pierre.sintes@univ-amu.fr  Abstract: The border between Greece and Albania has a chequered history. Its establishment in 1913 ceded to Al- bania a territory conquered by Greece during the Balkan wars and left outside Albania a large part of the territories claimed by Albanian nationalists since the League of Prizren in 1878. This is the case of a small region of Greece, that is presented in this text, called Thesprotia in Greece and Chameria in Al- bania, where the historical turmoil has not been without effect on its population, massively affected by the powerful polarization movements resulting from the application of national discourses on the field. Throughout this period and until now, the heterogenous groups that formed the border society had to position themselves according to political turbulences, sometimes despite other long-term real- ities, and their discourses of belonging were gradually reshaped by these changes. What is more, these transformations have had important consequences for the presence of several communities whose fate has been turned on end by the new realities of this contested border, like the Chams, a large Albani- an-speaking community, which disappeared from the Western section of the Greek-Albanian border in the aftermath of the Second World War in circumstances that are still debated. In the last decades, the reactivation of cross-border relations following the fall of the Albanian communist regime, and the intense migration of Albanian workers to Greece, has questioned their memory within local society, in sometimes surprising ways. Keywords: Albania, Greece, border, landscape, memory Izvleček: Meja med Grčijo in Albanijo ima pestro zgodovino. Z njeno vzpostavitvijo leta 1913 je bilo Albaniji do- deljeno ozemlje, ki ga je Grčija osvojila med balkanskimi vojnami, zunaj Albanije pa je ostal velik del ozemelj, ki so jih albanski nacionalisti zahtevali od Prizrenske lige leta 1878. Tak primer je tudi v tem be- sedilu predstavljena majhna grška regija, ki se v Grčiji imenuje Thesprotia, v Albaniji pa Čamerija, kjer zgodovinski pretresi niso ostali brez vpliva na prebivalstvo. Izjemno so ga prizadela močna polarizacij- ska gibanja kot posledica uporabe nacionalnih diskurzov. Vse do danes so se heterogene skupine, ki so tvorile obmejno družbo, morale pozicionirati v skladu s političnimi turbulencami, včasih kljub drugim dolgoročnim realnostim, njihovi diskurzi pripadnosti pa so se zaradi teh sprememb postopoma preobli- kovali. Še več, te spremembe so imele pomembne posledice za prisotnost več skupnosti, katerih usoda se je zaradi novih razmer na sporni meji obrnila na glavo, npr. Čamov, velike albansko govoreče skupnosti, ki je po drugi svetovni vojni izginila z zahodnega dela grško-albanske meje v okoliščinah, o katerih se še vedno razpravlja. Ponovna oživitev čezmejnih odnosov po padcu albanskega komunističnega režima in st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 44 intenzivno priseljevanje albanskih delavcev v Grčijo sta v zadnjih desetletjih na včasih presenetljive nači- ne postavila pod vprašaj njihov spomin v lokalni družbi. Ključne besede: Albanija, Grčija, meja, pokrajina, spomini This text is dedicated to the memory of Michalis Pasiakos (1959-2023), a wonderful person, a free thinker, an open mind and a researcher of the nooks and crannies of the history of his region, Thesprotia, which he knew better than any- one, the most generous person who never hesitat- ed to share with me his knowledge with as much warmth and kindness as he offered hospitali- ty at his home in Sagiada, food from his garden and a meal at his table. The contents of this text owe much to his erudition, like a precious gift he would have entrusted to a visiting outsider. May his name never be forgotten. זכר צדיק לברכה Introduction The border between Greece and Albania has a chequered history. Two hundred and eighty-two kilometres long, it was fixed by the European “Great Powers” with the signing of the Treaty of Florence in 1913, a cod- icil to the Treaty of London. However, between the two states, the delineation of this border seems to raise several questions. The treaty ceded to Albania a territory claimed and conquered by Greece during the Balkan wars, Northern Epi- rus, but some Christian Epirotes rejected this international decision and formed an autono- mous government calling for it to be attached to the Greek state. At the same time, voices were raised in Albania to claim certain regions that had remained in Greece, inspiring the irreden- tist and nationalist idea of a “Greater Albania”. In fact, the establishment of the borders of the new Albanian state left outside them a large part of the Albanian-populated territories that had been claimed by Albanian nationalists since the League of Prizren in 1878: within Greek terri- tory, these were the Chameria region, from the border to the town of Preveza, and part of Mace- donia around the towns of Kastoria and Florina (De Rapper 1998, 621–624). This latent dispute between these two states has been present for a long time in people’s imaginaries today, as can be seen from the streets dedicated to “Northern Epirus” in many Greek towns, or to “Chameria” in Albanian towns. This issue became one the main sources of tension between the two countries in the first decade of the post-Cold War era. In the spring of 1993, the expulsion by Albanian authorities of Archimandrite Chrysostomos, accused of preaching enosis (unification) between Southern Albania (“Northern Epirus” in Greek national- ist vocabulary) and the Greek “motherland”, led to violent incidents against Greek-speaking mi- nority groups and, in response, to the mass ex- pulsion of Albanian migrants who lived and worked in Greece. The following year, violent ac- tions were even carried out by a group that took the same name as the Greek-speaking resistance in Albania during World War II: MAVI for Μέτωπο Απελευθέρωσης Βορείου Ηπείρου (Front for the Liberation of Northern Epirus). In addi- tion to the car bomb attack that killed the Alba- nian ambassador in Athens in 1984, this group claimed responsibility for an attack on an Alba- nian border post, which resulted in the deaths of two Albanian soldiers near the village of Pe- shkëpi in 1994, in the Gjirokastër region. While Greek domestic security quickly put an end to the activities of this group, some ecclesiastical authorities expressed support for it, demonstrat- ing the sympathy that this type of stance could garner among some segments of Greek pub- lic opinion (Michas 2000). After this period of high tension, the period that began in 1995 ap- pears to be one of normalization, likely a con- sequence of the isolation that these diplomatic positions had led Greece into regarding the Yu- goslav wars. Furthermore, starting with the sign- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 45 ing of the Dayton Accords, conditions were cre- ated for the establishment of bilateral relations between Greece and Balkan countries, provided that any sensitive issues were resolved. In 1995, the visit to Albania by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karolos Papoulias, as well as the release of the leaders of the Greek Party of Albania sus- pected of covering the activities of MAVI in the country, showed signs of easing tensions between the two neighbours. During the tenure of Kon- stantinos Simitis (1996-2004), Greece even de- fined a new political doctrine in the region, pre- senting itself as the advocate of regional stability through the use of the capabilities provided by its status as an EU member. Diplomatically, this led the Greek government to adopt a more con- sensus-based approach during the Kosovo crisis, providing logistical support during the military operations in 1999, and especially participating in KFOR and post-war reconstruction programs in Serbia thereafter. However, simultaneously with the devel- opment of the economic crisis in Greece from 2008, tensions have been rekindled between Greece and its neighbouring countries, demon- strating how these geopolitical border issues are also sensitive to the broader context of region- al stability. In April 2009, Greece and Albania signed an agreement on the delimitation of their territorial waters, in which Albania pledged to cede 225 square kilometres of continental shelf to Greece. This agreement was annulled in Janu- ary 2010 by the Albanian Constitutional Court because it was deemed contrary to the nation’s interests due to the alleged presence of hydro- carbon deposits in the area ceded to Greece. De- spite this, Greece did not oppose Albania’s inte- gration into NATO in 2008 or the signing of an ASA with the European Union in April 2009. Nevertheless, the renegotiation of this agree- ment could add fuel to the fire between Athens and Tirana, and Albanian authorities seem to be pressuring Athens to renegotiate or seek inter- national arbitration. In 2014, tensions escalated when Greek authorities opened up maritime ex- ploration in the Ionian Sea, which, according to Albanian media, included the area that Albania had previously ceded to Greece. On March 22, 2016, during a meeting in Athens aimed at open- ing negotiations to end the state of war still in ef- fet since 1940 in certain aspects between the two countries, the foreign ministers of both coun- tries identified the issue of territorial waters as one of the obstacles to progress in the dialogue. On June 6, 2016, during a joint conference in Ti- rana, these same ministers listed the points of tension between their countries: (1) the ongoing state of war, (2) the issue of territorial waters, (3) Athens’ accusation of discrimination against the Greek-speaking minority in Southern Albania, and (4) the fate of Albanian Muslim Albanians (the Chams) expelled from Greece in 1944-45 on charges of collaborating with the Italian and German occupation armies. The latter issue is perhaps one of the most tangible reasons for the continuation of the state of war, as there is no longer an agreement be- tween the two countries regarding the fate of their properties or the possible compensation for the refugees. Since 2011, a party (the PDIU of Shpetim Idrizi, which has had 4 seats in the Al- banian parliament since 2013) has been advocat- ing for the recognition of the wrongs commit- ted by Greece against this group and demanding reparations. These activists march to the Greek border every year to demonstrate their support for a resolution by the Albanian parliament on this matter. The resurgence of this issue on the international agenda even led to a statement by European Enlargement Commissioner Jo- hannes Hahn, who in September 2016 identified the fate of Albanian speakers in Greece as one of the unresolved issues between the two countries, triggering anger in Athens, which considers the matter closed, occasionally accusing Albania of irredentism on these borderlands. In the years that followed, tensions continued to escalate, to the point that in May 2023, Greece even threat- ened Albania with complicating its accession to the European Union if this issue was not quick- ly resolved. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 46 On the Greek side, the massive investment in the Northern Epirus theme by the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, which has seen numerous electoral successes since the start of the financial crisis, has also led to protests in the border re- gion. In September 2013, a Greek neo-Nazi MP, Christos Papas, declared during a blockade of the Kakavia border post between the two coun- tries: “We have come to this artificial border to affirm our struggle for the liberation of North- ern Epirus” (i.e., Southern Albania). In 2013, members of this same party tried to establish a branch of their movement in the city of Hima- ra in Southern Albania, where the presence of a Greek minority is subject to debate, sparking a strong reaction from the population and the po- lice. On all of these points, solutions do not seem to have been found yet, and public opinion ap- pears to be increasingly sensitive to them. This same distrust is reflected on the border from the start of the migrant crisis in the summer of 2015 since, starting from March 20, 2016, and at the request of the authorities in Tirana, Italian po- lice officers came to reinforce their Albanian counterparts on the country’s southern border due to the anticipated uncontrolled flow of mi- grants from the Greek-Macedonian border to It- aly through Albania. Although these transfers did not materialize, largely due to the significant reduction in entries into Greece, this Italian-Al- banian collaboration is indicative of the tension with Greece on the border issue. Research Problem Obviously, these historical developments have not been without effect on the populations liv- ing in the regions around the Greek-Albanian border. They have been massively affected by the powerful polarization movements implied local- ly by the application of national discourses. In this perspective, the Greco-Albanian borderland is an illustrative case of what Michel Roux (2001) calls “identity capture”, i.e. the alignment of lo- cal particularities through the simplification/ structuring of discourses of belonging around binary oppositions between nations. Through- out this period, the heterogeneous groups that formed frontier society had to position them- selves according to political turbulences, some- times despite other long-term realities, and their sense of belonging was gradually reshaped by dominant simplifying discourses. What is more, these transformations have had numerous conse- quences for the presence of several communities whose fate has been upturned by the new polit- ical realities of this contested border. This is the case, for example, of various Albanian-speaking groups from Epirus who found themselves in Greek territory from 1912 onwards, and whose stories will be discussed in this text. In this way, this Greco-Albanian example was a good illus- tration of a “world of sovereign states [...] divided by boundaries” (Taylor 1993, 164), where states play a dominant role in the territory homogene- ity, and borders are a key medium for exercising territoriality, practicing sovereignty, and main- taining socio-spatial control (Agnew 2009). Fur- thermore, the border serves as a powerful tool for the process of “spatial socialization” (Paa- si 1996), meaning the imposition of identity dis- courses as it is a crucial element of state territo- ry. From this standpoint, the border landscape is the instrument and expression of the territorial- ity used to govern state spaces (Paasi 2012), rein- forcing the national community as a distinct and enclosed entity. However, nowadays, the development of cross-border and transnational processes that are increasingly significant questions the links between national spaces and people’s identities (Gupta and Ferguson 1992). As Massey (1995) stated, borders are more and more crossed in the current world characterized by connections. This perspective suggests that borders are not an- ymore to be found only in border areas, but they are located in broader social practices and soci- eties, and increasingly even in the global space (Amilhat Szary and Fourny 2006; Häkli and Kaplan 2002; Newman and Paasi 1998; Pope- scu 2011; Wastl-Walter 2012; Wilson and Don- nan 2012). But, on a local level, people who live in relation to borders are highly determined by st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 47 elements related to them. The hypothesis I make here is that the phase of border opening (deborder- ing), which is seen as the first consequence of this new world of connections, is accompanied by a renegotiation of boundaries between groups, of- ten relying on the reinterpretation of discourses on the past. For this reason, the Greco-Albanian border could be a referential case for the current issues of identity and memory politics, and the related appropriations and re-alignments, pre- sented in contested border areas. Methodology The text presented here is the result of a field- work carried out in Greece on the western side of this border, in the administrative region of Thesprotia, north of the town of Igoumenit- sa, in 2010 and 2011. At that time, relations be- tween Greece and Albania seemed to have best improved. Although the end of the state of war had only been partially signed between the two countries in 1987, their good relations had been confirmed a few years earlier by the sign- ing in 1996 of a “Friendship, Cooperation, Good Neighbourliness and Security Agreement”. In this region, the appeasement manifested itself in 2004 with the opening of a new border cross- ing point at Mavromati (in Greek) or Qaftë Botë (in Albanian), which facilitated contact between the two sides of the border. However, this region remained a special case, the subject of a long- term geopolitical controversy surrounding the presence in Greece of a large Albanian-speak- ing community, which disappeared in the after- math of the Second World War in circumstanc- es that are still debated. But, since that date, this region found itself back in the diplomatic spot- light, as it became one of the main points of con- tention between the two countries. This current situation leads to a renewed polarization of po- sitions that was not yet noticeable a decade ago, during my stay. The return to the situation of the 2010s that I propose in this text is a way to pres- ent when it was most visible the modalities of the resumption of cross-border relations and the var- ious challenges that this resumption presented locally in terms of identification for the different groups living in the region. The present contribution reports the re- sults of a fieldwork that involved a total of two months spent in the region. During this period, I conducted 73 interviews, with most of them being semi-structured due to the sensitive na- ture of the questions. Out of these, 45 interviews were conducted impromptu, mostly in the villag- es of Sagiada, Kastri, Smerto, Asprokklisi, and more broadly in the region of Filiates and Igou- menitsa in Greece, as well as in Konispol, Alba- nia. The interviewees primarily included indi- viduals involved or interested in the preservation of memory, local authorities, as well as ordinary residents who were eager to share their perspec- tives on the historical transformations in their region. Notably, a significant portion of the in- terviewees were survivors of World War II, serv- ing as witnesses to the events during and after the war, which significantly influenced their per- ceptions and reflections. The primary objective of the fieldwork was to identify the discourse surrounding memory and the dynamics of iden- tity transformation and realignment in response to changes in this border region. Landscapes and Memories of Violence in Thesprotia The region described in this text surrounds the lower valley of the river Kalama and its delta (see Figure 1). Today, the population is concentrated in large villages that make their living from com- mercial mandarin farming (such as Asprokklys- si and Sagiada), while the mountains that rise further east, separating Thesprotia from the rest of Epirus, have largely been emptied by emigra- tion abroad. The settlement dynamics observed in this region often refer to the period of the Sec- ond World War and the Greek Civil War, which largely explain the current population distribu- tions and the formation of today’s human land- scapes. During this period, large-scale popu- lation movements took place, leading to the abandonment of many villages and the founding of new ones. In detail, these situations are quite st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 48 varied, but they all led to a classic movement in the Mediterranean context: the conquest and the intensive exploitation of the plains, and the abandonment of mountain areas and traditional farming methods. A society Shaken by War Most of these displacements were the direct re- sult of the violence of the 1940s. In Sagiada, for example, it was the partial destruction of the vil- lage by the Germans on 23 August 1943 that led the population to abandon the village. The in- habitants then crossed the border en masse to take refuge in neighbouring Albanian villag- es, where the strength of the resistance kept the Germans away. When they returned in the win- ter of 1943, they were confronted with the last turmoil of the war and the beginnings of the civ- il war. In January 1948, a raid by partisans who wanted to forcibly conscript young men from the village prompted the inhabitants to take refuge on the shore. The authorities sent them to the is- land of Corfu, from where they did not return until the very early 1950s (between 1952 and 1953) to set up the new village of Sagiada, between the plain and the shore (Tsogas 2009). These move- ments reveal the key factors that determined both the departures and the relocations of the populations: the violence that drove the inhab- itants from their villages of origin, but also the intervention of the State, which sought to con- trol those who might willingly or unwillingly re- inforce the Communist troops during the civ- il war. This objective of controlling populations through relocation can be found even more ex- plicitly in the neighbouring village of Asprokkli- si, where a large proportion of the inhabitants, sometimes coming from very distant areas, were settled during the civil war in order to limit the movements of groups that were still very mobile until the 1940s: the Kalatzidès (καλατζήδες) of Murgana (tinsmiths with itinerant work) or the Sarakatsani or Aromanian Vlachs, pastoralists from Pindus. These stories indicate a desire on the part of the authorities to control the moun- tain populations and keep them away from are- as of conflict where they could provide aid to the communist army. These relocations took the inhabitants through different phases, ranging from sponta- neous settlements in temporary dwellings to the erection of permanent houses and participation Figure 1: Location map of places mentioned in text (source: Sintès (2019)) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 49 in the planned conquest of the surrounding ag- ricultural land. The domestication of this new territory involved a development project orches- trated by the public authorities, for which pro- gress seemed to be the main driving force. If we take the example of Sagiada, the people return- ing from Corfu initially settled in huts, mostly on the beach, with no running water, surround- ed by livestock. The public authorities then or- ganized the stabilization of these low-lying ar- eas with the construction of houses and roads, the a rival of water and electricity, and final- ly the building of the Kalama dam in 1962. This kind of project was a clear statement of the need to modernize by rationalizing land development and farming. All this was complemented by the gradual opening of the region. These coastal are- as of the lower valley, which had previously been related mainly to Corfu, from where seasonal workers came during the agricultural seasons, were in a way linked to the mainland, but above all to the rest of the country, by the construction of the dam, as the Kalama River had previously been an impassable obstacle. But the interpretation given locally to these major transformations almost never re- fers to the great modernization movement that seized the plain after the war. Instead, today’s residents systematically refer to the resolution of a violent conflict that had plagued the re- gion’s society since the inter-war period. The re- distribution of land in the 1960s is presented as a kind of restitution to the Greeks of the prop- erty they had lost during the Ottoman peri- od, and which had then been appropriated by Muslim groups  - here entirely Albanian-speak- ing  - referred to locally as Turks (Τούρκοι), but also more regularly as Chams (Τσάμηδες), or Albano-Chams (Αλβανοτσάμηδες) or Turko- Chams (Τούρκοτσάμηδες) (Baltisiotis and Em- birikos 2007). During the war, these Muslims are said to have sided with the Italians and Ger- mans to regain the dominant position that the region’s attachment to Greece in 1913 was caus- ing them to lose (Margaritis 2005; Manta 2004). Such a stance was fatal for them as, like all Mus- lims in the region (see Table 1), they were driv- en out by the nationalist forces of Napoleon Ze- rvas or, at the very least, left after learning of the violences committed against their co-religionists in the towns of Filiatès and Paramithia (Mey- er 2007; Péchoux 2002; Péchoux and Sivignon 1989). Table 1. Albanian-speaking groups in Epirus in the 1940 and 1951 Greek censuses Orthodox Muslims TOTAL No. % No. % No. 1940 32,712 65 16,890 25 49,632 1951 22,207 98 487 2 22,736 Source: National Statistical Service of Greece (1946; 1958) Numerous sources attest to the inter-com- munity violence that bloodied the region in the broadest sense, claiming many victims, especial- ly between 1942 and 1945. Books published in Greece by witnesses, activists, improvised his- torians, and academics relate these events to a greater or lesser extent. However, they all agree on the same version of the story. These Chams Muslims were said to have sided with the oc- cupying troops, going so far as to wear their uniforms. They committed atrocities against Christian populations in preparation for the at- tachment they wanted for Chameria (Çamëria/ Τσαμουριά), i.e. present-day Thesprotia, to Al- banian territory. Some authors went so far as to draw up an exhaustive list of their victims. This is the case of Giorgos Sarra’s (2001) work, Mni- mes tis tragikis periodou 1936–1945, which men- tions for the eparchy of Igoumenitsa alone, more than 80 murders perpetrated by Chams during this period. It provides the most detailed cir- cumstances of these murders, based on accounts gathered in the field. Without going into such a detailed account, due to the fragility of the sources on this subject, the historian Eleftheria Manta (2004, 137) describes in a monograph on this issue, based on Italian and especially Greek diplomatic archives, the uncertainties that gov- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 50 erned the lives of the inhabitants at that time. She also gives a detailed account of the destruc- tion and atrocities committed during the occu- pation of Thesprotia. In the villages affected, the memory of these violences is vivid and the various generations are still able to recount them easily and in great de- tail, often revealing the circumstances of the murders as well as the identity of the murder- ers: “During the war, after the Italian offensive but especially during the German occupation, the main leaders of the Muslim villages in the re- gion, former landowners whose advantages had been threatened by the annexation to Greece in 1913, carried out atrocities against the Chris- tian population” (interview 1), explains a local historian living in Sagiada. Moved by strong- er passions and resentment, the other testimo- nies describe horrific crimes that are inexcusable in the eyes of those who recount them: “My un- cle was shot dead in front of his house. His body was dragged by a horse around the village before being thrown into the Kalama” (interview 2 in Smerto), or “The Muslims raped a young girl in the village and killed her” (interview 3 in Ragio) and again “I lost my father at the time. It was a ‘Turk’ called Hassan from the neighbouring vil- lage who beat him and threw him into the river with his hands tied. His name is now inscribed on the monument in front of the church” (inter- view 4 in Kestrini). These various testimonies clearly reveal the permanence of this memory among the inhabitants. While these various murders are classically presented as the result of age-old hatred between antagonistic religious communities present in the region for centuries, various interviews also seem to show the extent to which the Second World War was a key moment in the polariza- tion of local society, to some extent completing the structuring of this society into national com- munities on the basis of faith-based differences. This period seems to be a kind of culmination of the transition that began at the time of annexa- tion by Greece, which led to the gradual trans- formation of social relations but also to a radi- cal change in the dominant ethnic structures. Even if other lines of force ran through this soci- ety (social differences, political trajectories), they would all have disappeared in favour of a sin- gle polarity opposing Christians and Muslims, Greeks and Albanians. The burning of the old village of Sagiada mentioned above is a reveal- ing example of this. In local memories, it is the Muslim inhabitants of the neighbouring village of Liopsi who are identified as having played an active part in this destruction, rather than just the German troops. From then on, they became irreconcilable enemies. A resident of Sagiada re- members his relations with them, whom he still calls the “Turks”, but also the events surround- ing the burning of the village (interview 5): Did we have a good relationship with the Turks from Liopsi? Relations were very much like ... enemies. Not with all of them, of course. It was their leaders who were against us. There were a lot of Agas who made life hard for us. But it was during the war that the relationship deteriorated even more be- cause their leaders sided with the Germans. Of course, we’re not talking about all the in- habitants. We can’t say that they were all bad, but their leaders ... The Germans burnt down the village in 1943 and at that point the Turks helped them. They took everything they could from our houses. They loaded it onto the animals. They brought it back to their village. They came up behind the Germans and took everything. We saw them from the mountains where we had fled. The Turko- Chams arrived with the Germans and took everything. Even when the Germans left, they carried weapons and did what they wanted. They even killed people in Sagiada at the time. But after the German army re- treated from Greece, they left too. They no longer felt safe. They feared retaliation from the Greeks here. On the other hand, you can’t say that the partisans [Αντάρτες] of Ser- vas didn’t drive them away, so they were right to be afraid. When there’s hatred, anything st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 51 can happen. Then their village fell into ruins. Now it’s more than ruins. This disturbing impression of civil war is even more present in this account (interview 6): One morning, we were all ready to go and work in the fields when we heard cannon fire from the village of Smerto towards Sa- giada. Then the Germans arrived, followed by Chams from here, Liopsi and other vil- lages in the region. The Germans arrived in the village and burnt down the hous- es. And what did the Chams do, the lo- cal Muslims [οι ντόπιοι μουσουλμάνοι]? They took everything they could from our hous- es. The Germans only burnt a dozen hous- es. But they took horses, donkeys, and an- ything else they could get their hands on. I saw them from a distance. They had found a wedding dress and they dressed up a guy, a simple shepherd, and sang him Sagiada wed- ding songs to make fun of it. When they re- turned to their village, an old Muslim man said to them: “Where are you from? Did you burn down Sagiada? You wretches! You burnt down your own houses!” It seems, however, that these neighbours were not so unanimously hostile during the pre- vious period. As an old lady in Sagiada told me, “Some were good, others were not.” (interview 7) Even so, one resident recalls distant relations with the children of Liopsi: “We met them some- times. We were children and we used to meet their kids when they came to Sagiada to do their shopping. But we didn’t have any friends there, we lived separately” (interview 8), while anoth- er, more used to working in the neighbouring village, says, “They were Turks of course, but we like each other” (ήμασταν όλοι αγαπημένοι). He concedes, however, that the war was a powerful moment of polarization (interview 9): After they took part in the burning of the village, there was no question of going to work for them. Ten days or a week after they burnt down the village, the Chams killed my father-in-law because he had some sheep that he had hidden by taking them to Al- bania. They went to Sopik and found him. They killed him and stole his animals to eat. Another confirms this rapid transforma- tion (interview 10): Before the war, relations with the people of Liopsi were very good. The inhabitants of Sagiada were traders, while those of Liop- si were agricultural producers. They didn’t compete. But it was with the war that rela- tions deteriorated. People from the Tcha- pouni family had already killed 2 or 3 people from Sagiada in the fields and then helped to set fire to the village. That’s when we broke off for good. He added: It’s a good thing that the EDES came af- terwards to drive them out, otherwise we would have had a minority here like there is in Thrace. A border Narrative Embedded in Places and Landscapes These stories of violence are echoed today by the presence of singular monuments (see Fig- ures 2–5), which highlight the way in which this history has left its mark on the construc- tion and symbolic appropriation of the territo- ry, and how this in turn feeds memories. These monuments were erected at the very scenes of the crimes (crossroads, roadsides) or in symbol- ic places (in front of a building where the victim worked, such as the former prefecture of Igou- menitsa, or on the peribolos of a church, as in Kestrini). These are steles commemorating the dead by name, but often also by age and some- times by nickname. These people are not pre- sented as having been killed by the regular ar- mies of the occupying Italians or Germans, or by the belligerents in the civil war, but rath- er by their hostile neighbours. The aggressors are clearly identified in explicit terms reported on the monuments: they are “people of anoth- er religion” (Αλλόθρησκοι), therefore non-Chris- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 52 tian, as the headstones often bear a cross, or else Albano-chams (Αλβανοτσάμιδες) or Albanians (Αλβανοί). This terminology clearly identifies the murderers as the Muslim Chams who inhab- ited the region until 1945. Compared with the more official monu- ments commemorating the victims of the vari- ous conflicts, erected in public squares or cem- eteries in Greece, these small steles mentioning the specific violence perpetrated by Muslims in the region tell the local story in their own way. They bear witness to the painful memories of the families affected by the murders. Certain elements make them appear to be private mon- uments: they bear signs of closeness to the de- ceased, such as the names of the orphans left be- hind or the nickname used during their lifetime. Sometimes, the names of those who commis- sioned the stele appear on its base, confirming the family origin of the initiative. These features bring them closer to the private chapels or small structures that commemorate the death of a per- son in a road accident in the region today. But by their very presence and the details they provide about the murder, these monuments also seem intended to carry a message beyond the victim’s family circle. Indeed, while the space is thus in- vested with a private sentiment, it also becomes the public medium for remembering what may appear to be a sacrifice that grieves the whole community, which may feel that it has been tar- geted because of its religion or nationality. These steles can therefore also be presented as the ma- terial component of the oral testimonies men- tioned above which, by explicitly identifying the murderers, also convey a political and national message, in the broadest sense of the term, about these past events. By their very presence, these small com- memorative monuments also fulfil the expected role of marking the national territory. They es- tablish places of remembrance and help to make Figure 3: Memorial to the victims of intercommunity violence of the 1940s, in Kestrini, Greece. (photo: Pierre Sintès, 2010) Figure 2: Memorial to the victims of intercommunity violence of the 1940s, in Igoumenitsa, Greece. (photo: Pierre Sintès, 2011) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 53 the whole of Thesprotia a “region of remem- brance”. What’s more, by recalling the atrocities of a group closely associated with neighbouring Albania (such as Albano-Chams), these monu- ments designate the Albanians as enemies of the Orthodox Greeks. In this way, they bear witness to the long-standing hostility between the two countries, feeding present-day resentments with the violence of the past. On a regional scale, they also help to explain the reasons for the disap- pearance of the Muslim populations of Thespro- tia after the Second World War. The murderers certainly had to fear retaliation, but they would also have had to answer for their many crimes, which is why they chose to leave. Furthermore, the murders of which the Muslim populations are accused would now justify that they must no longer claim their rights to these lands, that they abandon any claim to Thesprotia because of their many crimes. Such a position echoes the words of some of the inhabitants of the plac- es where the murders were recorded: “Now they [the Chams] are over there in Albania, and they are crying. They say they want to come back here, but if they hadn’t stolen and killed so much, they could come back” (interview 11 in Asprokklisi), or, “it’s better that the Muslims have left, because religion always causes problems, as we saw in Cy- prus” (interview 12 in Filiatès). The threat of a possible Albanian claim to the coastal regions of Southern Epirus is countered in these discourses by the recall of the murders committed by these Muslims in the 1940s. More than the transmis- sion of a tragic memory, the discourse underlying these steles is projected into the present (or even the future) to counter what are seen as hostile in- tentions on the part of Albanian neighbours. But these monuments also reflect a univo- cal treatment of public space. It is striking to note that some localities in Thesprotia, reput- ed to have been important centres for Muslim populations, no longer bear any trace of this for- mer presence, nor any monuments. The “memo- ricide” mentioned by Bénédicte Tratnjek (2011) is evident here in the steles that collectively des- ignate them as murderers. The same is true of the Figure 5: Memorial to the victims of intercommunity violence of the 1940s, in Kastri, Greece. (photo: Pierre Sintès, 2011) Figure 4: Memorial to the victims of intercommunity violence of the 1940s, in Mavromati, Greece, on the border with Albania. (photo: Pierre Sintès, 2010) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 54 entire Muslim villages that have been abandoned since the departure of their inhabitants in 1944- 45, which are present on old maps and whose ru- ins are still visible in the landscape, but which are, on the contrary, completely absent in re- cent signage or cartography (see Figure 4 and 5). For example, while the former Orthodox village of Sagiada is indicated by a makeshift sign, the nearby abandoned Muslim village of Liopsi are not mentioned in the signage; other villages that are still populated have been renamed, leaving only Greek-sounding names. If “history is writ- ten by the victor”, as the bookseller in the small town of Paramithia placidly told me during the survey, he also writes the names of the places and selects the victims to be commemorated. To find a different version of this story, it is necessary to cross the border. Just a few kilometres away, in the central square of the small Albanian town of Konispol, stands another monument, built in the 1990s. It bears no name, just the words Me- moriali i kushtohet martirizimit të shqiptarëve të çamërisë prej gjenocidit të shovinizmit grek (“Me- morial dedicated to the martyrdom of the Al- banians of Chameria whose genocide was per- petrated by Greek chauvinism”). Unlike the stelae described on the Greek side, this monu- ment serves as a memorial to a group of anony- mous victims: those of the “Cham genocide” as officially recognized by the Albanian state since 1994. However, as it stands in the last Albani- an town before the border, it also acts as a land- mark, activating the representation of a space crossed by a front line. The decorations that flank it also tell stories of victims: the styliza- tion of a traditional female headdress character- istic of the Chameria and stuck to the top of the monument, or the representation of a woman ly- ing next to her child on a bas-relief, take up the stories of murders that are found in descriptions of the massacres of the Muslim populations of Thesprotia in 1944-45 (Kretsi 2007). This mon- ument goes hand in hand with the introduction in Albania in 1997 of a day of commemoration of the memory of the Chams every 27 June. Its discourse contrasts with that of Greece’s neigh- bouring region and is undoubtedly a witness of the transmission of a still disputed memory. Changing Narratives in Tune With Our Times The key features of these narratives, and the marks they leave on the territories, are the prod- uct of an eventful history. They were forged at key moments, when antagonisms were asserted, or when they were revealed. They have been trans- mitted from generation to generation through family histories and official narratives. However, the form of these narratives should not be seen as inert material, frozen from the moments when the events took place. It must also be understood in relation to the dynamics of the present and the characteristics of the moments when these memories are expressed. This is why it seems im- portant to examine them in the light of the gen- eral context of this survey, and the trajectory of a region undergoing rapid transformation at the beginning of the 21st century. The Border and the Issues of the 2000s When discussing relations between Greece and Albania in the 2000s, it is impossible not to men- tion the strong migratory flows that have linked the two countries since the early 1990s. Having long been a country of departure, Greece has gradually become a host country for many inter- national migrants. At the time of the 2001 pop- ulation census, international migrants account- ed for more than 760,000 people, or 7% of the country’s total population, compared with less than 1.5% in 1991. Such a figure is enough to un- derstand that this period marked the beginning of a new phase in the country’s history. It was the fall of the Eastern European regimes in the early 1990s that was the main cause of Greece’s trans- formation into a land of immigration. Large groups of migrants from Eastern Europe came to Greece. Albanians are by far the most numerous foreigners in the country (over 57%), followed by Bulgarians (5%) and Romanians (2.9%). These migratory flows affect every region of Greece, from the smallest village in Crete or Argoli- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 55 da to the suburbs of the major cities of Athens and Thessaloniki. Their presence has also fuelled several debates about the possible dangers they pose to national identity, rekindling fears of Al- banian irredentism or an existential threat to uncertain national cohesion. Such concerns are perceived at all levels, from the feeling of dis- possession of the localities where Albanian mi- grants have settled en masse, to the more global vision of a massive and worrying presence in the whole country. These debates, and the various fantasies about their (inevitably) huge numbers, are fuelled by the irregular nature of migration in the early years, since the first mass regulariza- tion campaigns only began in 1997. Subsequent- ly, part of this flow remained irregular because of the slowness of the Greek administration, which was poorly adapted to this type of circu- latory mobility (Sintès 2010), but also because of the massive need for irregular workers to sus- tain Greek growth in the decades that followed. These illegal migrants often cross the border on foot, risking their lives (mountain borders are in- creasingly guarded). This is why, due to its easy topography, the coastal section of the border in the Thesprotia region has been particularly af- fected by illegal crossings by Albanian migrants since 1990. At that time, the villages of Kalama were in the front line in receiving migrants who went to the bus station at Igoumenitsa to con- tinue their journey to other towns in Greece, or who stayed in the region for a while to take up daily agricultural jobs. Another important factor in understand- ing the situation of this region is that new geo- political concerns also arose in the early 2010s. After several decades in Albania, the descend- ants of the Chams are now making their voic- es heard. For several years, the fate of the region’s Muslims had been perceived in Albania as an in- justice that had a lasting effect on relations with Greece. According to some, the violence of the 1940s even tore a piece of “Albanian land” from the country, and today more and more activists are demanding that Albania return Chameria to the national territory. They have even come to- gether in a political party, the PDIU (Party for Justice, Integration and Unity), founded in 2011, whose ideas are now also defended by the Ale- anca Kuq e Zi (Red and Black Alliance), found- ed in 2012, which is calling (among other things) for a referendum on the union of Kosovo with Albania, and campaigning for an ethnic Albania that would extend “from Pristina to Preveza”. Every 27 June, the anniversary of the commemo- ration of the “Cham genocide”, as recognized by the Albanian government, they take the oppor- tunity to demonstrate in Tirana and the towns of southern Albania to reiterate their vision of this page in Greek-Albanian history. Since 2011, there has even been a march near the Greek bor- der and the Mavromati border crossing. In such a context, it is easy to imagine the fear of seeing a new Albanian/Albanian-speaking presence emerge in the border region for the Greek au- thorities, given the high level of political activity concerning this issue in Albania. These various Figure 6: Kotsikas: ruins of ancient Muslim village in northern Thesprotia (source: Sintès (2010)) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 56 movements have regularly influenced relations between the two states. In 2005, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, had to cancel a meeting with his counterpart Alfred Moisiu in the Albanian town of Sarandë because of hostile demonstrations by people demand- ing that the Cham issue be re-examined. Dur- ing his term in power, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha even went so far as to declare, dur- ing festivities to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Albania in November 2012, that the area of Albanian settlement extended “as far as Preveza”, provoking strong reactions from the Greek authorities, although his cabinet imme- diately corrected itself: “The Prime Minister’s words should be seen in the historical context of the declaration of independence. Today, Al- bania has no territorial claims on its neighbours to the south, east or north.” A few years later, in November 2016, it was the turn of his successor, Edi Rama, to give a lengthy interview on Greek public television, in which he devoted a long and controversial section to the issue of these Mus- lim groups from Thesprotia. Edi Rama spoke about the human situation in which the Chams find it impossible to cross the border: How is it possible that 80-year-old wom- en and men who were forced to leave their homes don’t have the right to go there again? How is it possible that these Albanians are not allowed to cross the border of a neigh- bour, a big European country like Greece? But he was also questioned about the ar- rest in Greece of two drivers from the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who had been com- missioned to distribute Albanian school books to Albanian children living in Greece, giving rise to suspicions of irredentist activities on the part of the Albanian government itself: I don’t think it is irredentist to tell children that there was an area called Chameria where Albanians lived […] I challenge you by stating that there is no map of Greater Alba- nia in any Albanian schoolbooks. The increasing visibility of this issue in rela- tions between the two states therefore seems to be linked to the gradual rise of the PDIU in Al- banian political life (5 seats in parliament since 2013, 3 since 2017, a member of Edi Rama’s gov- erning coalition since 2015). However, other factors must also be taken into account to un- derstand the resurgence of the Cham issue in Albania in the first decades of the 21st centu- ry: These include migration, which has brought Greeks and Albanians into contact once again; the economic crisis in Greece since 2009, which has led to the return of many migrants to Alba- nia and the dissemination of an image of Greece that is not always very positive; and, finally, the role of movements that are notorious for accom- panying globalization, such as the primordial- ism evoked by Arjun Appadurai (2005), which seems to encourage references in social and po- litical discourse to more radical identities that may stem from a history that is sometimes conflictual. Ghosts of the Past … and Their Heirs In the field, being aware of such a context makes it possible to understand some of the elements observed in relation to the memory of these cross-border disputes. For example, if we look again at the war memorials, those in the villag- es and cemeteries all seem to have been built in the immediate post-war period, whereas Figure 7: Liopsi: ruins of ancient Muslim village in northern Thesprotia (source: Sintès (2010)) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 57 those commemorating the victims of violence perpetrated by Chams are much more recent. Some even bear dates of construction in the 1990s or 2000s. This characteristic raises fur- ther questions about the function of such mon- uments, since the period in which they were built is marked by the strength of the migrato- ry flow described above. Alongside the Albani- an workers crossing the border in Thesprotia, there are also reports of the arrival of descend- ants of the Chams who were curious to find out about their family’s places of origin. Vis- its to ghost villages even seem to have become a recurring motif for the inhabitants of this re- gion over the last few decades. They have no dif- ficulty in recounting the visits of Albanians in search of their ancestors’ homes, and even the exchanges they have had with them. One of the new inhabitants of the border village of Kot- sikas explains, “In the village, some old Albani- ans came and cried when they saw their house. I took them in and they stayed for 10 days. It was easy to talk to them because they knew Greek. They had come from Fier in central Albania to see their old homes!” He also met an Albanian from Kotsikas who lives in Italy and comes to Greece for all his vacations “because he feels at home here” (interview 13). But not all these re- turns go so smoothly. An Albanian from Kon- ispol recounts how one day, while visiting the village where his father was born in Greece, he was told: “This is your home, but we’re going to get you out of here.” (interview 14) It is true that sometimes these visitors can cause the Greek inhabitants a deep anxiety, as Christos, an inhabitant of Sagiada, expressed to me (interview 5). His parents and grandpar- ents were born there, as were previous gener- ations. They even owned fields there, whereas people like him (Orthodox) often worked for Muslim landowners until the region was an- nexed to Greece in 1913 and, more importantly, the Second World War and the eviction of the latter. However, in the early 1990s, two “Turko- Chams” from Albania came across him in his field and told him: “this field is ours.” I told them “You’re wrong, it’s been in my family for several generations, my father’s and my grandfathers before him. The village above is yours, but not this field.” He continued: It all points to a certain state of mind ... they think everything here is theirs! Is that a big problem or a small one? I don’t know ... I think it’s a big problem. And it’s true that they had a lot more property here than we did. But why did they have them? How did they get it? It wasn’t the result of their work. They didn’t have them because they had worked hard like us. We’ve been here for so many years, what are we going to say to them? Come and take everything! Take the fields! Even though they were a minority here, they had the best fields. It’s not right. They say we chased them away, but it’s also because they were afraid of what they’d done to us. It’s cer- tain that they couldn’t have stayed because our relations had seriously deteriorated dur- ing the war. What better way to affirm the Hellenic character of the grounds to visitors from Alba- nia than to remind them of the antagonism be- tween Greeks and Albanians? One of the steles pictured above is right on the border, between the two customs posts (figure 4). It welcomes migrants as they enter Greece, reminding them of the sacrifices made by the Greeks to protect themselves from Albanian irredentism. As for the other steles in Thesprotia, they all point to- wards Albania, where the alleged murderers fled ... but where the migrants now come from, too. But there is another hypothesis to consider, one that can be constructed in the light of the social and identity dynamics of the 2000s: that such monuments are also addressed to the local inhabitants themselves, to remind them of the contours of their common belonging. It is true that the history of these regions is at the root of the very heterogeneous nature of the popu- lations that have settled there since the Second st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 58 World War. This diversity could also be iden- tified as one of the elements presiding over the functioning of these spatial markers. Until the last few years, the various groups, whether in- digenous or settled by the authorities after the war, formed very closed, endogamous social en- tities where “everyone stayed in their own group” (ο καθένας στο σόι του, as heard in Asprokkli- si, Interview 11). These inhabitants (Arouma- nians, Arvanitès, Gypsies, Greki), while they are all now Orthodox since the departure of the Muslim Chams, are not necessarily speakers of modern Greek in their domestic practices, even if they recognize themselves without any hes- itation in this national identity. Recalling the crimes of the Muslims by means of these mon- uments would thus serve to distance them once and for all from the Albanians, to strengthen the ties that unite them as inhabitants of the same place, by linking them with the fate of the Greek nation. The assignment produced by such mon- uments would thus be turned towards the view- er, anchoring in their mind the difference that separates them from the murderers as well as the links that unite them to the victim. These steles would therefore be part of a twofold movement of assigning identities, national by default, when the reality is much more labile, especially since linguistic (and even ethnic) borders have been called into question once again since the reopen- ing of the border in 1990 and the reactivation of old relations. These narratives have become more com- plex because of the Albanian migration that has taken place throughout the region since 1990, which has led to the reactivation of various lines of tension that ran through border society before the war, and which the national narratives had not completely erased. As noted elsewhere (Sin- tès 2008), the Aromanian Vlachs of Asprokklisi, who were moved to the plain by the authorities in the 1950s, were able to reunite with relatives or friends who had remained in Albania after the war. But what is most original here is the way in which migration or the new “life on the bor- der” can now be based on memories of the coex- istence of the inter-war years. For example, the traditional “good relationships” between the Sa- giadini and the inhabitants of the neighbouring Albanian town of Konispol were revived in 1990. It is even said that in the early days of migration, when the Greek police were pushing back illegal immigrants, the people of Sagiada intervened to ensure that the migrants from Konispol were left in peace in the name of the friendship that tied their ancestors together. Even today, in addition to the many cross-border commuters who trav- el across the border every day to work in Greece throughout the year, the winter period of in- tense work on the mandarin trees sees most of the working-age inhabitants descend from Kon- ispol to the Greek villages of the Kalama valley. On this occasion, they cross the border and work every day on the plain, in the name of the trust that has traditionally been placed in them. But, more generally, older people still re- member the close relationships or mutual aid that may have united members of different re- ligious or linguistic communities now locat- ed on either side of the border, and which could potentially be reactivated today. These links can take many forms: family relations resulting from inter-community marriages, cultural rela- tions based on a linguistic community, memo- ries of old neighbourly relations interrupted in the 1940s. The cross-border links that can be mobilized are also based on interpersonal re- lationships. This is the case, for example, of an octogenarian woman from Sagiada who, since 1990, has been reunited with her parents’ Alba- nian-speaking Muslim shepherd, who had been expelled from the neighbouring village of Liop- si at the end of the war (interview 7). Their old friendship continued until his death in 2010. They visited each other regularly and supported each other through the trials of life, such as the death of their spouses. This kind octogenarian told me how she had so enjoyed going to Albania since 1990: You know, I had friends on the other side of the border, an old man of my age who died this year. We met when we were young. He st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 59 was 16 and was my parents’ shepherd. We have always been friends. He came from the ‘Turkish’ village next to ours and my father took him on as a shepherd. He fled after the war, when the people of our village went to burn down his village. They took everything they could, but I only took two hens. When they found each other after 1990, she said to him: “The two hens I took from you, my friend, will be replaced a hundredfold.” The first time, he came on horseback through the moun- tains. He found his friends again, even though he had not seen or contacted them since the 1940s. My husband took him to the store and gave him everything he could, everything that the horse could carry back to Albania. Since that time, we saw each other constantly. He came to visit us and we went to Albania. His house consisted of two small rooms and a lounge with a fireplace. He had taken noth- ing from his former village in Greece when he fled. He was only a shepherd and had a very simple life. After 1990, we saw each oth- er every Easter. Initially he would come over here, but later we had to meet up at the bor- der as he did not have the papers he needed to cross into Greece. I always prepared some brioches [κουλουράκια], sweets [γλυκά] and lots of clothes for him at Easter, and he brought us a lamb. We used to call each oth- er and meet up at the border crossing-point to pass on clothes to his children that our children no longer wore. He could no longer come here for lack of papers. In 2002, my husband died. My friend found out about it and came over. Anyway, he stayed all night long with his forehead resting on his friend, crying while softly speaking words in Alba- nian to him. He took part in all aspects of the funeral even though he was ‘Turkish’. He went to the church and sat down with us at the meal that is prepared for the dead. From then on until he died in 2010, they met at the border crossing-point twice a year: at Christmas and Easter. Once a border guard asked him: “Do you want us to let you pass and take you to your old village so you can see your house again?” He replied that he did not: “The past is the past. I do not want to have a heart attack. Now only stones remain, nothing else [πέτρες να μείνουν]! Let me just see this lady. I ate bread in her house for several years and we ‘Turks’ do not forget when we eat bread in an- other’s house.” This account helps us to understand the flu- id nature of ethnic designations, which is also re- flected in the many ways in which the groups that make up the frontier society refer to themselves, no doubt reflecting the adaptation of pre-nation- al affiliations to the dominant discourses of the following period. Leonidas Embirikos and Lam- bros Baltsiotis have clearly shown how the term “Cham” can be highly significant in this respect, as it is used to designate realities that are some- times quite diverse (Baltisiotis and Embirikos 2007). Similarly, the recent adoption of the term “Arvanitès” (Αρβανίτες), rather than “Cham”, to designate the Albanian-speaking Christians still living in what is now Thesprotia speaks volumes. Usually used to designate Albanian-speaking Orthodox groups from old Greece who have been present in Attica or the Peloponnese for centuries, this term seems to be used here to neu- tralize the question of linguistic otherness in this border region, by turning it from a transna- tional issue in relation to Albania into an inter- nal Greek question. The linguistic group of Al- banian speakers in Thesprotia is therefore split in two as a result of these distinct names: on the one hand, the “Arvanitès”, i.e. Albanian-speak- ing Orthodox with a Greek national conscious- ness, and on the other, the “Turco-chams” or “Al- bano-chams”, who are understood to be Muslim Albanians who are historically linked to the Al- banian nation-building process. In the field, this dissociation is operated and endorsed by the radicality of the memorials. In Kestrini, it is a person “of another religion” (Αλλόθρησκος), therefore someone who is re- sponsible for the death of the person honoured. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 60 The most explicit monument on the identity of the murderers is the one in the village of Kastri, which mentions “murdered by Alvano-Cham” (δολοφονηθέντων από Αλβανοτσάμηδες). It is per- haps interesting to note that the two cases men- tioned here, which are the two most explicit des- ignations of the ethnic identity of the murderers, were found in villages where there are many Orthodox Albanian speakers, confirming that these monuments are part of a desire to “invisibi- lize” the linguistic difference or, at the very least, an exit-strategy to separate and distinguish these Orthodox Albanian-speaking groups still liv- ing in Thesprotia from the “Chams”, understood here as Muslims hostile to Hellenism. Howev- er, the term “Cham” was sometimes presented to me in more unexpected ways, going well beyond the simple designation of the Albanian-speak- ing Muslims. In private, a Sagiadini tells me that he is “Cham” to designate his regional be- longing “to Thesprotia, which is a recent name for a region that everyone here knows by its oth- er name ... Chamouria [Τσαμουριά] of course!” This terminology, that cannot be used in all cir- cumstances, has proved to be accepted at times as an autonym by all the inhabitants of the re- gion. These inflections around place names and linguistic, religious, and regional affiliations are of great interest. They mark the places, engram- ming them with a paradoxical mechanism that highlights the distortions between the plural re- ality of border society and the discourses con- structed by nation-states on the past and space. This is how today, and on various occasions, the inhabitants of Thesprotia sometimes make their differences heard once again, for example when it comes to establishing the legitimacy of each having been allocated land on the plain in the 1950s and 1960s. On this occasion, the Sa- giadini can point to their ancient presence and their complete loyalty to the canons of Hellen- ism: orthodoxy and Hellenophony, which is why they are referred to by the other inhabitants as Gréki. The inhabitants of Smerto or Kestrini, descendants of the tenant farmers who some- times came from Agios Vlasios or Kastri near Igoumenitsa, are reputed in the region to speak an Albanian-speaking dialect, called arvanitika or alvanika, depending on the context, as well as being Orthodox - which means that they are sometimes referred to as Greeks (Έλληνες), while others refer to them by their skin colour: black (μαύροι) or gypsies (γύφτοι), giving them an eth- nonym that speaks volumes about their sup- posed origins (Egypt, according to some). The current inhabitants of Asprokklisi, on the for- mer lands of the village of Liopsi (the ruins of which can be seen from the road leading to the Mavromati border post), are divided into three distinct groups: Gréki, who came from a village called Asprokklisi in the mountains of Mourga- na and are thought to have been displaced dur- ing the civil war; Aromanian Vlachs, who used to winter on the land they rented from the Agas of Liopsi; and Sarakatsani, whose transhumance lands were located quite far from coastal Thes- protia (Grevena and central Thessaly) but whom the Greek state had decided to settle in the re- gion. The issues of land redistribution, the re- composing and repopulation of villages, there- fore provide an opportunity to express a kind of hierarchy between different groups that made up the society of these border areas. Neverthe- less, other dividing lines run more discreetly through it, such as those activated during the civil war between the nationalists and the com- munists, even if we noticed during our inter- views that they were adapted to the already ex- isting compositions by opposing sedentary and transhumant, villages in the hills and villages in the plains, and so on. Conclusion: Towards a (Re)Fragmentation of Border Society? These few examples from the Greek-Alba- nian border illustrate the extent to which the population of this small border region continues to be crisscrossed by lines of tension demarcat- ing different categories of inhabitants. This real- ity has recently been put to the test by the mass migration of Albanian citizens to Greece, which has undoubtedly helped to update the different st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 61 registers of identification that had been incom- pletely erased by the dominant discourse of na- tion states since the post-war period. This process has taken place more generally by confronting the topicality of cross-border relations with the permanence of the conflicting memories that are present. In fact, despite the great diversity of the accounts gathered, it seemed that the position of each of the inhabitants in the interplay of local affiliations led them to look at the new Albanian migrants differently, depending on their experi- ences of the border. Some people, for example, were able to express a great closeness to the de- scendants of Chams who left after the war while indicating that one day, with the economic cri- sis that has been raging in Greece since 2009, it would not be out of the question for migrants from the 1990s to help them find work in Alba- nia. This surprising inversion suggests a certain relativity, or even reversibility, in the discourse of belonging, which has been subject to power- ful logics since the region became part of Greece in 1912. Although it cannot be said that migration is the sole factor in the (re)fragmentation of lo- cal society, it does seem to have played this role in terms of certain discourses and practices of some of the region’s inhabitants. At the same time, however, the reactivation of cross-border relations is today affected by the return to the diplomatic agenda of the inter-state dispute over the historical legitimacy of this border, making it difficult to conduct fieldwork on the complex dynamics of belonging in the region. It is this context of diplomatic and migratory tensions that led to the suspension of my investigations in the region in 2011. The many questions about cross-border experiences that I asked my inter- locutors did not always leave the people I met in- different, and some ended up preferring not to see me again, or no longer responding to my re- quests. During my last investigation in July-Au- gust 2011, it was two young men claiming to be police officers who, after having stopped my car on the side of a mountain road, politely suggest- ed that I spend the end of the summer at the beach rather than continuing my investigations in the border villages. 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Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 63 Table of the interviews quoted in the text Interview number Date of birth Date of interview Metting place 1 1959 06/08/2010 Sagiada 2 1940 11/07/2010 Smerto 3 1952 14/07/2010 Ragio 4 1924 5/08/2010 Kestini 5 1935 06/08/2010 Sagiada 6 1924 14/07/2010 Sagiada 7 1928 06/08/2010 Sagiada 8 1930 12/07/2011 Sagiada 9 1923 13/07/2011 Sagiada 10 1916 14/07/2011 Sagiada 11 1925 07/08/2010 Asprokklisi 12 1943 08/08/2010 Filiatès 13 1937 07/08/2010 Filiatès 14 1982 09/08/2010 Konispol Summary The border between Greece and Albania has a cheq- uered history. Its establishment in 1913 ceded to Alba- nia a territory conquered by Greece during the Balkan wars and left outside Albania a large part of the territo- ries claimed by Albanian nationalists since the League of Prizren in 1878. This is the case of a small region of Greece, that is presented in this text, called Thespro- tia in Greek and Chameria in Albanian, where the his- torical turmoil has not been without effect on its pop- ulation, massively affected by the powerful polarization movements resulting from the application of national discourses on the field. Throughout this period and un- til now, the heterogenous groups that formed the bor- der society had to position themselves according to po- litical turbulences, sometimes despite other long-term realities, and their discourses of belonging were gradu- ally reshaped by these changes. These transformations have had important consequences for the presence of several communities whose fate has been turned on end by the new realities of this contested border, like the Chams, a large Albanian-speaking community, which disappeared from the Western section of the Greek-Al- banian border in circumstances that are still debated. Nowadays, the interpretation given locally to these ma- jor social and ethnic transformations always refers to the resolution of a violent conflict that had plagued the re- gion’s society since the inter-war period. In the villages affected, the memory of these atrocities is vivid, and the various generations are still able to recount them easi- ly and in great detail, often revealing the circumstances of the murders as well as the identity of the murderers. These stories of violence are echoed today by the pres- ence in the Greek side of the border of singular monu- ments, which highlight the way in which this history has left its mark on the construction and symbolic appropri- ation of the territory, and how this in turn feeds mem- ories. By recalling the atrocities of a group closely as- sociated with neighboring Albania, these monuments designate the Albanians as enemies of the Orthodox Greeks, and bear witness to the long-standing hostil- ity between the two countries, feeding present-day re- sentments with the violence of the past. On the other side of the border, around the small Albanian town of Konispol, stands a number of monuments commem- orating the victims of the “Cham genocide”, officially recognized by the Albanian state since 1994. These var- ious monuments on the other side of the border also act as landmarks, activating the representation of a space st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 64 crossed by a front line and go hand in hand with the in- troduction in Albania in 1997 of a day of commemo- ration of the memory of the Chams every 27 June. Its discourse contrasts with that of Greece’s neighboring region and is undoubtedly a witness of the transmis- sion of a still disputed memory. But, if the key features of these narratives, and the marks they leave on the ter- ritories, are the product of an eventful history, the form of these narratives must also be understood in relation to the dynamics of the present and the characteristics of the moments when these memories are expressed. However, other factors must also be taken into account to understand the resurgence of the Cham issue in the first decades of the 21st century (migration and geopol- itic issues). But locally in this new context, the reactiva- tion of cross-border relations following the fall of the Albanian communist regime, and the intense migra- tion of Albanian workers to Greece, has questioned the memory in this border region, in sometimes surprising ways. It illustrates the extent to which the population of this small region continues to be crisscrossed by lines of tension demarcating different categories of inhabitant. This reality has been put to the test by the mass migra- tion of Albanian citizens to Greece, which has helped to update the different registers of identification that had been incompletely erased by the dominant discourse of nation states since the post-war period. This process has taken place more generally by confronting the topi- cality of cross-border relations with the permanence of the conflicting memories that are present. At the same time, however, the reactivation of cross-border relations is today affected by the return to the diplomatic agen- da of the inter-state dispute over the historical legitima- cy of this border, making it sometimes difficult to do fieldwork on the complex dynamics of belonging in the region. Povzetek Meja med Grčijo in Albanijo ima pestro zgodovino. Z njeno vzpostavitvijo leta 1913 je bilo Albaniji dode- ljeno ozemlje, ki ga je Grčija osvojila med balkanskimi vojnami, zunaj Albanije pa je ostal velik del ozemelj, ki so jih albanski nacionalisti zahtevali od Prizrenske lige leta 1878. Tak primer je tudi v tem besedilu predstavljena majhna grška regija, ki se v Grčiji imenuje Thesprotia, v Albaniji pa Čamerija, kjer zgodovinski pretresi niso os- tali brez vpliva na prebivalstvo. Izjemno so ga prizade- la močna polarizacijska gibanja kot posledica uporabe nacionalnih diskurzov. Vse do danes so se heterogene skupine, ki so tvorile obmejno družbo, morale pozicio- nirati v skladu s političnimi turbulencami, včasih kljub drugim dolgoročnim realnostim, njihovi diskurzi pri- padnosti pa so se zaradi teh sprememb postopoma pre- oblikovali. Še več, te spremembe so imele pomembne posledice za prisotnost več skupnosti, katerih usoda se je zaradi novih razmer na sporni meji obrnila na glavo, npr. Čamov, velike albansko govoreče skupnosti, ki je po drugi svetovni vojni izginila z zahodnega dela grško-al- banske meje v okoliščinah, o katerih se še vedno razpra- vlja. Dandanes se lokalna razlaga teh velikih družbenih in etničnih preobrazb vedno nanaša na rešitev nasilnega konflikta, ki je družbo v regiji pestil od obdobja med voj- nama. V prizadetih vaseh je spomin na ta grozodejstva živ in različne generacije o njih še vedno zlahka ter zelo podrobno pripovedujejo, pri čemer pogosto razkrijejo okoliščine umorov in tudi identiteto morilcev. Zgodbe o nasilju danes se odslikavajo v edinstvenih spomenikih na grški strani meje, ki poudarjajo, kako je ta zgodovi- na zaznamovala izgradnjo in simbolno prilastitev ozem- lja ter kako to posledično napaja spomine. Z opomi- njanjem na grozodejstva skupine, ki je tesno povezana s sosednjo Albanijo, ti spomeniki Albance označujejo za sovražnike pravoslavnih Grkov in pričajo o dolgotraj- ni sovražnosti med državama, ki današnje zamere napa- ja z nasiljem iz preteklosti. Na drugi strani meje, v okoli- ci majhnega albanskega mesta Konispol, stojijo številni spomeniki v spomin na žrtve »genocida nad Čami«, ki jih albanska država uradno priznava od leta 1994. Ti raz- lični spomeniki na drugi strani meje delujejo tudi kot mejniki, saj aktivirajo reprezentacijo prostora, ki ga pre- či frontna črta, in gredo z roko v roki z uvedbo dneva spomina na Čame v Albaniji leta 1997, ki se obeležuje vsakega 27. junija. Njihov diskurz je v nasprotju z diskur- zom v sosednji grški regiji in nedvomno priča o prenosu še vedno spornega spomina. Če pa so ključne značilnos- ti teh pripovedi in sledi, ki jih puščajo na ozemljih, pro- dukt pestre zgodovine, je treba obliko teh pripovedi ra- zumeti tudi v povezavi s sedanjimi dinamikami in pa z značilnostmi trenutkov. ko so ti spomini izraženi. Da bi razumeli ponovno oživitev čamskega vprašanja v prvih desetletjih 21. stoletja (migracijska in geopolitična vpra- šanja), je treba upoštevati tudi druge dejavnike. V tem st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ta le s fr o m t h e g r ee k- a lb a n ia n b o r d er la n d .. . 65 kontekstu sta na lokalni ravni pomembni ponovna ak- tivacija čezmejnih odnosov po padcu albanskega ko- munističnega režima in intenzivna migracija albanskih delavcev v Grčijo, ki včasih na presenetljive načine pos- tavljata pod vprašaj spomin v tej obmejni regiji. V tem prepoznamo, v kolikšni meri je prebivalstvo te majhne regije še vedno prepredeno s silnicami napetosti, ki loču- jejo različne kategorije prebivalcev. Ta realnost je bila na preizkušnji ob množični migraciji albanskih državljanov v Grčijo, ki je pripomogla, da so se posodobili različni identifikacijski registri, ki jih prevladujoči diskurz naci- onalnih držav od povojnega obdobja ni v celoti izbrisal. Ta proces se je odvil skozi soočenje aktualnosti čezmej- nih odnosov s trajno prisotnimi konfliktnimi spomini. Obenem pa na oživitev čezmejnih odnosov danes vpli- va vračanje meddržavnega spora o zgodovinski legiti- mnosti te meje na diplomatski dnevni red, zaradi česar je včasih težko izvajati terensko delo v zvezi s komple- ksno dinamiko pripadnosti v regiji. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 67 ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)67-90 © aut hor/aut hors A Visible Sign with a “Quiet Gesture”? The Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin Vidni znak s »tiho gesto«? Dokumentacijski center za razseljenost, izgon in spravo v Berlinu Catherine Perron Sciences Po - Centre for international studies (CERI), France catherine.perron@sciencespo.fr Abstract Starting from the analysis of the permanent exhibition of the newly opened Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation, this paper sets out to understand to what extent the Doc- umentation Centre succeeds in offering a new approach to the place of remembrance “Flight and Ex- pulsion of the Germans”, within the federal German museum landscape and in the museum landscape around flight and expulsion of Germans. Finally, I suggest that the diverse and contradictory expecta- tions placed on the Documentation Centre results in a permanent exhibition that meets the wishes of the memory milieu (expellees and their descendants) to address their suffering and responds to the gov- ernment’s mandate to anchor the topic in the centre of society (also outside the memory milieu) and to create a space of reconciliation, between memorial, museum, archive, and meeting place; although at the expense of understanding the specificity of the flight and expulsion processes. Keywords: Germany, forced migrations, violence, memory, exhibition Izvleček: Izhajajoč iz analize stalne razstave novoodprtega Dokumentacijskega centra za razseljevanje, izgon, spravo si v prispevku prizadevam osvetliti, v kolikšni meri ta nova institucija uspe ponuditi nov pristop h kraju spomina na »beg in izgon Nemcev« v kontekstu nemških zveznih muzejev ter muzejev, posveče- nih begu in izgonu Nemcev. V sklepu ugotovim, da raznolika in protislovna pričakovanja Dokumenta- cijskega centra rezultirajo v stalni razstavi, ki izpolnjuje želje spominskega miljeja (izgnancev in njihovih potomcev), saj naslavlja njihovo trpljenje in se odziva na nalogo vlade, da temo zasidra v središču družbe (tudi zunaj spominskega miljeja). Na ta način se oblikuje prostor sprave, ki je hkrati spomenik, muzej, arhiv in kraj srečevanja, čeprav to doseže na račun razumevanja specifičnosti procesov bega in izgona. Ključne besede: Nemčija, prisilne migracije, nasilje, spomin, razstava st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 68 On 21 June 2021, the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation (Dokumentationszen- trum, Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung) was cere- moniously opened in Berlin. That this was out of the ordinary was shown by the prominent line- up at the opening ceremony: despite Coronavi- rus, the ambassadors of Germany’s neighbour- ing countries to the East, the Federal President Joachim Gauck, members of parliament, the Chairman of the Federation of Expellees (Bund der Vetriebenen  - BdV), Bernd Fabritius, and the Minister of State for Culture and the Me- dia, Monika Grütters, (CDU) were present and Chancellor Merkel also joined in online.1 But it was not only the guest list that reflect- ed the special nature of the occasion; the long and controversial history of the founding of this institution that preceded this opening also made this event special. Minister of State for Culture and the Media, Grütters, recalled in her speech: For many years, there were struggles and sometimes bitter disputes about an appro- priate form of remembrance, not least be- tween the political camps. And that is why today I am filled with gratitude on today’s opening day, that, as the saying goes, a visible sign against flight and expulsion has been set, for which the aged victims and their de- scendants [...] have waited so long. [Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung 2021] And she also underlines its necessity: With today’s opening of the Documenta- tion Centre for Displacement, Expulsion and Reconciliation, Germany is facing up to a historical truth that I believe has long been too little recognised: the immeasurable and millionfold suffering as a result of flight and expulsion in and after the Second World War unleashed by Germany. It is a truth that is unwieldy and politically uncomfortable and that for a long time had no place in col- 1 The inauguration took place during the pandemic at a time when meetings were only authorised in very small num- bers. The video was live-streamed the same day. lective memory and remembrance. [Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung 2021] A little later, Chancellor Merkel, in her ad- dress announced: “Today’s opening of the Doc- umentation Centre marks a new chapter in our politics of remembrance” (Presse- und Informa- tionsamt der Bundesregierung 2021). On the basis of these assertive statements by politicians, and from a political science point of view, I would like to devote this article to the question of the extent to which the newly es- tablished Documentation Centre for Displace- ment, Expulsion, Reconciliation actually offers a new approach to the site of remembrance (lieu de mémoire) “Flight and Expulsion of the Ger- mans”2 (Flucht und Vertreibung der Deutschen), as announced by Chancellor Merkel, and link this to the politically charged and sensitive ques- tion: how to remember and exhibit negativity (violence and “immeasurable and millionfold suffering” – as mentioned by Ms Grütters)? Is it possible to remember the suffering experienced by displaced persons without having to fear feed- ing the spiral of violence that is already a feature of population transfers? Would not forgetting be more appropriate to break the role reversal between victims and perpetrators that marks the history of forced migration (Gerlach 2011; Schwartz 2013, 637–638; Gross 2022)? How to tackle the question of violence, especially since the legality of the expulsions remains unresolved to this day (Schwartz 2013, 624)?3 2 Flucht und Vertreibung (Flight and Expulsion) is an estab- lished formula that refers primarily to a traumatising his- torical event, when millions of Germans were forced to leave their homelands in the East at the end of WWII (to keep it as general as possible). But the expression also en- tails in a more metaphorical way a spatial dimension (Lotz 2007, 2) and refers implicitly to the lost homelands in the East and in doing so, to the territorial but also to the cul- tural losses. It is at once a reference to an event and to a space. 3 In his conclusion, Michael Schwartz (2013, 624) remarks, “the legality of the expulsion of the Germans in 1945 re- mains an unresolved issue to this day”. He also points at “the ambiguous position of international law with regard to ‘population transfers’ as the ultima ratio in cases of in- tractable conflicts”. He highlights the contradictions of at- titudes towards forced migrations yesterday and today, but also the fact that forced migrations do not necessarily al- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 69 Historically, forced migrations such as the German “flight and expulsion” belong both to the history of migration (population move- ments) and to the history of mass violence.4 They are also characterised by their proximity to genocide from which, however, they are cate- gorically to be differentiated (Mann 2005, 7–8; Ther 2011; 8–9, Schwartz 2013, 2–3; Bazin Per- ron 2018, 17–18). These three thematic complex- es which all (have) produced negativity, albeit to a different extent, are thematised in different in- stitutions whose histories, aims and exhibition practices differ from one another: monuments and memorials, contemporary history museums, local and regional history or ethnographic mu- seums, documentation, or memorial sites, etc. All follow the same functions which are conven- tionally patrimonialisation and identity build- ing (Poulot 2009, 4) but also political and his- torical education, democratic self-assurance, acknowledging crimes, fighting against oblivion, repression, and trivialisation and, finally, hon- ouring the victims (Wagner 2022, 12). However, they weight them differently and have different ways of handling the relations between negativi- ty, remembrance, and knowledge, proposing dif- ferent answers to the questions formulated by Sophie Wahnich: “what traces does (this) nega- tivity leave that could find a place in a museum?” “How can they [those traces] be treated?” and “What do they imply in terms of the process of recognition?” (Wahnich 2017, 119). ways originate from autocratic regimes and their dictato- rial leaders, but must be understood as a phenomenon of modernity and are not alien even to democracies, that the flight and expulsion of the Germans cannot be explained without Nazi rule and violence, but that there were also other reasons that went further back in time. He under- lines the importance of the economic redistribution and also the interaction and entanglement of different depor- tations. 4 Christian Gerlach defines mass violence as “widespread physical violence against non-combatants, that is outside of immediate fighting between military or paramilitary personnel. Mass violence includes killings, but also forced removal or expulsion, enforced hunger or undersupply, forced labor, collective rape, strategic bombing, and exces- sive imprisonment – for many strings connect these to out- right murder and these should not be severed analytically” (Gerlach 2010, 1; also Semelin (2000, 143–145)). Monuments and memorials first and fore- most aim at patrimonialising the violence, most- ly through an aesthetic form that thematises it in an indirect way (Koselleck 2002, 31–32), hon- ouring the victims and maintaining both in na- tional memory. Their mourning function takes precedence over the transmission of knowl- edge. For museums the weighting is the other way round. These institutions usually find it dif- ficult to deal with negativity, which is contrary to their heritage function, generally understood to be to generating positive identification. His- tory and ethnographic museums usually cover a longer period of time (exceeding the sole violent episode) and have a strong identity component. They primarily target knowledge and education (historical as well as political), violence being mediated through museal staging schemes and narration. Documentation centres5 and memo- rial sites combine aspects of both; they have a sa- lient memorial aspect, usually linked to the task of patrimonialising sites/places where (mostly Nazi) crimes have been committed, and at the same time, they aim at documenting the latter (diffusing knowledge) through the preservation of traces. Here, violence is the most unmediated. The positioning of the Documentation Centre in this field appears to be, if not ambig- uous, then at least complex. Not only does it have to position itself in relation to the numer- ous museum-type institutions, scattered over the whole of Germany, that already exist in the very crowded field linked to “flight and expul- sion”: the hundreds of small Heimatstuben (Lo- cal history rooms), Heimatmuseen (local history museums) (Eisler 2015), and medium-size muse- ums dedicated to the lost homelands, villages, cities and regions, the oldest of which date back 5 The term Documentation Centre is specific to the German context. It is often used for memorial sites (mostly former Nazi-concentration camps, but not only) where the histo- ry of National-Socialism is documented in an authentic place, to which elements of information and documenta- tion are added in order to make the site decipherable for fu- ture generations. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 70 to the 1950s,6 and to the dozens of more profes- sionalised and institutionalised “§96 regional museums”7 dedicated to wider areas of expul- sion (Vertreibungsgebiete) like Silesia, Eastern Prussia, and Western Prussia, and to the settle- ment areas of Germans from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, of Transylvanian Saxon, of Dan- ube Swabian, of Russian-German, etc., which display historical, as well as cultural and ethno- graphic, material, that have been created or ex- panded in the last decades (Perron 2016). The Documentation Centre must also position itself in the more general museal and memorial land- scape of the Federal republic. The term “Documentation Centre”, which was chosen by the federal government instead of “museum” or “memorial” to name the new in- stitution, deserves a closer look. According to the director, Gundula Bavendamm, its mandate goes well beyond creating an exhibition (Möck 2021). Thus, choosing this name is first and fore- most a way to stress the educational and research goals of the institution, which is presented as “a unique place of learning and remembrance”.8 Yet, this denomination has several further im- plications in the realm of memory politics, like the fact that it strongly echoes the neighbouring Topography of Terror Documentation Centre, (Dokumentationszentrum Topographie des Ter- 6 If the form of the Heimatstube/Heimatmuseum dates back to the late nineteenth century, after World War II the ones dedicated to the lost homelands in the East were a new phenomenon. They were set up by the refugees and expel- lees (with the active support of their Homeland associa- tions) to mourn the loss, cultivate the memory of the lost homeland, collect cultural artefacts but also everyday ob- jects from those areas, and as a place to meet. Their collec- tions were made of a range of disparate items, sometimes originals, often recreations recalling the flight or the ex- pulsion (Eisler 2011). 7 Those are funded by the Länder and the federation by means of the §96 of the law on expellees of 1953, and often display exhibitions that are a mixture of history and eth- nography. Their collections are made of historical and cul- tural objects and artefacts, pieces of art and ethnographic material. 8 As announced on the homepage of its website: “a unique place of learning and remembrance on displacement, ex- pulsion and forced migrations in history and in the pres- ent” (Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung n.d.a). rors), 9 one of the most influential10 memory sites linked to the Nazi Regime. In fact, in Germa- ny this term is mainly used by institutions ded- icated to the documentation of the crimes of both totalitarianism of the twentieth century on German soil, that were created in the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s, a time the exhibitions dedicated to the national-socialist past started being strongly criticised for their praxis of “re- ducing the NS past to fright and repugnance without knowledge basis” (Knigge 2002, 384) and where there was a wish to get rid of the heav- ily ideologised memorial practice of the GDR in the new Länder. At the time and based on the Beutelsbach Consensus11 which was achieved a de- cade earlier in the realm of political education, there was an attempt to move away from emo- tionalising exhibition practices that aimed less at informing and stimulating critical thinking than at purifying German society from possible remains of national socialist ideology. In fact, the “Documentation Centre” prin- ciple, which is born out of the museography of national socialist crimes, hints at a particular way of exhibiting violence marked by a specif- ic equilibrium between narration and objects. It implies a specific way of conceiving the exhi- bitions of institutions dedicated to violent epi- sodes, following a documentational principle (dokumentierendes Prinzip) (Knigge 2002, 384– 387; Wagner 2022, 11–12) which has been devel- oped in opposition to narrative presentations. If a narrative can be defined as “a chronological-se- mantic entity preceding the exhibits, which reg- ulates the arrangement of the exhibits in the 9 Both memorial institutions lie a few metres away from each other in the very centre of Berlin. 10 The Topography of Terror Documentation Centre initiat- ed what can be considered one of the most important me- morial civic initiatives that took place in Berlin at the end of the 1980s. It was dedicated to securing the traces of the headquarters of the Gestapo and the SS and of the Reich- sicherheitshauptamt on the area of Prinz Albrecht Strasse, where they were located. It was transformed it into a site dedicated to documenting the perpetrators’ side of the na- tional socialist terror regime (Wüstenberg 2020). 11 The main of the three points of the Beutelsbach consen- sus was “a prohibition against overwhelming the pupil” (Landeszentrale für politische Bildung n.d.). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 71 sense of a meta-message” (Knigge 2002, 385), the idea behind the documentational principle is to avoid imposing such a (potentially ideologically loaded) meta-message, and more so, a judgment for the visitor, by following a “quasi forensic” ap- proach (Wagner 2022, 11), in which objects, doc- uments and traces are conceived of as testimo- nies (of the crime). This form of exhibition puts the visitors in an active position. They are of- fered “the possibility to form their own opinion about history by being presented with an exhib- its landscape open to multiple perspectives and as large interpretations as possible” (p. 12). The approach relies on the belief in the aura of ob- jects which are not only treated as visual aids to illustrate the narrative, but as “documentary ev- idence of the criminal action” (Wagner 2022, 12; Knigge 2002, 378–379). As such they serve to prevent against negationist tendencies in so- ciety. The “documentation principle” is usually used on authentic sites of violence  - like camps for example – (documenting the side of the vic- tims) or on sites that are intimately connected to the perpetration of violence (documenting the side of the perpetrators) – like the Central com- mandment of the Gestapo, the SS, at the Topog- raphy of Terror Documentation Centre in Ber- lin. Using this denomination is thus a way to inscribe the memory of “flight and expulsion” in the nexus of the commemoration practices of ge- nocide and mass crimes, and can also be unders- tood as a reaction to the fact that “flight and ex- pulsion” had been kept out of the official federal Memorial Conception (Gedenkstättenkonzepti- on)12 adopted by the Bundestag in 1999 (Unter- richtung durch die Bundesregierung: Konzepti- on der künftigen Gedenkstättenförderung des Bundes und Bericht der Bundesregierung über die Beteiligung des Bundes an Gedenkstätten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and of its Up- date (Fortschreibung) adopted in 2008 (Unter- 12 The Gedenkstättenkonzeption is a central document dedi- cated to the politics of history and memory of the unified FRG, adopted by the Bundestag in 1999, that recognised the federal responsibility for the legacies and traces of the sites of terror of the Nazi regime and the need for a feder- al financing of those - especially of the ones located in the former GDR. richtung durch den Beauftragten der Bundesre- gierung für Kultur und Medien: Fortschreibung der Gedenkstättenkonzeption des Bundes; Ver- antwortung wahrnehmen, Aufarbeitung ver- stärken, Gedenken vertiefen). As Gundula Bavendamm explains: Well, I think we are just filling a gap on the national level, [...] until recently, [...] such a place of remembrance, whose founding idea revolved around the topic of the flight and expulsion of the Germans, did not ex- ist. In this respect, we are definitely on the same level as the Topography of Terror, as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, and in the future perhaps as the Exile Museum diagonally opposite to us at the Anhalter Bahnhof [...] and we see ourselves in this cir- cle of institutions that refer in very different ways to the deep ambivalences of contem- porary German history and illuminate the different aspects that are part of it. I think we can say quite confidently that this is how we were founded, that we are now part of it. And from our perspective, with our found- ing mission, we want to keep this topic alive. [Möck 2021] Drawing on the reflections on the museal- isation of negative pasts (Knigge 2002; Kosel- leck 2002; Becker and Debary 2012; Bechtel and Jurgenson 2016; Wahnich 2011; 2017; Wag- ner 2022), I will now examine to what extent the “documentation principle”, as described above, is appropriate for the musealisation of “flight and expulsion” and used in the new institution. In doing this I will first consider the political di- mensions of the announced mode of exhibition (documenting the crime, preventing negationist tendencies and oblivion) by looking at the mis- sions assigned to the Documentation Centre. I will then examine whether this form of exhibi- tion is appropriate for an institution located on a site that has only a very weak direct historical connection with what it is documenting. I will thus investigate whether and with what means a public institution like the Documentation Cen- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 72 tre exhibits the violence and suffering/negativity linked to displacement and expulsion, but also which sufferings are, or rather can be, exhibited. With what traces, respectively objects, does the exhibition work? What is the status given to the collection and the objects displayed and how do they relate to the narrative? And finally, I will question what goal a documentation centre ded- icated to “flight and expulsion” of Germans can have in Germany today? The Mission of the Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation: Squaring the Circle As stressed by minister Monika Grütters dur- ing the opening, the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, and Reconciliation is the result of decades of bitter disputes. The in- itiative goes back to the newly elected Presi- dent of the Federation of expellees Erika Stein- bach,13 when she expressed the wish in 1999 to “create in Berlin a ‘Centre of the 15 million’”14 (‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zentrum der 15 Millionen”: Ein weißer Fleck muß aufgearbeitet werden’ 1999, 5) which became one year later, on 6 September 2000, the Foundation Centre against Expulsions (Stiftung Zentrum gegen Ver- treibungen).15 In Steinbach’s opinion, “Germany need[ed …] for this dramatic and incisive part of pan-German history a central information, doc- umentation, archival and meeting site in Ber- lin, with permanent and changing exhibitions, about the way of sorrow of the 15 million victims 13 Erika Steinbach, who was the head of the federation of ex- pellees (Bund der Vertriebenen – BdV) from 1998 to 2014, was also a member of the conservative wing of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), and an MP at the Bunde- stag between 1990 and 2017 when she resigned from the CDU fraction. After 2017 she did not run anymore but supported the AfD in the federal elections. 14 A provocative way of calling the BdV’s project because of the implicit reference to the six millions Jews that were killed by the Nazi (Dakowska 2003) which was soon aban- doned for the more neutral Foundation Centre against Ex- pulsions. 15 A name that was less polemic for an institution whose cre- ation can be seen as a reaction to the adoption by the Bun- destag of a resolution on the creation of a central memorial to the murdered European Jews (called Holocaust Mahn- mal) on 24 June 1999. of expulsion” (‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zen- trum der 15 Millionen”: Ein weißer Fleck muß aufgearbeitet werden’1999, 5).16 At the time, the initiative was welcomed by politicians first and foremost of the conserva- tive CDU/CSU in power, but also by some SPD MPs of the Bundestag (such as Peter Glotz).17 It happened against the backdrop of an in- creased focus on the German victims of World War II in public debates and a discourse about the lack of national recognition of their suffer- ings in German national memory in the media, but also among writers and essayists (Rauschen- bach 2008, 180). In the context of the approach- ing eastern enlargement of the EU, however, the activities of Federation of expellees and its Foun- dation Centre against expulsions were closely followed by Germany’s eastern neighbours (the expelling countries). They soon took a highly contentious turn and started seriously threaten- ing the government’s commitment to pacifying 16 Motion adopted by the Federal executive board and the Praesidium of the Federation of expellees on 20 March 1999 (‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zentrum der 15 Millionen”: Ein weißer Fleck muß aufgearbeitet werden’ 1999, 5). In fact, Steinbach reactivated a claim made a decade earlier by Hart- mut Koschyk, the Secretary general of the BdV, to transform the Berlin memorial to “Flight and expulsion” into a “Cen- tral memorial to the remembrance of the 14 million victims of the flights and expulsions ... where more than 2 million people died”, as well as to commemorate “the unicity of the crime against humanity”. If Koschyk did not specify at the time how this transformation should occur and what it con- cretely meant, he nevertheless wanted to add to this central memorial the creation of a commission of historians which was supposed “to deal with the reappraisal of the expulsions” (‘Koschyk fordert zentrale Gedenkstätte’ 1990, 2). Apart from the fact that there had already been such an officially appointed commission, headed by the histori- an Theodor Schieder, that had published a series of vol- umes of documentation about the crimes of expulsions (Beer 1998), this statement is not only highly problem- atic because of the qualification of expulsion as a unique crime against humanity which puts it on a level with the Holocaust  – a rhetoric typical of the Expellees associa- tions – but also in in the numbers cited. (About the num- bers see the very precise counting by Hahn and Hahn (2010, 698–705).) 17 Whereas the first ones claimed it was necessary to remedy a “blind spot” of history, an old anthem of the federation of expellees and of Steinbachs, the social democrats insist more on the disinterest, the cold heartedness and lack of empathy of the leftists towards the Expellees and their suf- ferings. Cf. ‚Rede vom Bundesinnenminister Otto Schily, am 29 Mai 1999 im Berliner Dom’ (1999). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 73 the bilateral relations with the East, especially with Poland and the Czech Republic (Dakows- ka 2007). What was at stake as well in the do- mestic debates and in the disputes with the east- ern neighbours was how to weight and to put in relation the commemoration of the victims of the German National Socialist terror regime to the German victims of the Second World War (Salzborn 2003, 1124). The question was whether the recognition and the place given to the Ger- man sufferings linked to the expulsions in Ger- man official commemorations would lead to a “completion or [to] a revision of history” (Ass- mann 2007, 11; see also Hahn and Hahn (2008, 39–40)). Hoping to put an end to the polemics (Per- ron 2015) and silence the more or less openly re- visionist stances18 of the Federation of Expellees, the German government (the grand coalition CDU/CSU-SPD), under the auspices of the CDU/CSU, took over the project in 2008,19 in- itiating the creation by the Bundestag of a de- pendent Foundation placed under the control of the Foundation Deutsches Historisches Muse- um.20 The purpose of this new institution, which was a hundred percent a creation of the German federation and as such also funded to a hundred percent by the federation,21 was “ – in the spir- it of reconciliation  – to keep alive the remem- 18 As shown by the resentful comments in the Visitor’s Book of the exhibition Erzwungene Wege, that was opened in August 2006 in the Berlin Kronprinzenpalais, organised by Steinbach’s Stiftung Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen (Assmann 2007, 11). 19 The intent to create a “visible sign” in Berlin was laid down in the Coalition contract in 2005. 20 On December 21, the Bundestag adopted a law establish- ing a Deutsches Historisches Museum Foundation, in which the creation of a dependent Stiftung Flucht Vertrei- bung Versöhnung, was mentioned in Paragraph 2. The sup- porting organisation of the Documentation Centre is the Foundation for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation, which was established by the German Bundestag in De- cember 2008 as a non-party, dependent foundation under public law. It is funded by the State Minister for Culture and the Media (Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertrei- bung, Versöhnung n.d.a). 21 As such it was taken out of the direct control of the Feder- ation of expellees. Very few cultural institutions are man- dated and controlled by the Federation since culture lies in the exclusive domain of responsibility of the Länder. brance and commemoration of flight and expul- sion in the 20th century in the historical context of the Second World War and of the National Socialist expansion and extermination policies and their consequences.”22 These fights over the politics of history im- pacted the conception23 and the legal purpose of the Foundation24 drafted by the federal govern- ment in 2008. It laid down a decidedly complex and contradictory task, that is formulated unu- sually precisely and directly.25 On the one hand, the remembrance policy dimension is very clear. It is a matter of setting a “visible sign” in Ber- lin, in a time marked by the disappearance of the generation of witnesses; in other words, of transforming a communicational memory into a cultural memory – to use Jan and Aleida Ass- mann’s terms – in order to meet the political de- mands of the associations of expellees to com- memorate the sufferings endured in the newly reclaimed capital and more so, in the core of the commemoration landscape of unified Germa- ny. On the other hand, however, the Bundestag 22 See purpose of the Foundation in Section 2, paragraph 16 of the “Law on the establishment of a Foundation ‘Deutsches Historisches Museum’” (Beauftragter der Bun- desregierung für Kultur und Medien, 2008) 23 See Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Ver- söhnung (n.d.e). 24 Act on the Establishment of a Foundation “German His- torical Museum” of 21 December 2008, Section 2 Inde- pendent Foundation “Foundation Flight Expulsion Rec- onciliation”, § 16 Purpose of the Foundation “The purpose of the dependent foundation is – in the spirit of reconcilia- tion – to keep alive the remembrance and commemoration of flight and expulsion in the 20th century in the historical context of the Second World War and of the National So- cialist expansion and extermination policies and their con- sequences” (Bundesamt für Justiz n.d.b). 25 The Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation is to my knowledge the sole German Museum to which poli- tics tells how to tell history as precisely. This scope of in- tervention from politics in the realm of historiography is the more astonishing for those who remember the con- troversies that accompanied Chancellor Kohl’s initi- ative to build a House of the History of the FRG (Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik) in Bonn in the middle of the 1980s). At the time, the sole fact that it was a gov- ernmental initiative to build such historical museums was contested (François 1992; Werner, 2016). In the case of the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, and Reconciliation, the political interference goes much fur- ther and determines the frame of the historical narration. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 74 raises the claim of working through a complex past and sets a very narrow historical framing, which contradicts the usual narrative of the as- sociations of expellees. The remembrance and commemoration of “flight and expulsion” must take place “in the historical context of the Sec- ond World War and the National Socialist pol- icy of expansion and extermination and its con- sequences” and “in the spirit of reconciliation”. And finally, the topic has also “to be anchored in the centre of society”, outside of the remem- brance milieu and transferred into a publicly ac- cessible memory form. If the explicit wish expressed by politics for memorialisation of this historical episode is in accordance with the documentation prin- ciple, the necessity to fight negationist tenden- cies or, to use the words of the association of ex- pellees, its “tabooisation”, is very questionable (Hahn and Hahn 2010; Beer 2011, 135). Neither are flight and expulsion contested, nor their vi- olence negated. The sufferings and crimes relat- ed to this mass violence have been extensively documented by the West German State author- ities (Beer 1998) and the episode has always been present in (West-) German politics, historiogra- phy, and memory. Further the very tight histori- cal frame laid down in the statuses of the Foun- dation Flight, Expulsion and Reconciliation by the Federal Government seems to contradict the documentation principle, in that it heavily con- strains the scope of interpretation of the histori- cal episode, obliges to a narrative and more so di- rects this narrative. “Flight and expulsion” must be presented as a consequence of World War II and not – as the federation of expellees and the heads of expellee organisations have done so of- ten – treated as an independent historical event, that happened because of circumstances that were out of the control of the individuals. And indeed, this has been practically implemented on the second floor of the Documentation Cen- tre, dedicated to “the displacement and expul- sions of the Germans”. The visitor is obliged to start the tour with a module about the “German expansionist policy and the Second World War” which cannot be sidestepped, before accessing the spaces dedicated to the expulsions and the new post war order. The Aporias of the Musealisation of the Negative In order to determine now how concretely this museumification project is located in the Ger- man public memory and museum landscape, in which tradition(s) and to which practice of mu- seum representation it belongs, I will start to consider three seemingly very simple questions26 posed by Reinhard Koselleck (2002, 26) in his reflections on the “forms and traditions of nega- tive memory” which help highlight the complex- ity of the project. “Who is to be remembered?” Through this question, Koselleck aimed at reflecting on the aporias of the memorialisation of Nazi crimes to which the newly unified German State had com- mitted itself.27 Since reunification, an official state-led negative memory culture, that put the Shoah and the crimes committed by Germans in the centre of Germany’s national commemo- rations, had become mainstream (as symbolised by the erection of the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe and its location in the heart of the new capital in 2005). In this context, Kosel- leck pleaded among other things for a memorial- isation not only of the victims (as the Holocaust memorial does) but also of the crimes and their perpetrators. In fact, Germany’s official memo- ry landscape contains institutions dedicated to both: commemorating the victims and docu- menting the crimes and the perpetratorship of the Germans. Yet, the roles are clear cut. A clear distinction is made between both victims and 26 Who is to be remembered? What is to be remembered? How is it to be remembered? 27 First and foremost, he shows the impossibility of making sense of those crimes. Contrary to previous memorialisa- tion of defeats that turned the dead into heroes and used the negativity for nationalistic positive aims, such as group unity and identification, in this case, according to Kosel- leck, the remembrance of the suffering cannot be trans- formed into such a thing as a collective memory nor be used to lay the foundation of a collective identity. Quite the opposite (Koselleck 2002, 24). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 75 perpetrators and commemoration takes place from the univocal perspective of the perpetrator. Answering Koselleck’s second question: “what is to be remembered?”, there is no doubt that adding the commemoration of “flight and expulsion” to that negative memory breaks with this univocity and adds a layer of complexity to German official memory. In this case, the group of perpetrators and the group of victims over- lap. The challenge thus lies in the question of the compatibility of the memory of suffering and guilt, and in the fact that the victims cannot be commemorated only as such. It is thus not possi- ble to focus solely on the German sufferings. At the same time, including the numerous other experiences of expulsion does not solve the problem since the juxtaposition of several dif- ferent cases of forced migrations28 confers to the Germans a special status in regard to the sheer numbers of German expellees29 because the nar- rative underlying this kind of presentation is that the history of the twentieth century in Eu- rope was one of forced migrations30 driven by the desire to create ethnically homogenous na- tion-states, of which Nazism was ultimately only the most extreme incarnation. In this respect, commemorating “flight and expulsion” (only) from the victims’ point of view leads to a revi- sion of Germany’s history by putting into ques- 28 Muslims from the Balkans, Armenians, Turks, Greeks, Jews, Poles, Germans, Finns, Italians etc. 29 This was the narrative behind the exhibition “Erzwungene Wege” that was organised in 2006 in the Kronprinzepalais in Berlin by the Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen, the Foun- dation of the BdV, and this was also the narrative behind the first exhibition “Gewaltmigration Erinnern” that led to a political scandal and to relieving Manfred Kittel, the first director of the Foundation Fight, Expulsion, Recon- ciliation from his duties by the Foundation Council. 30 This is the title given to the exhibition on the first floor in the Konzept für die Daueraustellung, Stiftung Flucht Ver- treibung Versöhnung (Bavendamm et al. 2017), published by the Foundation. This title is not to be found anymore in today’s exhibition. The first floor is not named, and the conception of the exhibition has changed from a chron- ological approach whose aim was “to give an [historical] overview over the enormous and the hitherto unknown extent of forced population displacements of millions of people in the Europe of the long XX century” (p. 14) to a more thematic one, centered around the individual expe- riences of forced migrations, that includes today’s migra- tions. tion the exceptionality of the Holocaust. To pre- vent this, the Foundation Act of the Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation refers to the indispensable historical contextualisation, ex- pecting that this would thus prevent the norm of German national memory (the overarching framework of remembrance of guilt as Assmann calls it (2006, 188) that has applied at the latest since the Historikerstreit31) from being put into question. Finally, if the way of remembering the vic- tims of “flight and expulsion” not only as victims is a moral challenge and a challenge to nation- al memory culture, the remembrance of the per- petrators and the criminal dimension of “flight and expulsion” are challenges to knowledge and understanding (Piotr Cywinski, quoted in Wah- nich 2011, 59). Indeed, a sole focus on the victims does not permit grasping historical events in their full dimension. To be able to ask the his- torically essential questions, to understand the causal chains to give the moral commandment of “never again” (which is at the origin of the efforts of patrimonialisation of the negative  – Wahnich (2011, 48)) a concrete content, one has to bring to light the perpetrators’ side. But the remembrance of the perpetrators and those re- sponsible for the crimes is as complex from a memory and historical point of view as it is po- litically delicate. It might stand in the way of the desired reconciliation (and more so since recon- ciliation is part of the name of the Documenta- tion Centre) with the neighbouring states to the east, which were both perpetrators and victims of the Germans. Coming to the third question, “how is it to be remembered?”,32 a first indication can be found in the location of the Documentation 31 The Historikerstreit was a debate among historians of the present, that took place in 1986/87, about the place of the Shoah in German history and its uniqueness. 32 Koselleck (2002, 29–31) notes in relation to the Holocaust four possible interconnected modes: (1) through a moral judgment (that is necessary but insufficient to understand what happened), (2) though science that completes the moral judgment and helps understanding, (3) though a re- ligious memorial cult (that does not reach everyone), and, because all those three ways are insufficient, he adds (4) the aesthetic one. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 76 Centre in the core of the German capital in the immediate vicinity of the most important NS memorial sites of the Federal Republic, as well as in the monumental (interior) architecture of the Deutschlandhaus. Both create a monument which is in itself a “visible sign” and give it, inde- pendently of the exhibition’s content, the status of a memorial. They constitute a political state- ment about the legitimacy and status given to “flight and expulsion” in official German com- memorations, this official legitimation of the memory of “flight and expulsion” being rein- forced by the musealisation mandate and fund- ing by the federation. We now need to explore how the latter has been implemented, and how the perma- nent exhibition tackles the above-mentioned contradictions. Loss as the Guiding Line of the Permanent Exhibition Given the choice of naming the institution Doc- umentation Centre for Displacement, Expul- sion, Reconciliation, and given the political and cultural discourses about the necessity to com- memorate the victims’ suffering that had accom- panied its creation, one would expect the exhi- bition to be centred around the violence of that process. Yet, the focus is on the dimension of loss (of home  – Heimat)33  – a very abstract notion. Violence and injustice are addressed, but only marginally. It is noteworthy that even though the direc- tor Gundula Bavendamm denies it,34 this choice brings the Documentation Centre for Displace- ment, Expulsion, Reconciliation close to the nex- us of museums devoted to migration35 (a high- 33 Cf. interview conducted by the author with one of the main curators online, on 14 September 2022. See also the homepage of the Documentation Centre, which explains, under the tab “Our topic”, “understand what loss means” (Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöh- nung n.d.d). 34 In an interview with Evangelische Zeitung, a protestant weekly magazine, she says “we do not see ourselves as a new variety of a migration museum” (Philippi 2021). 35 The curators of the main exhibition (interviewed by the au- thor in December 2021 and in September 2022) admit that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Ger- Figure 1 : The monumental concrete staircase leading to the first floor (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 2: Staircase leading to the second floor (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 77 ly topical theme in a Germany that increasingly sees itself as a post-migration society). As the cu- rators explain,36 migrations were the elephant in the room at the time the permanent exhibition was drafted, the time of the massive arrival of ref- ugees on German soil in the mid 2010s. Migra- tions as a topic was pervasive in German society and the historical parallelism with flight and ex- pulsion after World War II was a frequent trope in German media and culture (Perron 2021). To gain some credibility, the Documentation Cen- tre could not avoid the topic. As a result, the universal dimensions of the experience of migrating were included in the ex- hibition on the first floor, which was initially thought to be dedicated to the European history of forced migrations.37 Aspects such as Nations and Nationalism but also War and Violence, Rights and Responsibility, Loss and New Begin- nings, Routes and Camps, Memory and Contro- versy are treated as the main stations of an open tour. However, numerous references to present migrations are to be found, in the texts as well as in the objects displayed. An orange life jack- et used for crossing the Mediterranean, a dam- aged smartphone of a Syrian refugee, a reference to the Dublin III regulations of the EU, figures of the world-wide number of refugees in 2019, the description of current asylum procedures in Germany, refugee law and refugee aid, etc. The parallelism drawn with “flight and expulsion” is reinforced by the fact that some of these objects of today’s refugees that are displayed replicate many in 2015 gave the exhibition a new conceptual thrust. Museums dedicated to migrations are very much up and coming in these years. Before 2015 the projects were main- ly local and the exhibitions temporary. Afterwards, some bigger institutions like the Deutsches Auswandererhaus dedicated new exhibitions to the subject. Projects like the DOMID in Cologne, and the Exile Museum in Berlin ap- peared, and numerous exhibitions dedicated to “flight and expulsion” or the German expellees were prolonged to en- compass the theme of migrations (Fuchs and Kolb 2017, 291). 36 Interviews conducted by the author with two of the main curators in December 2021 and September 2022. 37 And more so the fact that on the website the overall title of the exhibition is “the century of flight”, flight being some- thing different than expulsion (Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung n.d.b)! the iconic objects of “flight and expulsion” with which they are mixed: a refugee agency kitchen set, a key to a lost home, a rucksack, ration/cash cards, images of refugee camps… pointing to the universal aspects of this experience. The museumisation of loss raised complex questions, starting with the fact that it may seem paradoxical and challenging to make the loss present by means of material artefacts. As men- tioned above, on the first floor, loss is initially staged as one of the fundamental experiences of refugees. Here, the universal dimension is first brought to the fore through the filmed testimo- ny of nine people. Three of them are portrayed Figure 3: Key to a lost home in Northern Cyprus, shown in the first floor of the exhibition (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 4: The life jacket of a migrant that crossed the Mediterranean (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 78 almost life-size. They have different regions of origin (Vietnam, former Yugoslavia and the for- mer German Reich and settlement areas). In the short audio sequences that accompany the pic- tures, the visitor discovers that what links these seemingly very different people is the fact that they all had to leave their homeland involuntari- ly and that they settled in Germany. This individualising approach is a conscious choice of the curators. It runs through the entire exhibition (Möck 2021) and is taken up again in the second part (2nd floor),38 which deals specif- ically with the “flight and expulsion” of the Ger- 38 In contrast to the first floor, the second floor works in a chronological way, starting with the “German Expansion policy and World War II”. mans.39 As the director explains, the idea was to make history become concrete through human destinies, not to present one history but “a mul- titude of histories, as diverse and complex as the subject”, depending on the age at which flight and expulsion have been experienced, wheth- er male or female, from where to where, if one has experienced violence or not, and how inte- gration functioned (Möck 2021). This diversity is encapsulated in the numerous green biogra- phy flaps that accompany each historical episode and exposed object on the second floor. Once 39 This approach is echoing the one of the “Information cen- tre under the field of stelae” that is underneath the neigh- bouring Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, where after a scientific introduction the exhibition works with bi- ographical perspectives. Figure 5: In the area of ‘Loss and new beginnings’ on the first floor of the permanent exhibition, life-size portraits of people who fled and settled in Germany are shown. Their memories can be heard in the audio guide (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 79 opened, those outline a short biography and the specific trajectory of one individual. They comprise a photograph of that person or fami- ly, a map showing where the person came from, sometimes his or her route and a very short text notice, all of which is further detailed in the au- dio-guide linked to each biography flap. This individual approach creates a plural- isation of perspectives that makes it possible to reflect the complexity and multi-layeredness of the topic as intended by the curators. More than often, it works with testimonials collect- ed in the 2010s, thus from individuals who were very young at the time. If this children’s perspec- tive, which is dominant in the exhibition, is ef- fective in denouncing forced migrations (which is the very purpose of the Documentation Cen- tre) by pointing to its injustice and the sufferings it causes, this approach, however, also nourish- es the impression of “absolute victimhood” (Chu 2022, 592), due to the innocence of the witness- es/victims and the fact that their family histo- ries in the interwar and war period (such as the relations to or involvement in the third Reich, its administration, its military and/or police forces and even less so in possible mass violence committed by the Nazis) are seldom or only very vaguely mentioned. As Winson Chu ar- gues, there is a “segregation of macrolevel collec- Figure 7: An opened Biography-Flap and the audioguide button on the second floor of the permanent exhibition, illustrating the fate of the Kocur Family (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 8: Green biographical Flap depicting the biography and the itinerary of the Viennese hat maker Paula Laufer (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 6: A biography Flap dedicated to the Ukrainian Family Kocur, which was sent to forced labour to Ger- many after the German occupation of Eastern Poland in 1941. Second floor of the exhibition, panel dedicated to the evacuation of the Eastern front. (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 80 tive guilt from microlevel victimization”, which echoes Harald Welzer’s, Sabine Moller’s and Karoline Tschuggnall’s findings about the gap between historical knowledge and successful re- connaissance of German guilt and perpetrator- ship among young Germans on the one hand, and on the other hand its paradoxical correla- tion with representations of the family past that are mostly that of the moral integrity of grand- parents portrayed as victims or heroes (Welzer et al. 2002, 53).40 In addition, choosing an individual ap- proach can also be explained by the fact that loss is easier to grasp at the individual level than at the group level, where it is much more difficult to clearly define who has lost what. For what ex- actly this “loss of home” is, what belonged to whom and who belonged where, is more am- biguous and politically much more controver- sial at the group level, as Eva and Hans Henning Hahn (2018, 37) have stressed. Contentious col- lective aspects of loss (such as territorial loss or the border issues that point to the theme of in- justice) and their collective relevance (for the na- tion) are present in the exhibition, but they are only addressed indirectly (e.g. through maps, through political posters of the 1950s or through the recording of later Bundestag debates) in the last part of the exhibition. Yet, even on the in- dividual level the questions of property loss and transfer are only touched. As Chu (2002, 591) observes, “more could have been done in the ex- hibition with how German and ‘Volksdeutsche’ property, often itself ‘aryanized’, played a role in the expulsions on a national and local level”. Thus, “the process character” and the mutual in- 40 In this respect an analysis of the testimonies collected in the frame of the contemporary witness project Zeitzeugen- project of the Documentation Centre would be of inter- est. This Zeitzeugenarchive (collection of personal reports about the flight) goes hand in hand with the exhibition. “Contemporary witnesses” are supposed to “convey par- ticularly vividly how forced migrations affect the individ- ual” (Stiftung Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung 2018, 3–4) as well as families and societies. Their testimonies provid- ed the content of the green biography flaps. However, all of them must have been children at the time of flight and ex- pulsion. The victimhood bias might thus have been rein- forced. fluence between mass violence and social crisis, a very central element to the understanding mass violence such as population displacements (Ger- lach 2011, 265), are missing. But maybe the most striking feature of the permanent exhibition of the Documentation Centre is that it is not about cultural loss, as one could have expected. It is noteworthy that in contrast to the state museums financed by the federal and state governments under so-called Kulturparagraf of the Federal Expellees Act (§96 BFVG – Bundesvertriebenengesetz),41 the Docu- mentation Centre is not dedicated to presenting the historical East German provinces or the set- tlement areas of the Germans in Eastern Europe. According to the curators, this was conscious- ly avoided.42 If no culturally outstanding arte- facts are exhibited (such as can be found in the pre-existing §96 Regional Museums43 and ex- pellees Heimatstuben and museums) which tes- tify to the cultural accomplishments of the Ger- mans in their respective settlement areas and by which one could measure the loss; and if no at- tempt is made to display the history of the lost territories nor of the very diverse territories of settlement of German minorities in the east, it might also be because cultural loss has been a central trope in the German discourse about the East and more so in expellees associations’ dis- courses and practices (Lotz 2007). Loss was in- strumentalised to legitimise discourses about historical injustice and the non-recognition of the new borders in the interwar period until the 41 Preserving “the cultural assets of the expellee territories in the awareness of the expellees and refugees, of the German people as a whole and of foreign countries …” is the official reason for the federal funding via the §96 BVFG (Weber 2012). This funding dates back to 1953 and is financing the Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Rec- onciliation but also the numerous other regional museums dedicated to “the lost territories of the Reich and to the ter- ritories of expulsion” (Bundesamt für Justiz n.d.a.). 42 Interview conducted by the author with one of the main curators of the permanent exhibition inDecember 2021. 43 Such as the Silesian Museum in Görlitz, the Pomerani- an State Museum in Greifswald or the East Prussian State Museum in Lüneburg, the Danube-Swabian Central Mu- seum in Ulm, the Transylvanian-Saxon Museum in Gun- delsheim and many others. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 81 mid-1950’s.44 It was thus important to distance the new institution from this kind of discourse and from a museography (that of Heimatstuben and other museum institutions of the expellees) that was based since the 1950s on the attempt of reconstructing the lost homeland, offering ideal- ised and biased visions of the latter, free of crisis or conflicts (Eisler 2011; Beer, Fendl, and Hampe 2012, 7–15; Reinsch et al. 2023, 233). It was also a way to prevent any competition with the §96 Re- gional Museums dedicated to the lost German Reichs- and settlement areas, even though the existence of the latter was never mentioned in of- ficial discourses about the necessity to commem- orate “flight and expulsion”. Some of them had expressed the concern that their funding might be reduced after the Foundation Flight, Expul- sion, Reconciliation was added to the list of the §96 BVFG funded institutions. The Collection: Objects as Carriers of Histories and of Negativity To analyse further the approach to loss of the Documentation Centre, it is necessary to look both at the collection and at the way the ob- jects that comprise it are dealt with, as well as at the exhibition practice. In the first place it is important to recall that the Documentation Centre, with its library, its testimony archive and its room of stillness understands itself as something more than a museum in the classi- cal sense of the word, “a unique place of learning and remembrance” as announced on the website (Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung n.d.c). The main focus of the Doc- umentation Centre is on the exhibition and no 44 Here it is important to note that the trope of the cultur- al loss originates well before the expulsions that followed World War II, in the defeat of the First World War and the will to regain the lost territories, to “not forget” and to re- claim supposedly lost German heritage (Weger 2015, 388– 389). For instance, as shown by Tobias Weger, this was done though the diffusion of well-known visual motifs, like the city hall of Thorn/Torun, the St. Mary’s Church in Dazing/Gdansk, etc. that stood in the “lost territories”, on post-cards or stamps. longer on the collection,45 as the status of the lat- ter shows. In fact, the legislator has not given the Foundation a collection mandate that goes be- yond the creation of an exhibition, and there is significantly no planned funding to take care of such a collection. Like many of the §96 Re- gional Museums that were founded as the result of a political decision, the objects of the perma- nent exhibition do not originate from a pre-ex- isting collection (as most national museums or local history museums exhibitions do). Howev- er, neither were they acquired on the art market, or taken from the holdings of other museums (such as those of the Germanisches National- museum), nor are they on loan from the feder- al government, as is the case in the §96 Regional Museums. The exhibits mostly come from pri- vate sources and were collected through public appeals for donations from expellees or their de- scendants over the past ten years (Möck 2021). As in museums dedicated to migrations, but also to the (Nazi) memorials, the collec- tion is characterised by the fact that most of the objects displayed are everyday things: arte- facts, photos, documents, posters, etc. Their val- ue is not the one of masterpieces in the artistic or historical sense, but it derives from their abil- ity to bear witness as a legacy, to tell a story, to be seen as fleeting traces, as a testimony to and a symptom of exile (Alexandre-Garner and Gal- itzine-Loumpet 2020). These objects are both realia (remains) and relics.46 Despite their appar- ent banality, their task is to provide proof and to be able to say something about the “experiential dimension” (Wagner 2022, 11) of forced migra- tions and its violence to the visitor. Accounts of experiences, life stories and ob- jects with a biographical reference illustrate the range of possible experiences and pro- 45 As in many museums of the second modernity (Beier-de Haan 2005, 220–230) to which the §96 Regional Muse- ums belong. 46 Volkhard Knigge writes (2002, 380): “Realia are the basic material of every exhibition. Relics, on the other hand, are not exhibited but recovered, preserved, and presented in special consecration rooms that shield them from any prof- anation.” st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 82 vide an understanding of which experienc- es can be understood as universal and sub- stantial in the context of forced migrations. [Bavendamm et al., 2017, 25] Hence, their function is more than the re- construction of what has been lost. They aim neither at supporting historic reconstructions, as in the §96 Regional Museums, nor to embody an imagined past, as in the Heimatmuseen. Their function is, according to the concept of the per- manent exhibition, the “presentation of indi- vidual fates and the presentation of biographi- cal narrative strands against a general historical background” (Bavendamm et al. 2017, 25). If they speak for themselves through their intrin- sic “quality, haptics, aesthetics, aura, authentic- ity, and emotionality”, because of their sheer everydayness as Wagner (2011, 11) argues, their sign content is only fragmentary and needs to be re-contextualised. This happens in two ways: first through the life stories and accounts of ex- perience that complement them (they are brief- ly touched upon in the attached biography flaps and can be found in more detail in the audio narratives, each of which can be activated). Sec- ond, through the historical-scientific narrative that determines the overall narration perspec- tive of the exhibition, and the way in which they are arranged. A Source Critical Approach: The Disentanglement of the Real and the Relic It is in the relationship between the objects and the stories that the specificity of the approach of Figure 9: The iconic objects of ‘Flight and expulsion’, like the ladder truck and the chest, are to be seen in the perma- nent exhibition on the second floor (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 83 the Documentation Centre (in comparison to the Heimatmuseum, the oldest and most wide- spread form of musealisation of this past) is best understood. At first glance, none of the visual icons of “flight and expulsion” are missing in the Documentation Centre: ladder trucks, keys, fur coats, chests, suitcases, armbands, traditional costumes, etc. are all on display. Yet their handling differs from that in the Heimatmuseen, where they are mostly used as decontextualised symbols. In the Documenta- tion Centre, the curators paid great attention to object histories: the objects’ lore, provenance, etc. are stored in object databases and narra- tives related to these objects are specifically que- ried and documented. The use of artefacts, imag- es and films in the exhibition is characterised by a source-critical and multi-perspective approach whose goal is, as Volkhard Knigge (2002, 388) writes about the Nazi memorials, the “disentan- glement of the realia and the relic through the suspension of respect for the relics in the careful handling of the realia”. Here the influence of me- morial collecting and exhibition practice of the curators, many of whom had previously worked in Berlin’s Memorials, cannot be overlooked. All in all, the exhibition does refrain from using the Figure 10: Projection of shadows of people on the wall behind the showcases that can be made visible when the audio-guides are activated (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 12: A projection on the wall in the graphic novel style of several members of a German family forced to stay in Poland. The original image is to be seen on the green biographical flap next to the showcase (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 11: The projection on the wall of a shadow that has transformed itself in a graphic novel type image, inspired by a real photography (to be seen on the green biographi- cal Flap) , of young polish man, who documented the forced resettlement of the polish population with his camera. (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 84 full range of modern exhibition tools and con- sciously avoids too obvious staging. No emotion- alisation effects are sought. The rooms are sober and restrained. They are equipped with sim- ple table showcases and are mainly animated by lighting effects. Particularly significant in this context are the wall projections of people that enliven the exhibition. Initially, the idea was to evoke the great mass of people who suffered the fate of ex- pulsion by projecting numerous silhouettes be- hind the showcases. However, this was discarded because of its similarity to Holocaust iconogra- phy. The scenographic solution that was ulti- mately chosen shows the outlines of individual people or small groups that can be made visible through the activation of the audio guides. They are sketched in the style of the popular genre of the graphic novel. The projected images originate from the available and exhibited source material and is intended to be comprehensible. No addi- tions to the images are made. In general, there is no unreflected adoption of photography, as it is the case in many Heimatstuben and museums. For example, pictures of the winter escape from East Prussia, which usually stand for “flight and expulsion”, are not to be found. The motif of the trek is even critically examined and deconstruct- ed by using iconic example pictures to prove that they show something other than what is usual- ly attributed to them. The fact that the iconog- raphy from the flight left far more powerful trac- es in the collective memory than the one from the expulsion is mentioned and questioned. Pho- tographs are predominantly left in their original format (e.g. as passport photos) and not exhib- ited larger than life. The reduction to suffering and victims is also avoided, as it is not the prima- ry aim of the exhibition to emotionalise. A Visible Sign, But With a Quiet Gesture? In summary, it can be said that the way the Docu- mentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation deals with negativity is strongly influenced by the debates about the means with which to present violence and negativity of the national socialist (and communist) pasts and the practice of and debates about memorial exhibi- tions (like the prohibition of overwhelming the visitors), but without adopting their aesthetics.47 This approach is not least due to the curators’ experiences and training with memorial peda- gogics and didactics, and to the interim direc- torship of Uwe Neumarker, the director of the Memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe, at the time the exhibition was drafted (2015/2016) and stands in stark contrast to the monumental- ity of the architecture and the grand announce- ments of a “visible sign” by politics. As Gun- dula Bavendamm, director of the foundation, explains in an interview podcast with the Kul- turstiftung der Länder (Möck 2021), in dealing with the themes of suffering and loss, the gesture of her institution is a “quiet gesture, a withdrawn gesture” that makes it possible to remember vio- lence without feeding the spiral of violence that is so typical of population transfers. However, vi- olence and injustice are neither euphemised nor avoided. For it is precisely this conscious renun- ciation of a striking treatment of suffering and emotionalisation that makes it possible to exhib- it and thematise them. This is done directly on the first floor in the areas of “Flight from War”, “Cleansing, Deportation and Expulsion”, “Sex- ual Violence” and “Genocidal Violence”. But on the one hand these topics are dealt with there in general terms and on the other hand the exhib- its are presented by means of a wall of cabinets whose drawers have to be opened, i.e., which are initially concealed. The negative experiences of the German refugees and expellees are in turn clearly mentioned in the audio accounts of con- temporary witnesses on the 2nd floor. In the restraint and care of its permanent exhibition, the Documentation Centre forms a new approach to the memory of “flight and ex- 47 The tradition and museum practice linked to the Holo- caust was certainly the most fertile and productive in the realm of reflections on how to exhibit negativity. It had a great influence on the staff of the Documentation Centre, who were trained in it. However, one could point to the lack of reflections on what this specific negative past char- acterized by displacement/movement would require as a museography. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i a v is ib le s ig n w it h a “q u ie t g es t u r e” ? 85 pulsion”. With its withdrawn gesture and its treatment of the objects, it in fact comes close to the documentation principle, typical for the ex- hibitions in memorials dedicated to the Nation- al Socialist crimes in Germany. However, its his- torically very constraining narrative framework stands in contradiction to it. This new approach has nevertheless the po- tential to transfer the topic from German com- municative memory to cultural memory and to level the “fissured landscape of memory” in re- lation to flight and expulsion (to use the words of historians Eva and Hans Henning Hahn (2002)). In this way, the goal of memorialisa- tion and reconciliation, namely that of the Ger- mans with themselves, could be achieved. This said, one must mention that it is much less cer- tain that this Documentation Centre contrib- utes a great deal to the historical understanding of the phenomenon of forced migration in gen- eral and German forced migration in particular. The existence of the §96 Regional museums has been completely overlooked in the discussion about the necessity to erect “a visible sign” in Berlin. Of course, their location in Greifswald, Ulm, Görlitz, Lüneburg, etc. does not ensure the same media exposure as the location at the An- halter Bahn hof in Berlin and their focus is much broader than the sole episode of “flight and ex- pulsion”. However, precisely because they are not focused solely on the flight and expulsion pro- cess, and because their approach is rooted in the long-term history of a particular territory with its different population groups, they are in a bet- ter position to give an account of the complexi- ty of the process and provide a more detailed un- derstanding of the mechanism that led to the expulsions. In fact, it is the very idea of a single place in Berlin dedicated to a historical grand narra- tive about “flight and expulsion” in general that is biased. As historians around Martin Schulze Wessel (2010) had already argued in their coun- ter project to the exhibition in 2010, “flight and expulsion” cannot be grasped outside a precise national, geographical, and historical context. They argue that “History takes place in concrete places” and advocate a topographical narrative principle rooted, for instance, in places like Bre- slau/Wroclaw, or Usti Nad Labem/Aussig and der Elbe, or Vilius/Wilna/Wilno/Wilne, which “could be used to show exactly how interwo- ven the numerous migration processes were in the 20th century within a small area” (see also Völkering, 2011). It is at the local level and in the long-term view that the complex histories of eth- nic identifications, assignments, coexistence and conflict can be grasped. Thus, at its present lo- Figure 13: A wall cabinet dedicated to war and violence on the first floor of the permanent exhibition (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) Figure 14: An opened drawer of the wall cabinet dedicat- ed to sexual violence. In the way of a trigger warning, the drawers have to be opened before acceding to the depiction of violence (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 86 cation and with its current narrative, the Docu- mentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation is clearly a political project whose first and foremost aim is creating a memorial to satisfy the claims of the associations of expellees. That said, it might obtain social relevance in that its over-generalising approach through address- ing the individual experience of loss, permits ty- ing in with the currently highly relevant topic of migrations. Disclaimer This contribution is an extended and modified version, based on upgrading of the research, of the article “Negativität ausstellen. 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Unterrichtung durch die Bundesregierung: Konzeption der künftigen Gedenkstättenförderung des Bundes und Bericht der Bundesregierung über die Beteiligung des Bundes an Gedenkstätten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. 1999. Deutscher Bundestag no. 14/1569. Unterrichtung durch den Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien: Fortschreibung der Gedenkstättenkonzeption des Bundes; Verantwortung wahrnehmen, Aufarbeitung verstärken, Gedenken vertiefen. 2008. Deutscher Bundestag no. 16/9875. Völkering, T. 2011. ‘Flucht und Vertreibung’ ausstellen - aber wie? Konzepte für die Dauerausstellung der ‘Stiftung Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung’ in der Diskussion. Reihe Gesprächskreis Geschichte 93. Bonn: Friedrich Ebert. Wagner, J. C. 2022. ‘Gewaltgeschichte ausstellen.’ Historische Urteilskraft – Magazin des Deutschen Historischen Museums (4):10–15. Wahnich, S. 2011. ‘L’impossible patrimoine négatif .’ Les cahiers de l’IRICE 1 (7): 47– 62. 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Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes études en sciences sociales. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 90 ‘Wir brauchen in Berlin ein “Zentrum der 15 Millionen”: Ein weißer Fleck muß aufgearbeitet werden.’ 1999. Deutscher Ostdienst, March 26. Wüstenberg, J. 2020. Zivilgesellschaft und Erinnerungspolitik in Deutschland seit 1945. Translated by W. Wüstenberg, G. Brandt, and R. Brandt. Berlin: LIT. Summary Starting from the analysis of the permanent exhibi- tion of the newly opened Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation, this paper sets out to understand to what extent the Documen- tation Centre succeeds in offering a new approach to the place of remembrance “Flight and Expulsion of the Germans” and to situate it both in the federal Ger- man museum landscape and in the museum landscape around flight and expulsion (between the discontin- ued model Heimatmuseum and the newly founded §96 Landesmuseen). It does so by examining the role of objects of the col- lection of the Documentation Centre, whose name already indicates a distancing from the classical mu- seum - be it historical or ethnological. The analysis fo- cusses on the special challenges that have arisen in the creation of the collection on the topic of forced migra- tion: Can the loss be made visible? Can and should the experience of violence be portrayed? And if so, by what means and to what end? What status do the exhibited objects have and how are they incorporated into the ex- hibition narrative? I suggest that the diverse and contradictory expecta- tions placed on the Documentation Centre results in a permanent exhibition that meets the wishes of the memory milieu (expellees and their descendants) to ad- dress their suffering and responds to the government’s mandate to anchor the topic in the centre of society (also outside the memory milieu) and to create a space of reconciliation between memorial, museum, archive, and meeting place. However, this comes at the expense of understanding the specificity of the German flight and expulsion processes. Povzetek Izhajajoč iz analize stalne razstave novoodprtega Do- kumentacijskega centra za razseljevanje, izgon, spravo si v prispevku prizadevam razumeti, v kolikšni meri ta nova institucija uspe ponuditi nov pristop h kraju spo- mina na »beg in izgon Nemcev« in ga umestiti tako v kontekst nemških zveznih muzejev kot muzejev, pos- večenih begu in izgonu (med ukinjenim modelom Hei- matmuseum in novoustanovljenim §96 Landesmuseen). Analiziram vloge predmetov zbirke Dokumentacijske- ga centra, katerega že ime nakazuje distanciranje od kla- sičnega muzeja – naj bo zgodovinskega ali etnološkega. Analiza se osredotoča na posebne izzive, ki so se pojavi- li pri nastajanju zbirke na temo prisilnih migracij: Ali je mogoče izgubo narediti vidno? Ali je mogoče in ali je treba prikazati izkušnjo nasilja? In če da, na kakšen na- čin in s kakšnim namenom? Kakšen status imajo raz- stavljeni predmeti in kako so vključeni v razstavno pri- poved? V sklepu ugotovim, da raznolika in protislovna pričakovanja Dokumentacijskega centra rezultirajo v stalni razstavi, ki izpolnjuje želje spominskega miljeja (izgnancev in njihovih potomcev), saj naslavlja njihovo trpljenje in se odziva na nalogo vlade, da to temo zasid- ra v središču družbe (tudi zunaj spominskega miljeja) ter tako ustvari prostor sprave, ki je hkrati spomenik, mu- zej, arhiv in prostor srečevanja. A to gre na račun razu- mevanja specifičnosti procesov bega in izgona Nemcev. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 91 ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)91-110 © aut hor/aut hors Abstract: The article studies the effects that the new border had on the territory. The main question is how the abrupt absence in a territory caused by the creation of a new state border influenced its inhabitants. The focus will be on the case of the formation of the Yugoslav-Italian border after the end of World War II. My interest is to present how the process of ‘bordering’ affected the studied territory. The aim is to study how the process of bordering and the new border reality after the end of World War II, but especially af- ter 1954, affected the population, its everyday life and economic and social interactions. The studied ter- ritory presents an interesting case of adaptation to the new political circumstances (with new states and state borders) affecting the population living near the new border, which did not exist in the past or at least not for almost a hundred and fifty years. My aim is to research how the past interconnections and relations changed radically and were interrupt- ed after the border was established. The question is how communication, cooperation and the exchange of goods were able to continue when the border caused a strong territorial division. Keywords: border area after WWII, Yugoslavia, Italy, Istria, everyday life Izvleček: Članek preučuje učinke nove meje na ozemlje. Glavno vprašanje raziskuje, kako je nenadna odsot- nost na nekem ozemlju zaradi nastanka nove državne meje vplivala na njegove prebivalce. Poudarek bo na primeru oblikovanja jugoslovansko-italijanske meje po koncu druge svetovne vojne. Zanima me, kako je »spreminjanje« oz. proces »obmejevanja« vplival na preučevano ozemlje. Analiziram, kako sta proces razmejevanja in nova mejna realnost po koncu druge svetovne vojne, predvsem pa po letu 1954, vplivala na prebivalstvo, njegovo vsakdanje življenje, ekonomske in socialne interakcije. Preučeva- no ozemlje predstavlja zanimiv primer prilagajanja novim političnim okoliščinam (z novimi državami in državnimi mejami), ki so vplivale na prebivalstvo ob novi meji, ki je v preteklosti ali vsaj skoraj sto pe- tdeset let ni bilo. Raziskujem, kako so se pretekle medsebojne povezave in odnosi po vzpostavitvi meje korenito spremenili in prekinili. Postavlja se vprašanje, kako so se komunikacija, sodelovanje in izmen- java dobrin obdržali v času (močne) ozemeljske razdeljenosti. Ključne besede: mejno območje po 2. svetovni vojni, Jugoslavija, Italija, Istra, vsakdanje življenje Everyday Life in the Borderland Area Between Yugoslavia and Italy After WWII, the Case of Northern Istria Vsakdanje življenje v obmejnem prostoru med Jugoslavijo in Italijo po drugi svetovni vojni, primer severne Istre Petra Kavrečič University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities petra.kavrecic@fhs.upr.si st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 92 Introduction The article1 studies the effects that the new border had on the territory. The main question is how the abrupt ab- sence in a territory caused by the creation of a new state border influenced its inhabitants. The focus will be on the case of the formation of the Yugoslav-Italian border after the end of World War II. My interest is to present how the process of ‘bordering’ affected the studied territory. The process of ‘bordering’ or marking the borderline is very important, as the two opposing political sides tried to acquire as much territory as they could. Their claims were mostly opposed. How- ever, this process represents only one part, or ‘one side’ of history. On the ‘other side’, as the histo- rian Peter Sahlins explains in his book ‘Bound- aries’, from 1989 (in which he primarily studied the case of France and Spain in the Pyrenees), it is important to understand how the negotiation of border ‘identity’ takes place. It is the capaci- ty of the population living in the border region to modify the status quo of the state frontier, ac- cording to their needs and interests (Verginella 2021, 33). Therefore, the decision to take part or declare to be on one or other side of the border depends not only on political centres of power, but also on communities living in the border re- gion (Walter and Verginella 2021, 33). In the studied ase, the research is going to focus on the border region of Northern Istria (part of Yugoslavia, and Slovenia after 1991), where difficult and lengthy diplomatic debates took place. As has already been said, the aim is to study how the process of bordering and the new border reality after the end of World War II, and especially after 1954, affected the popu- lation, its everyday life, and economic and social interactions. The studied territory represents an interesting case of adaptation to new politi- cal circumstances (with new states and state bor- 1 This paper is the result of the research project ‘Creating, maintaining, reusing: border commissions as the key for understanding contemporary borders’ (J6-2574), finan- cially supported by the Slovenian Research and Innova- tion Agency (ARIS). ders), affecting the population living on the new border, which did not exist in the past or at least not for a hundred and fifty years. This was also a common occurrence in other European coun- tries, however, the case of Northern Istria with the focus on everyday life and capability of ad- justment has not yet been fully addressed. In this paper I am interested in studying the history of everyday life, focusing on histo- ry from below (people’s history), on the daily ex- periences and survival strategies that people liv- ing along the border adopted to cope with the newly emerging political situation. The central question is how the border line (either the tem- porary demarcation line or the subsequent bor- der), which divided the space both physically and ideologically, affected the local population along the Yugoslav-Italian border in Istria. The focus is on the adaptation to the new realities of life in socialist Yugoslavia. Not only did the po- litical situation change, but family and business ties were severed in a territory that had belonged to one state (Austrian Empire/Austro-Hungary, Kingdom of Italy) since the beginning of the 19th century. My aim is to research how the past inter- connections and relations changed radically and were interrupted after the border was estab- lished. The question is how communication, co- operation and the exchange of goods were able to continue when the border caused a strong terri- torial division. Methodology The paper is based on the study and analysis of historical sources dealing with the post-war peri- od in northern Istria and Yugoslavia in general. The central methodological approach consists of oral (history) interviews with people who lived (still live) in the border area. Sixteen semi-struc- tured interviews were conducted as part of the research. However, interviews with individuals who had been interviewed as part of other re- search, but who had also raised topics relevant to the present paper, were also included. It was envisaged that the interviews would be primar- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 93 ily with people who were born in the inter-war period, but in the end most of them were born after the war. Thus, different generations were involved in the research: there were those who witnessed the post-war demarcation processes, but most interviewees were of the generation that experienced the post-war reality and that of the border as children and adolescents (and through their parents’ narratives). Interviewing mem- bers of different generations is a methodologi- cal approach that allows a broader understand- ing of post-war life in a border region and reveals different perspectives. People who lived on the ‘east side’ of the border were my main interloc- utors, and I questioned them about their expe- riences living close to the border. As the Slovene anthropologist Polona Sitar has already written, such an approach allows us to see ‘through a gen- erational perspective, which, on the one hand, illuminates possible generational discontinui- ties, and on the other hand, also common under- standings’ (Sitar 2021, 146). I was particularly in- terested in the personal experiences of everyday life at the border, people’s feelings when cross- ing the border, and their encounters and impres- sions when visiting Italy (especially Trieste) and returning home. What visiting a city in anoth- er country meant to them, what the purchased goods meant to them and above all how they re- member border controls and surveillance. The website of the project ‘My Story from Silence’ (Moja zgodba iz tišine 2022) published a story that meaningfully recounts and recalls the moments of crossing the Yugoslav-Italian bor- der. The story tells of a visit to relatives in Rijeka (now Croatia), where the narrator’s family from Trieste often went (Moja zgodba iz tišine 2022).2 It recounts the traumatic experience of a female traveller in the 1980s, a time when the war had been or was supposed to have been long forgot- ten; a time that followed the conclusion of inter- national and bilateral agreements between Yu- goslavia and Italy. Even if the story is very short and represents only a brief encounter it is very 2 The project’s aim was to collect ‘stories from silence’ about the experiences of people in the post-war period in Istria, the Karst and Trieste. eloquent. The journey to Yugoslavia was one of many undertaken by the narrator. Howev- er, on this specific occasion, crossing the border affected her deeply. As her border pass (in Ital- ian Lasciapassare, in Slovenian prepustnica) was damaged, the border guard stopped the car. Af- ter a moment of tension and fear, the officer ad- vised her to get a new pass and let them go. The episode itself did not have a negative outcome, however, crossing the border was always a tense moment. Given the treaties and the improved rela- tions between the two countries, one would have expected a more ‘relaxed’ border crossing, but in the case of the above account, as well as in the conversations with my interlocutors, this was not necessarily the case. This narrative shows a multilayered and diverse experience of the bor- der and the experience of crossing it. Bordering, Agreements and Treaties Before we consider the impact of the new bor- der and the resulting discontinuity on a terri- tory, which was politically, economically and socially interconnected for more than one hun- dred years, we need to briefly explain the cir- cumstances that led to this reality. The border ‘question’ in the studied region (wider than just Northern Istria) existed for a long historical pe- riod (Marušič 2004; Panjek 2015) during which different political actors (especially the Repub- lic of Venice and the Habsburg Monarchy) man- ifested their interests in the territory. After the collapse of the Republic of Venice and the transi- tory period of Austrian and French governance, the territory was assigned to the Habsburgs in 1814. The Austrian crown land named the Aus- trian Littoral,3 which included the Margraviate of Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca and the Imperi- al Free City of Trieste was established (Kavrečič 2017; Marušič 2004, 59). The name Littoral was a ‘strategic’ decision made by Vienna to empha- size Trieste’s role as a port city. In reality, only a small part of the crown land was on the coast 3 The name also had other variants: Österreichisch-illyr- ische Küstenland / Litorale austro-illirico / Avstrijsko-il- irsko primorje st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 94 (Marušič 2004, 59). The name was translated into Slovene as Avstrijsko primorje, and this is why the region came to be known as Primorska. This name is still used today to refer to the west- ern part of Slovenia. On the other hand, the ter- ritory in question also acquired the Italian name of Venezia Giulia. This was how it was referred to after 1863 by the Italian nationalists who consid- ered this territory to be historically Italian (Ka- vrečič 2020, 115).4 This paper will partly present the period following World War I, however, the main focus will be on the period after the end of World War II. After 1918, the region of Primors- ka (the former Austrian Littoral and partly Ven- ezia Giulia) was subject to political negotiations. As Italy was actively involved in the war and was on the side of ‘the winners’, the promised territo- ries were assigned to the state. After diplomatic negotiations with the Kingdom of Serbs (also al- lies), Croats and Slovenes, the territory formally passed to Italy in 1920 (Treaty of Rapallo). The former Austrian Littoral officially acquired the name Venezia Giulia. Venezia Giulia, known in Slovene as Julijska Krajina (also Julijska Beneči- ja) and Julian March in English, became a uni- versally accepted name during the negotitations for border delineation in the period following World War II. After the end of World War II, the political power positions changed. Post-war Yugoslavia – part of the anti-fascist and anti-nazi alliance dur- ing the war – claimed the territories that it be- lieved were unfairly assigned to Italy after World War I. The disputed border in this region was not only the process of bordering between two countries, but also between two opposite polit- ical systems. Negotiating where to draw a demarcation line and reaching a consensus or agreement on the border between all parties involved is a com- plex process that has taken place in different his- torical periods and circumstances. The drawing 4 Also, in the context of the irredentist movement: in the Italian perception, especially political, this region repre- sented the ‘redemption’ of the provinces that had been as- sociated with the long Venetian presence. Its heritage had been used as justification for Italian territorial appetites since the 19th century. or establishment of demarcation lines and new borders has a profound impact on all aspects of life. In addition to the political relations be- tween the countries or lands involved, it affects the living conditions of people who find them- selves in new border contexts, in new realities. When new borders are established, especially in areas that have been the subject of conflict for many years, life changes drastically. New bor- ders also create new relationships and conditions for living and coexisting. Adapting to a new re- ality always requires much effort and ingenui- ty. If we focus on the question of the delimita- tion of the border between Yugoslavia and Italy in the northern Adriatic after the end of World War II, we can see that the resolution of this is- sue was complex and protracted. In order to un- derstand the dynamics and relations manifested between the two countries and other powers in- volved, it is necessary to explain the process of border creation itself. The area subject to demar- cation that is discussed in this paper was ethni- cally diverse and no clear dividing line could be drawn based on ‘national’ affiliation. In addi- tion, the future Yugoslav-Italian border was also the site of an ideological struggle between two political-social-economic systems. It is therefore not surprising that international powers became involved in the process of bordering through their diplomatic representatives. The Long Process to a New Border, the Case of Istria As an interlocutor explained: Most of Istria, including us, remained un- der Yugoslavia... so, for us the change was like going out of the frying pan into the fire. They were not much more... zone A was far up north, zone B was still there anyway, they could cross with passes every day, the rest of us [outside the zones, note P.K.] once a month, and even then we were checked ‘to the bone’... if we wanted to buy one kilo of rice, or one kilo of pasta, or two bananas for the child, then washing powder or soap, you had to have lire. And if we got these lire, we st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 95 could go to Trieste, we could take what was allowed, which was half a kilo of meat, six eggs, one litre of milk, one quarter of a kilo of butter, two packets of cigarettes, and they asked us: ‘what else have you hidden?’ [Inter- locutor 14] The processes of ‘Creating, maintaining, re- using’5 borders are long-term processes that have formed the political, economic, cultural and so- cial status and relations in society (state). In or- der to understand all these phenomena it is cru- cial to be familiar with the background and motivations that have influenced the creation of new borderlines, their maintenance and re-use or adaptation in specific historical circumstanc- es. The creation of a demarcation line between two countries in this area disrupted the exist- ing contacts in the economic, social and cultur- al spheres. When taking into consideration only the northern part of Istria, it should be consid- ered that the territory was part of a single state entity for many centuries: the Republic of Ven- ice until the end of the 18th century, the short French presence at the beginning of the 19th cen- tury, the Austrian Empire/Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1814 until the end of World War I and the Kingdom of Italy from 1920 until 1943. The newly created border in the period follow- ingWorld War II had drastic consequences on both eastern and western sides. The long-stand- ing links between the urban centre (Trieste) and the rural periphery (Istria) were severed, and an area that had been part of a single state struc- ture for more than a hundred years found itself in two countries that stood on opposite ‘sides’ in terms of political, ideological and economic doc- trines. The new reality radically affected the dai- ly life of the area’s inhabitants. In order to understand the process of bor- dering, it is necessary to briefly explain the events and circumstances that led to its creation. 5 The quotation is from the title of project N. J6-2574, financed by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS): ‘Creating, maintaining, reusing: border commissions as the key for understanding contemporary borders’ (head Marko Zajc, PhD, Institue of Contemporary History). Focusing only on the period after 1918, great- er changes affected the former Austrian Litto- ral. The territory became the subject of political negotiations between the successors of the Aus- tro-Hungarian Empire (in this case the State of SCS, which merged with the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro to form the Kingdom of SCS on December 1st 1918) and the Kingdom of Italy. The latter entered the war in 1915 on the side of the Entente Powers, which emerged victorious. In the negotiations before it entered the war, Ita- ly was promised territory in the event of victory, including the Crown Land of the Austrian Lit- toral. The Kingdom of SCS and the Kingdom of Italy signed the already mentioned Treaty of Rapallo on 12 November 1920, which meant It- aly acquired the territory of the former Crown Land and parts of Carniola, Carinthia, and Dal- matia. The intergration into the new country was strongly marked by the Italian inter-war fas- cist regime, which officially came to power in 1922. This totalitarian political regime, which lasted more than twenty years and was strong- ly committed to the ‘ethnic bonification’ of the newly acquired territories, drastically affected the area (Troha 2018, 165–167).6 After the end of World War II, the situa- tion was even more complicated. This time, the position of ‘power’ was at least partially reversed and new political dynamics came to the surface. The victorious new post-war socialist Yugosla- via made clear its demands for the Rapallo bor- der to be corrected. Yugoslavia was a member of the Allied Powers in the war and, as one of the victorious countries, expressed its demands for the redemarcation of the area and the crea- tion of a new frontier.7 The political discourse, or rather the question of the influence of the blocs that emerged after the war (the Eastern commu- nist Bloc and the Western capitalist Bloc), also came to the fore in the redrafting of the bor- der between Yugoslavia and Italy (Italy joined 6 For the period following World War II see also Kacin- Wohinz and Pirjevec (2000), Pirjevec (2008), Pirjevec, Gorazd Bajc, and Klabjan (2005), Pirjevec et al. (2006), Troha (1999), Troha (2016), Troha (2019). 7 See note 6. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 96 the Allies after surrendering in 1943). As in oth- er European countries, the disputed territory was ethnically inhomogeneous. It was a region where both the Slavic (Slovenes and Croats) and the Roman (Italians) ethnic communities were living. In 1945 the demarcation line, named after the British general and negotiator Sir William Duthie Morgan, divided the disputed territory of the region called the Julian March / Julijska Krajina / Venezia Giulia (Sporazum o Julijskoj krajini 1945, 19).8 After the demarcation line was drawn, the Anglo-American forces abandoned their plans to occupy the whole region and agreed to divide it into two areas. However, they insisted that Trieste remained in their zone. The compromise solution that resulted from the ne- gotiations was also formalised. General Jovano- vić and General Morgan signed an agreement – the ‘Belgrade Agreement’ – on 9 June 1945. The Julian March was divided into two occupation zones, Zone A under Allied military adminis- tration and Zone B under Yugoslav military ad- ministration (Sporazum o Julijskoj krajini 1945, 19).9 The second agreement between the two sides was signed in Duino (Italy) on 20 June 1945, and included ‘military concessions on the part of the Belgrade Agreement’ (Milkić 2014). The agreements on the division of the zones of interest were signed after long and difficult ne- gotiations between the powers involved (the for- mer Allies) (Nećak 1998; Cunja 2004).10 The demarcation line between the two mil- itary administrations was perceived as tempo- rary by both sides. The area – the subject of the dispute between Yugoslavia and Italy – was also problematic due to the possibility of new mili- tary confrontations breaking out. The border 8 The division of the Julian March: the area west of the demarcation line included Trst/Trieste with rail and road links to Gorica/Gorizia, Kobarid/Caporetto, Trbiž/ Tarvisio, and the region of Pulj/Pola as well as the ports on the west coast of Istria. 9 The signatories of the Belgrade Agreement were the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Dr Ivan Šubašić, the British Ambassador, R.C. Skrine Stevenson, and the US Ambassador, Richard C. Petterson. 10 See also note 6. issue was partially solved by the 1947 Treaty of Paris (signed on 10 February, entered into force on 15 September). The Treaty was signed by the Allied powers and their associates on one side and Italy on the other (Treaty of Peace with Italy 1950). The Paris Peace Treaty delineated the bor- der between Yugoslavia and Italy in the north- ern part of the area, while at the same time estab- lishing the ‘Free Territory of Trieste’ (FTT) in Article 21. It also delineated the border between Italy and the FTT, and between Yugoslavia and the FTT. Article 5 specified that the exact bor- der line was to be determined ‘on the spot’ by the Boundary Commission, which was to be com- posed of members of the governments of the two parties concerned, and which was to complete its work in no later than six months. It was impor- tant that the members of the Boundary Com- mission set the boundary in accordance with local geographical and economic conditions, meaning that no village or town with more than 500 inhabitants, or important transport (rail or road) links and water pipelines were outside the already established boundary line or subject to change (Treaty of Peace with Italy 1950). How- ever, the reality turned out to be different. As two interlocutors said, the members of the com- mission came and placed the stakes ‘Se veni una mattina e mola i picchetti…’ [translation from di- alect, meaning ‘They came one morning and left the stakes], without talking to the local popula- tion (Interlocutors 12 and 13). The Treaty was a solution for only part of the disputed border between Yugoslavia and It- aly, while the still ‘problematic’ southern territo- ry resulted in the formation of the FTT as a new independent, sovereign State. This territory was divided, similarly to the Julian March, into two administration zones (Zone A, under an Allied Military Government and Zone B under a Yugo- slav Military Government). In 1954, the signing of the London Memorandum or Memorandum of Understanding meant both military govern- ments handed over their mandates to the Gov- ernments of Italy and Yugoslavia (Memoran- dum of Understanding 1956, 100): st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 97 Figure 1: Annex 1 To the Memorandum of Understanding between the Governemnts of Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Yugoslavia regarding the Free Territory of Trieste, initialled in London on 5 October 1954 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 98 The Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States will withdraw their military forces from the area north of the new boundary and will relinquish the ad- ministration of that area to the Italian Gov- ernment. The Italian and Yugoslav Gov- ernments will forthwith extend their civil administration over the area for which they will have responsibility. The Treaty also included boundary adjust- ments. This meant the villages of Plavje/Pla- vie, Spodnje Škofije/Albaro Vescovà, Elerji/ Elleri and Hrvatini/Crevatini were transferred to the administration of the Yugoslav Govern- ment and annexed to Yugoslavia. After the sign- ing of the Memorandum, the two governments were obliged to ‘appoint a Boundary Commis- sion to effect a more precise demarcation of the boundary in accordance with the map at Annex I’ (Memorandum of Understanding 1956; Troha 1999). However, the border issue was not com- pletely resolved. Yugoslavia recognized the Memorandum and the border as definitive by ratifying it, while Italy considered it to be a de- marcation line – an inconclusive, temporary bor- der. Ital0y never submitted the Memorandum to Parliament for ratification to highlight the Memorandum’s temporarity (Škorjanec 2006, 44). As Škorjanec explained in her research into the process of Italo-Yugoslav border negotia- tions, the debates and proposals lasted for twen- ty years. There were (secret) discussions among commissions and ministries during this period. The main actors in the process were the foreign ministers and the so-called ‘group of 4’. After ne- gotiations between special political agents and a meeting at Strmol Castle (Slovenia), followed by meetings in Dubrovnik (Croatia) and Strun- jan (Slovenia), and after the formal initialling in Belgrade, the diplomatic solution was reached in Osimo (Škorjanec 2006). With the final signing of the Osimo treaties on 10 November 1975, the border between the two states was finalized. Ar- ticle 7 determined that: ‘On the date when this Treaty enters into force, the Memorandum of Understanding signed in London on 5 October 1954 and its annexes shall cease to have effect in relations between the Republic of Italy and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ (Trea- ty on the Delimitation of the Frontier 1987; Drašček 2005). One of my interlocutors who was involved in the negotiations for the Treaty of Osimo re- called: ‘Slovenia had the main word in these ne- gotiations… it was the most interested party, es- pecially due to the question of the minority…the relations with Italy were friendly, but when there was a strain in relations…the minority was the most affected… this is why our aim was to have good relations’ (Interlocutor 15). The signing of the Treaty of Osimo brought the long frontier negotiaitons to an end and a po- litical agreement was finally reached. All the in- ternational treaties enabled the development of better relations and cooperation between the two states. How these arrangements affected the everyday reality of the border population will be addressed in the following paragraphs. Life ‘al konfin’ [On the Border] In the present paper, the principal interest is in the inhabitants of Northern Istria living on the eastern side of the new border. Life after the war was still challenging for people living on the border/demarcation line. As an interlocutor remembers: After 1954 it changed a little bit and then the conflict between individuals started. When the milestones were set, some peo- ple were irritated, rightly so. Because it hap- pened that the little land they had was now on two sides... in Zone B and in Yugosla- via... and of course it was not pleasant be- cause they needed border passes so they could work on their fields [the interlocutor is referring to the border line between Yugo- slavia and zone B of the FTT, note PK]. So, on the other side... they started to move the stakes as they wished. There was a lot of trou- ble because they were accusing each oth- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 99 er, they were also fighting, and the police came to make peace. Until they [the states involved, note PK] agreed on the border and established the national borders according to the law.... so, with these stakes… the house was right on the border line... here was the border where the house was and the yard... they tried to divide the yard and the house in half... it was all hypocrisy and bad neigh- bours... and this poor poor man was so tor- mented that he went at night to move the stakes, so his house would be left with the whole yard. But the best fields still remained under Yugoslavia on the other side, in Ga- brovica [village in Northern Istria, note PK]. And that man needed a permit every time he went to work on his land, and that was the dispute that remained for years and years, even after the border was settled... that hate remained until death... [Interlocutor 14] However, different experiences show dif- ferent points of view. For some people who were only children when the demarcation line was set, the memories may be different and not that ‘traumatic’: ‘I don’t remember when they were fixing… [the demarcation line, note PK], but they were giving chocolate, they were giv- ing chocolate to children… there were Ameri- cans and English living next door, the Scottish were marching through the village singing with bagpipes until 1953, the Trieste crisis’ (Interloc- utor 15). These examples clearly reflect the ‘reality’ of living in the area, which was divided by the ‘newly’ established border. Considering the trea- ties mentioned in the previous paragraph, the ‘other side of history’ is becoming more compre- hensible. The official side, consisting of political agreements, provides only a part of the overall circumstances. As explained by the political sci- entist Bastian Sendhardt (2013, 25–26): For a long time, the study of borders was fo- cused on state borders as static ontological entities with predominantly physical fea- tures, but the past two decades have seen a sea change in the study of borders. During the recent history of border studies, there has been a shift from the consideration of borders as mere geographical demarcations to a perspective that emphasizes the chang- ing meaning of borders, different types of borders with different functions, and the so- cial construction of borders. In this perspective I am not interested in studying the post-war political circumstances, disputes, antagonisms, negotiations and demon- strations of political power, but how people living on the newly established border – which abrupt- ly interrupted ‘traditional’ interconnections and interdependence in the area  – managed to ad- just to the new reality. What significantly char- acterized the second half of the previous centu- ry, especially the first decades after the war, was the sudden absence of the ‘other side’ of the ter- ritory, a territorial discontinuity. As one of my interlocutors explained: ‘My mother used to say there was a big of change... before, before there was fascism, before there was Austro-Hungary, there was one state, Italy was one country and all of a sudden there was a border’ (Interlocutor 7). Economic, social and family ties between the city (Trieste) and its rural hinterland were severed. As my interlocutors pointed out, ‘Back then it was one country, there were no prob- lems, people went to Istria for goods, and wom- en went to Trieste to sell goods… lived with each other... men went to work... and then, once they cut it off... you run out of everything...’ (Inter- locutor 8). Of course, there was Italy and no one knew the border. Then, when the border came it was a disaster for the nation [in the sense of the people, the population, note PK] to get used to it… Then they drew the line and the other system came and there it was. They were just used to it anyway, they went to Ital- ian schools at that time too, the ones who were nationally aware, Yugoslavia, Italy… Be- cause yesterday there was no such thing, it was like cutting this table in half. It bothered st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 10 0 them terribly; they needed some time to be... The one who could not do that, left. [Inter- locutor 6] It was therefore a two-way situation with the urban areas dependent on labour and agri- cultural products, and the rural areas on trade and jobs. In the years and decades following the end of World War II, the urban centre lost its ru- ral supply of goods for trade and its workforce. The other side, the rural area, lost the centre where people sold their products and migrated for work, and which enabled them to carry out their principal economic activity and increase their income (Verginella 2021; Kalc 2008; Pa- njek and Lazarević 2018). It is important to em- phasize that the interconnections or interrela- tions existed on both sides and this new reality caused an ‘absence’ on both sides of the border, causing a drastic loss of income and a possible fall in living standards.Suddenly divided by a new state border, the population reacted in different ways. The main goal was to maintain economic ties with Trieste. The historian Marta Verginel- la explains that most of the population in the ru- ral areas, regardless of their political, ideologi- cal or national affiliation, continued to cross the border and work in Trieste. In 1947, for example, around 2,000 workers and people who sold their products in Trieste went there every day. The Yu- goslav communist authorities in zone B tried to obstruct mobility across the demarcation line, as they considered this practice of going to work in the capitalist ‘other’ side a bad example. It was an ideologically controversial activity. The Yugoslav authorities implemented several direct or indi- rect sanctions to prevent this transit (Verginella 2021). We need to understand that in the period after the end of World War II, the town of Kop- er and its hinterland were still ‘underdeveloped’ and unindustrialized (Žitko et al. 1992). Most of the inhabitants ‘made their livelihoods by fish- ing, seafaring, salt farming, agriculture, retail trade and crafts’. An important work activity involved daily migration to Trieste but the war and the post-war demarcation aggravated the sit- uation (Kralj and Rener 2019). One interlocutor (Interlocutor 2) also emphasized this new reali- ty. He remembers his mother’s experience dur- ing the FTT years: My mum and her friends smuggled goods across the border. It was not really to break the law, but to survive. It was a need because there were goods you could not find in zone B… All the women in the village were smug- gling… My mum got caught once by the graničarji [border guards], smuggling eggs… my dad told me this story later, she was ashamed and didn’t want to talk about it… she went to prison for a few days…controls were very strict… but 90% of people smug- gled to have a better life. Our mothers also went; my mother went in the evening. They used to take eggs, tra- pa, wine, and then there was the border, there was a fence, and they had to crawl un- der the fence to sell the robes the next morn- ing… yes, at night, because they carried a bit more. I remember our aunt Ema from Šan- toma [near Koper, note PK], my father Vic- tor’s sister; she and our mother and all the women together brought 200 eggs. My aunt came once a week to collect the money. [In- terlocutor 7] These examples show that since the early modern period, it was women in particular who travelled to the urban areas to sell the surplus of their agricultural products. For example, women purchased grain in Trieste, used it to make bread and then sold it back to the city. This type of ac- tivity also enabled a better economic standard as well as women’s economic independence and an important role in decision-making in the family (Verginella 2021). As has been mentioned, in the years 1947 to 1954, crossing over to zone A of the FTT was limited by the Yugoslav military government. Severe restrictions and regulations were intro- duced to limit transit between the zones. The problem was that qualified workers who were needed in zone B were working in Trieste in- stead of in the communist zone. Even former st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 10 1 partisans migrated to Trieste daily for work and members of the communist party were involved in retail trade. The new socialist political lead- ers found this outrageous. However, any imped- iment to transit fomented hostility so the com- munists were forced to adopt forms of indirect pressure, such as engaging mostly younger men in youth work actions or confiscating transit per- mits to zone A (Verginella 2021). My interlocutors also explained that zone B was mainly a rural area without industry and was seriously affected by the interrupted connec- tion with Trieste: ‘We received some help, there was no industry, only agriculture…in that period we lost our connection with Trieste… and cross- ing to zone A was not allowed… so people smug- gled’ (Interlocutor 2) or: ‘It was not allowed to cross the zone, only those with permits’ (Inter- locutor 15). Another added: People were inventive here; they went to Trieste to sell things, one to smuggle, to get along, because it was Istria. I won’t say fifty percent of the population lived off, I won’t say ‘šverc’ [smuggling, note PK], and they carried butter, meat, drinks, wine, and schnapps. Because that wasn’t allowed. It was at the borders, I don’t know, a kilo of meat, everybody had their own way. [Inter- locutor 6] As the Yugoslav authorities could not real- ly stop this trade, they did not take serious re- strictive actions against it. It was considered an embarrassment, but the authorities were aware that any strict restrictions would cause discon- tent especially among the poorest population in zone B, and could cause a political fracture in the zone they wanted to annex to Yugoslavia. The local population was also very disturbed by the fact that local communist party secretaries were the ones who approved the permits for travel to zone A. Nontheless, the relations that were dis- rupted by the reality of the new border could not be stopped and after the final border resolution in 1954 (or 1975), the states of Yugoslavia and Ita- ly started introducing special cross-border agree- ments (Verginella 2021). If we reconsider Sendhardt’s statements, we can agree that ‘the traditional view of borders as static structures made room for a new theoreti- cal understanding of borders as ‘historically con- tingent’ processes (Newman and Paasi 1998), an understanding that includes in the definition of borders their ready potential to change’ (Sen- dhardt 2013). Ties With Family and Friends Immediately after the war, a lot of people moved out, somewhere around 1947 or 1948, and it was pretty empty [the village by the border where the interlocutor is from, note PK]. Problems are problems, we didn’t have a problem because we had these passes. We used to go, sometimes it was 4 times a year, 4 times a month. [Interlocutor 6] Crossing the border was important for eco- nomic survival, but also to keep in touch with relatives, friends and/or clients on the other side (Kralj and Rener 2019). A state border suddenly divided members of the same family. In line with the international treaties, people in the former military zones could also decide to move from one zone to the other, or to the other country. The inhabitants of both states tried to keep in touch with those on the other side and to help each other. There were families who did not see each other for long periods of time: ‘When we first went to Trieste with the prepustnica [pass, note P.K.], I saw my mum’s sister for the first time… my mum had not seen her for a long time either’ (Interlocutor 16). People moved for different reasons, such as political disagreement with the new regime, eco- nomic motives, fear, propaganda and family: We were terribly sorry when they left [neigh- bours in Koper, note PK] because they were really nice people. Their relatives, some of them still live here and they were, they had a farm here on the old Šmarska road [near Koper, note PK] and it’s a pity they left be- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 10 2 cause they were really nice people. At that time there was such a climate, propaganda, they mainly went because many people went over [left for Italy, note PK], so they went over there too. I remember my late father-in- law, he was from Marezige… when we were chatting, I asked him, okay, why did some of them go over? Whole villages emptied out too. He said, it was because… now let’s leave propaganda... each village had someone who was the informal, he was not the mayor, who was respected by everybody. If he and his family moved away, the whole village went. Or almost the whole village. If he didn’t go, then no one else went. That was one exam- ple. [Interlocutor 9] Our people thought of them [emigrants, note PK] as poor, they left, and most of the migration was political… there was the West… Yes, Škofije [a village on the former Morgan line, note PK] was empty. There were very few of us in Škofije. Most of those who went stayed [in Italy, note PK]. The first place they went was here, just over the bor- der, there were barracks. There’s like this centre now [shopping, note PK], the service centre… and everybody could settle there and then you got a job there. There were el- derly people living in Italy, in Italy, they took somebody, some family, they signed them over [their property, note PK] ... even instead of going to the army, they ran away to Italy and then they got their parents and sisters, and they got an old farm and they settled there. [Interlocutor 6] After settling down in Italy (Trieste), some people (re)established ties with family and friends ‘on the other side’. However, there were families and friends that lived in the city even before the war. They moved there for work. There were also cases when people moved from Trieste during the war or after it: My mother is originally from the Brkini hills, and my father was a sailor who worked as a waiter on cruise ships. Then, in 1941, he disembarked and moved his family, me and my brother who was one year older than me, also born in Trieste, to Slivje, in the Brkini, to my mother’s home. Because it was easier to survive; they had already started to bomb the city. [Interlocutor 9] No, we didn’t buy much... but we brought to Trieste meat, cigarettes, for example, and we also had family in Trieste on my mother’s side. You also brought them cigarettes, there was an aunt... just Drava without filters, the most awful ones, but a strong cigarette. [In- terlocutor 9] What to Sell and What to Buy When the political situation changed and the Iron Curtain border ‘opened’ in the early 1960s, Trieste became a popular destination for cheap purchases for the people of Yugoslavia. However, for the population living in the border area, Tri- este was a centre where they mainly purchased goods in shops. In order to buy these goods, they came to the city with their own products to sell, mainly agricultural products such as prosciutto, wine, schnapps, poultry, etc. (Nećak 2000, 302). The goods that were mostly purchased in Trieste included pasta, coffee, soap and washing powder, tights, slippers and cloth- ing, later also construction material and technical equipment. ‘There was this one world in Trieste… I would drool over some … I did not see them [goods, note PK] any- where else. [Interlocutor 16] People did not purchase luxurious goods but mostly essential needs: ‘washing powder... we didn’t even have enough of it to wash one handkerchief... well, we didn’t even have a hand- kerchief... and soap, you hadn’t seen it unless you’d brought it from Trieste... so this is what we bought, for the poor’ (Interlocutor 14). And there was something else here, mostly elderly people, they had Italian pensions too because then they all worked under Italy and every two months they had an Italian pen- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 10 3 sion, not like here because every month they went to get their pensions and they bought rice, washing powder, pasta and candy. Here there were very few sweets, there weren’t as many sweets as nowadays when we have hun- dreds of different kinds of sweets. [Interloc- utor 6] During my interviews, the aspect of inter- dependce and relations among people in the area emerged. Like in the past, despite the bor- der control and restrictions, communication, ex- change of goods and commerce was ‘revitalized’ or resurfaced. This means not only people from Yugoslavia went to Italy to sell and buy goods, but also people from the nearby border area in Italy came to Yugoslavia to purchase goods. As an interlocutor pointed out: ‘Cross-border trade was flourishing…’ (Interlocutor 15). There was also interdependence, and as one interlocutor mentioned, the situation changed in the sixties and the seventies: They [Italians, note PK] were coming to buy meat, petrol, dairy products… they were highly appreciated… it was a situation of mu- tual benefit… in Lokev [village on the Slo- vene Karst, note PK] there were three, four butcheries, it all worked well… not only on paper. We were more equal…they were coming to our taverns…for them it was the hinterland, to come here and have a good time… they also went to the farmers to buy produce. [In- terlocutor 16] Since the 19th century the Istrian peninsula and the Karst (with their respective rural com- munities) had strong economic ties with the urban centre of Trieste. The towns in the hin- terland of Trieste and Istria and the rural sur- roundings developed important interrelations with the port city. As pointed out by the histori- an Dušan Nećak, Trieste was known as the ‘cen- tre of gravity’ of the Slovene hinterland (Nećak 2000). In this regard, one interlocutor said his mum told him that before the war ‘they earned their living by selling their produce… turnip, carrots, potatoes…which they took down [to Trieste] … also wood… there was poverty… in the winter men took [the goods] by karjola [wheel- barrow]’ (Interlocutor 4). As asserted by the historian Vida Rožac Darovec, the economic relations and exchange took place until the middle of the 20th century, when the establishment of new borders meant the Istrian [her study is about the case of Istria, note PK] population was separated from its most important economic centre (Rožac-Darovec 2006). However, although the border between Yugoslavia and Italy marked the border between two ‘opposing’ political and economic systems, socialism and democracy, the exchange of goods and relations continued: We sold only meat, later, after the war…there was no interest for other…we had to hide the lira [Italian currency], they did not allow… we were lucky to have some relatives down there [in Trieste] and we left them there or they brought them [lira] here. [Interlocutor 4] My mother used to collect milk in the villag- es, as much as 200 litres of milk… we had a carriage at home, and a mule, and at half past one in the morning she would collect it… then deliver the milk to all the houses, even just half a litre… she would take it up to the 8th floor. [Interlocutor 7] It was common to buy rice, pasta, wash- ing powder, but also fruits, which were not easi- ly available in Yugoslavia at the time like orang- es, bananas, strawberries and mandarins. As the author Silvio Pecchiari Pečarič recalls (2020), he first saw bananas in Trieste: I like going to Zone A because many things are not available in Zone B. The shops sell things I have never seen before, even some yellow fruits I have never seen before in our garden that I would like to try. They explain to me that they do not grow here and that they are called bananas. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 10 4 References to goods that could not be found in Yugoslavia were common in my interviews. Sometimes articles that were not essential for life but simply improved people’s lifestyles were also mentioned, for example table tennis (Interlocu- tor 15), Christmas lights (Interlocutor 6), watch- es (Interlocutor 15) or purses (Interlocutor 10). Later, during the seventies and eighties, it was common to buy technical ecquipment and con- struction material: We were working on this house, which was an old ruin, nothing, old stones, there was nothing to buy then under Yugoslavia, all these building materials, everything, for everything you had to go to Trieste, there was a lot of smuggling, even the politicians were smuggling, all citizens were smuggling. Then, with these passes, we transported everything from cement to bricks, tiles, ra- diators. [Interlocutor 10] When I went to buy a rotovator, the one I have now, I hid 3 million lire and put them in the first aid [kit]. I had a fičo [car – Zasta- va 750] and I took my mother with me. And we got to the border and then the customs officer: ‘Good afternoon, where are you go- ing’? To Milje [Muggia, Italy], to the mar- ketplace. And it was Thursday [the day of the market, note PK] … ‘What do you have to declare? What do you have in your first aid kit’? My mother blushed immediately. ‘Show me what you have in your fičo’ … and then three others came up behind, I think they were some mates. ‘Go on, go on’. [Inter- locutor 6] We crossed the border in cars, fičos and stoen- kas [cars made by the Yugoslav automobile company Zastava, note PK]. We borrowed passes, five or six people went. It was doable, but it wasn’t easy… Iron on the roof of the car. That car barely started, but little by little it was possible, one pass, two or three... [In- terlocutor 8] Border Controls and Experiences Due to restrictions, only limited amounts of products were allowed to be brought to Ita- ly, like ‘half a kilogramme of meat, half a litre of schnapps, cigarettes…some clothes, slippers, coffee’ (Interlocutor 15). In order for the trip to Italy to be worth the effort, people had to hide what they were bringing back in different ways, as they usually took more than was allowed: So, what did you take there... because they checked you... down there [probably meant at the border crossing, note PK] there was one customs officer [woman]... she even looked under [the skirt, dress, note PK] ... the men were different, she was evil [‘žleht’]... and they asked us ‘what else have you hid- den’... if they didn’t get anything, just what was legal, they were very disappointed... be- cause if they uncovered something, they im- mediately got a stripe on their sleeve, like they were real customs officers. [Interlocu- tor 14] Butter, cigarettes… Cigarettes no problem, but butter that all melted… and there was one from Sveti Anton [village near Kop- er, note P.K.] … she always had her trench coat buttoned up... even in the summer... it smelled so bad... of course, she had meat [in her trench coat]... she brought a whole cow... they made packages. I don’t know what the meat was like, but within a week she brought a whole cow or a calf… and nobody ap- proached her because of the smell. [Interloc- utor 6] After the war, crossing the border was made easier for the residents of border areas. In 1949, the first agreement between Yugoslavia and It- aly, known as the First Udine Agreement, was signed. It covered the territory north of Trieste and referred only to people who owned land on both sides of the border, allowing them to cul- tivate land on the other side of the border. The London Memorandum of 1954 obliged Italy and Yugoslavia to conclude an agreement on small- scale border traffic as soon as possible. The agree- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 10 5 ment signed on 20 August 1955 (in Udine) was valid for a ten kilometer strip along the entire border (Nećak 2000; Hrabar 2016). Article 7 of the Memorandum declared (Memorandum of Understanding 1956; Čepič 2018): The Italian and Yugoslav Governments agree to enter into negotiations within a pe- riod of two months from the date of initial- ling of this Memorandum of Understand- ing with a view to concluding promptly an agreement regulating local border traffic, including facilities for the movement of the residents of border areas by land and by sea over the boundary for normal commercial and other activities, and for transport and communications. This agreement shall cov- er Trieste and the area bordering it. Pend- ing the conclusion of such an agreement, the competent authorities will take, each with- in their respective competence, appropri- ate measures in order to facilitate local bor- der traffic. The introduction of prepustnice or pass- es was very important for the local inhabitants as it made it easier for them to cross the border. At first, people were allowed to cross the border four times a month. This meant farmers from Yugoslavia could legally sell their produce in the ten kilometer strip along the border. It was pre- dominately women who sold the produce, but they also took some ‘illegal’ goods to the oth- er side (Verginella 2021), or took more than was permitted. Before cars became widespread, people used public transportation – mostly boats, bus- es and trains. Crossing the border was a crucial part of the trip and was characterised by specif- ic dynamics. As stated by the social scientist Bre- da Luthar: ‘The domination that is established through communication is an integral part of the trip to Trieste … a series of communicative interactions where the positions of superiori- ty and subordination, power and weakness, of ethnic and class differences were established’ (Luthar 2004). These interactions were an inte- gral part of the border crossings. I went to Trieste with my mum, by vaporetto [boat] or by bus. We had to get off the bus at the Škofije border crossing and pass through the customs inspection on foot... the bus was waiting for us on the other side of the bor- der… When we went to Italy the Yugoslav customs officers usually checked our docu- ments… My father was a butcher, not many butchers or meat then… so I went with my mum to Trieste to sell meat, or eggs, ciga- rettes. [Interlocutor 1] I don’t know, she mostly went alone, I crossed the crossing point, helped her to car- ry… We walked, we went by bicycle, later by bus. We were afraid, you had to hide. But I went with her because I also carried some- thing, helped. [Interlocutor 8] Women often took children with them be- cause they were not subject to severe controls. My interlocutor said that sometimes her mum gave her some meat or other goods to hide, but rarely. The hardest thing was the border cross- ing, as one said: ‘I was always scared when cross- ing the border…’ (Interlocutor 1). Another inter- locutor said: It was terrible crossing the border… very stressful…we were very scared of the cus- toms officers… if they found that you had too many goods, they took them from you…I re- member two women who were very strict, two sisters Marina and Milica or something like that… they didn’t speak Slovene, Serbian I think… but they lived in Koper... they were the worst, worse than men… if you had too many goods, they just took them from you. [Interlocutor 3] Yes, it was all types… most came from Ser- bia…very few Slovenes were customs of- ficers… and they always looked at you as if you were smuggling… they didn’t look at you normally… well, actually you needed to bring something back… there were things st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 10 6 you couldn’t get here… so you had to go there. [Interlocutor 4] Oh Madonna, they controlled us, I remem- ber… They were these babice, customs of- ficers, and they would check the women all over, we called them babice [grandmoth- ers, note PK]. Then, when I was already trav- elling with my pass, they would see if you had money, you weren’t allowed to have too much. If you hid it, they took it away… no penalty, they just took it. [Interlocutor 11] Another interlocutor, from the village of Branik (near Nova Gorica) went to Trieste once a week with her mother. They had vineyards and sold wine, schnapps, meat, fruit and butter in Trieste: At five in the morning the train went from Branik to Kreplje [village on the Karst] and to Opčine [Villa Opicina, Italy]… the cus- toms control was on the train… but when we came to Opčine we had to exit the train and there were desks… I still remember… and everything you had, you needed to put on them… the Italian control… [Interlocutor 5] The Yugoslavs controlled already on the trains: ‘My mum made herself a pouch from fab- ric and put meat, schnapps and even butter in it…’ (Interlocutor 5). Women used to hide goods under their skirts and if they were subject to se- vere controls, the female customs officers ‘exam- ined them carefully… if you did not declare an- ything and they found something, they took it from you… you never got it back… although they let you go’ (Interlocutor 5). Although the controls were strict and un- pleasant on both sides, the Italians and the Yu- goslavs allowed the smuggling of goods to a cer- tain extent. The Yugoslav authorities were aware that people were carrying more than the permit- ted quantities, but ‘in order to keep the social balance, they turned a blind eye’. Even though the Italians ‘apparently persecuted smuggling’, they allowed it to some extent, as Trieste was also marked by the new border situation as the city had lost its natural hinterland (Rožac- Darovec 2006). This was also explained by my interlocutors: I don’t know how much was allowed, three packs of tiles each, sometimes, sometimes you would take five and they’d send you back, the customs officer. You had to take them back to the shop. Strict… there were (also) people who said bejži, bejži and he closed his eyes [methaporically: pretended not to see, note PK]. [Interlocutor 8] One customs officer explained to me, look, he says: They think we’re bad. I know that when he brings iron, because he’s building a house and he has this iron on his trailer, and you ask him how much iron is there? And then he lies to you and says exactly as much as is allowed, and I know because I see there’s more and I say, isn’t there a kilo more? No, he says. I ask him twice so he’ll say, yes, yes, a kilo more. Ok, go on, because he’s going to go again anyway, I know that… when he takes you for a fool, he makes an idiot of you. [Interlocutor 9] Conclusion Through the study of everyday life in a border area, the article showed how multi-layered and diverse the effects of a new border on a territo- ry can be. The case study addressed the territory of Northern Istria in particular (with some mi- nor mentions of the Karst and Goriška regions), with the aim of researching how the sudden ab- sence in a territory caused by the creation of a new state border affected the inhabitants. The interest was to study the impact of the new bor- der line on the population living on the eastern side of the Yugoslav-Italian border after the end of World War II. The main methodological approach was based on holding oral history interviews with people who lived (or still live) in the border area. I was particularly interested in their experienc- es while living close to the border. Their ‘stories’ revealed a more intimate experience of every- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i ev er y d a y li fe in t h e bo r d er la n d a r ea b et w ee n y u g o sl av ia a n d it a ly a ft er w w ii .. . 10 7 day life and the economic and social interactions near a newly established border. Since the inter- views were carried out with members of different generations, different perspectives on the stud- ied topic were gathered. As became clear in the course of my conversations with the local inhab- itants, the post-war reality was seen different- ly by children and adults. Another perspective was that of the ‘second’ generation – my inter- locutors remembered or recalled their parents’ or relatives’ experiences or stories told by them. This opens up new questions related to meth- odological issues. These were, however, not ad- dressed in this paper, as the question was how communication, cooperation and the exchange of goods were able to continue when the border caused a strong territorial division, and how this situation was perceived by the local population. What were the daily experiences and surviv- al strategies that people living along the border adopted to cope with the newly emerging polit- ical situation? The central question was how the border line, which divided the space both physi- cally and ideologically, affected the local popula- tion along the Yugoslav-Italian border in Istria. The present paper tries to show that phys- ical and political boundaries do not necessarily completely interrupt economic and social inter- action in a territory. As explained, the ‘official’ version of history is one thing, while the other more ‘personal’ view, which has been addressed in this paper, is another version. In the studied case, as in similar others, it has been shown that despite the restrictions and strict division, peo- ple find ways to communicate, cooperate and survive. This paper has taken into consideration only one ‘side’ or ‘reality’, which was manifested in the studied region after the end of World War II. For a broader and better understanding of the relations and interactions between the inhabit- ants of the border area, similar research should also be undertaken with the population on the ‘west side’ of the new border. List of Interlocutors* Interlocutor 1, 1952, Koper, 1.3.2021 Interlocutor 2, 1952, Koper, 1.3.2021 Interlocutor 3, 1956, Koper, 5.2.2021 Interlocutor 4, 1949, Lokev, 31.3.2021 Interlocutor 5, 1952, Lokev, 31.3.2021 Interlocutor 6, 1955, Škofije, 9.6.2022 Interlocutor 7, 1939, Sv. Anton, 23.7.2021 Interlocutor 8, 1948, Sv. Anton, 23.7.2021 Interlocutor 9, 1941, Koper, 13.10.2021 Interlocutor 10, 1950, Škofije, 6.4.2022 Interlocutor 11, 1948, Boršt, 16.11.2021 Interlocutor 12, 1943, Lokev, 15.4.2021 Interlocutor 13, 1939, Lokev, 15.4.2021 Interlocutor 14, 1925, Koper, 28.9.2022 Interlocutor 15, 1940, Koper, 30.3.2023 Interlocutor 16, 1944, Koper, 30.3.2023 * All my interlocutors will remain unknown. The only data is year of birth. References Čepič, Z. 2018. ‘Čez mejo: prehajanje jugoslovanske državne meje 1945–1970.’ In Nečakov zbornik: procesi, teme in dogodki iz 19. in 20. stoletja, edited by K. Ajlec, B. Balkovec, and B. Repe, 661–677. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete. Cunja, L. 2004. Škofije na Morganovi liniji: 25. oktober 1954–25. oktober 2004. Škofije: Krajevna skupnost. Drašček, N. 2005. ‘Slovenska zahodna meja po drugi svetovni vojni.’ Degree thesis, University of Ljubljana. 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Signed in Paris, on 10 February 1947. 1950. United Nations Treaty Series 49 (747). Treaty on the Delimitation of the Frontier for the Part Not Indicated as Such in the Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947 (with Annexes, Exchanges of Letters and Final Act). Signed in Osimo, Ancona, on 10 November 1975. 1987. United Nations Treaty Series 1466 (24848). Troha, N. 1999. Komu Trst: Slovenci in Italijani med dvema državama. Ljubljana: Modrijan. Troha, N. 2016. ‘Yugoslav-Italian Border and the Issue of Slovenian Access to the Sea.’ In Between the House of Habsburg and Tito: A Look at the Slovenian Past 1861–1980, edited by J. Perovšek and B. Godeša, 203– 214. Ljubljana: Institute of Contemporary History. Troha, N. 2018. ‘Ustvarjanje meje z Italijo in vloga popisov prebivalstva.’ In Ustvarjanje slovensko-hrvaške meje, edited by M. Zajc, 165–188. Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino. Troha, N. 2019. ‘Nekaj utrinkov iz političnega življenja na Svobodnem tržaškem ozemlju (1947–1954).’ Kronika 67 (3): 677–692. Verginella, M. 2021. Donne e Confini: assato#confini#Europa#lavoro#pandemia. Rome: Manifestolibri. Žitko, S., R. Šiškovič, J. Hočevar, and D. Vremec, eds. 1992. Koper. Koper: Skupščina občine, Izvršni svet. Summary Negotiating about the positioning of a demarcation line, and reaching a consensus or agreement about a border between all parties involved is a complex process that has occurred in different historical periods and cir- cumstances. The establishment of a line of demarcation strongly marks all aspects of life. In addition to the po- litical relations between the countries or lands involved, it affects the living conditions of people living near the new border who find themselves in a new reality. When new borders are established, especially in areas that have been the subject of disputes and conflicts for many years, life changes drastically. New borders also create new relationships and conditions for life and coexist- ence. Adapting to a new reality always requires adjust- ments. The process of establishing or agreeing on a bor- der, especially in disputed areas where different or even conflicting political regimes seek to annex territories, is long-lasting and demanding. In this paper, I focus on the issue of determining the border between Yugoslavia and Italy in the area of the northern Adriatic after the end of World War II. Re- solving this issue was demanding and took many years. In order to understand the dynamics and relations that were (or were in the process of being) established after the war between the states and the other forces invol- ved, it is necessary to explain the very process of border creation. The area that was the subject of delimitation and which I discuss in the paper was ethnically diver- se, so a clear dividing line based on ‘national’ affiliati- on could not be established. In addition, there was also an ideological struggle between two political and soci- al systems on the future Yugoslav-Italian border. The- refore, it is not surprising that international forces with diplomatic representatives were involved in the border process. As a historian interested in people’s everyday lives, who focuses on views ‘from below’  – the daily experiences and survival strategies that the inhabitants of the border st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 110 area established in order to cope more easily with the emerging political situation  – I pay most attention in this paper to the post-war conditions in which the peo- ple along the border lived. The central question is how the border line (either a temporary demarcation line or a later border), which divided the space both physically and ideologically, affected the local inhabitants. The research focuses on the period after the end of World War II and life along the Yugoslav-Italian bor- der in Istria. The emphasis is on studying how people adapted to the new reality of life in socialist Yugoslavia. Not only did the political situation change, but existing ties (family, business) were severed in the territory that had belonged to one country since the beginning of the 19th century (the Austrian Empire/Austria-Hunga- ry, the Kingdom of Italy). At the forefront of interest is the question of how interconnections and relationships changed and broke after the border was established. The question arises as to how communication, cooperation and the exchange of goods were preserved in a period when the border caused a strong division. Povzetek Pogajanja o tem, kam postaviti demarkacijsko črto in doseg skupnega konsenza oz. dogovora o meji med vse- mi vpletenimi stranmi, je zapleten proces, ki se je od- vijal v različnih zgodovinskih obdobjih in okoliščinah. Postavitev ali postavljanje demarkacijske linije in novih meja močno zaznamuje vse vidike življenja. Poleg poli- tičnih razmerij med vpletenimi državami ali deželami vpliva na življenjske razmere ljudi, ki se znajdejo v no- vih mejnih okvirih, v novi realnosti. Ko so vzpostavljene nove meje, zlasti na območjih, ki so bila dolga leta pred- met sporov in spopadov, se življenje drastično spreme- ni. Nove meje ustvarjajo tudi nova razmerja in pogoje za življenje ter sobivanje. Prilagoditev na novo realnost vedno terja številne prilagoditve. Proces postavljanja oz. dogovarjanja o meji, posebej na spornih območjih, kjer si za priključitev teritorijev prizadevata različna ali celo nasprotujoča si politična režima, je dolgotrajen in zah- teven. V prispevku se osredotočam na vprašanje dolo- čitve meje med Jugoslavijo in Italijo na območju sever- nega Jadrana po koncu druge svetovne vojne, kjer je bilo razreševanje tega vprašanja zahtevno in dolgotraj- no. Za razumevanje dinamik in odnosov, ki so se po voj- ni vzpostavili (vzpostavljali) med državama in drugimi vpletenimi silami, je treba razložiti sam proces ustvar- janja meje. Območje, ki je bilo predmet razmejevanja in ga obravnavam v prispevku, je bilo etnično raznoli- ko in jasne ločnice na podlagi »nacionalne« pripadno- sti ni bilo mogoče postaviti. Poleg tega je na bodoči ju- goslovansko-italijanski meji potekal tudi ideološki boj med dvema politično-družbenima sistemoma. Zato ni presenetljivo, da so se v proces t. i. borderinga vple- tle mednarodne sile z diplomatskimi predstavniki. Kot zgodovinarka, ki jo zanima vsakdanje življenje ljudi in se osredotočam na poglede »od spodaj«, na vsakodnevne izkušnje in preživitvene strategije, ki so jih prebivalci ob meji vzpostavili, da bi se lažje spopadli z novonastalo po- litično situacijo, pozornost v prispevku primarno posve- čam povojnim razmeram, v katerih so ljudje ob meji živeli. Osrednje vprašanje je, kako je mejna črta (tudi za- časna demarkacijska črta kot kasnejša meja), ki je pros- tor delila tako fizično kot ideološko, vplivala na tamkaj- šnje prebivalce. Raziskava se osredotoča na obdobje po koncu druge svetovne vojne in življenje ob jugoslovan- sko-italijanski meji v Istri. Poudarek je na preučevanju prilagajanja novi življenjski realnosti v socialistični Ju- goslaviji, ko so se ne samo spremenile politične razmere, ampak tudi pretrgale obstoječe vezi (družinske, poslov- ne) na teritoriju, ki je že od začetka 19. stoletja pripadal eni državi (Avstrijsko cesarstvo/Avstro-Ogrska, Kralje- vina Italija). V ospredju zanimanja je vprašanje, kako so se medsebojne povezave in odnosi po vzpostavitvi meje spremenili ter prekinili. Postavlja se vprašanje, kako so se komunikacija, sodelovanje in izmenjava blaga ohranili v obdobju (močne) mejne razdelitve. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 111 ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)111-131 © aut hor/aut hors Abstract: In the border region of northern Istria, the decade after World War II was a time of political, social and demographic changes that accompanied the introduction of the socialist system. The demarcation pro- cess between Italy and Yugoslavia led to an almost complete replacement and ethnic transformation of the urban population. A striking example of this transition is the development of primary education, which is analysed here in terms of social and architectural history. With the help of statistics and school records, we observe the impacts of emigration and immigration on the size and structure of the school population, as well as on the process of establishing the Slovenian school in the city of Koper/Capodis- tria. Through architectural and symbolic discourses on school infrastructure, we also question the her- itage significance of school buildings and institutions for contemporary local society. Keywords: Istria, post WWII period, population transfers, primary school, architecture, school build- ings, heritage Izvleček: V obmejni pokrajini severni Istri je bilo desetletje po drugi svetovni vojni čas političnih, socialnih in de- mografskih sprememb, ki so spremljale uvedbo socialističnega sistema. Razmejitev med Italijo in Ju- goslavijo je povzročila skoraj popolno zamenjavo in etnično preobrazbo mestnega prebivalstva. Izrazit primer tega prehoda je razvoj osnovnega šolstva, ki ga v prispevku analizirava z vidika družbene in arhi- tekturne zgodovine. S pomočjo statistik in šolskih evidenc opazujeva vplive izseljevanja in priseljevanja na obseg ter strukturo šolske populacije in na proces ustanavljanja slovenske šole v mestu Koper. Sko- zi arhitekturne in simbolne diskurze o šolski arhitekturi preizprašujeva tudi dediščinski pomen šolskih zgradb in institucij za sodobno lokalno družbo. Ključne besede: Istra, čas po drugi svetovni vojni, premiki prebivalstva, osnovna šola, arhitektura, šolske zgradbe, dediščina The Primary School in Postwar Koper/Capodistria as a Social Laboratory Osnovna šola v povojnem Kopru/Capodistrii kot socialni laboratorij Neža Čebron Lipovec University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities neza.cl@fhs.upr.si Aleksej Kalc Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Slovenian Migration Institute; University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities akalc@zrc-sazu.si st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 112 Introduction In 2005 and 2008 two seemingly minor build-ings were demolished in Koper/Capodistria,1 a seaside town in northern Istria, Slovenia. The buildings were the Janko Premrl Vojko pri- mary school and another primary school named after Pinko Tomažič. The site of the former is currently an empty void in the heart of the old town. Meanwhile the latter building, located on the outskirts of the town, has been replaced by a modern, box-shaped building that now ac- commodates the pupils and teachers of the two demolished schools. The two old buildings, built after the end of World War II in the years that represented a turning point in the history of the town and Istria as a whole, were demol- ished without any analysis of their heritage val- ues. The demolitions did not provoke much pub- lic debate at the time. However, aversion to and regret about these irreversible interventions has come to light in recent years on social networks. The unresponsiveness of society at the time of the demolitions raises many questions about the significance of this architectural heritage for the local community, and its perception of the post- war history of the town and region. These ques- tions represent the starting point of the present paper. In his seminal classic work Louis Althuss- er (2018) singled out education as the first of the state’s ideological apparatuses. The same role has been attributed to urbanism and architecture by several authors (e.g. Rotar 1980), following Hen- ri Lefebvre’s (1992) trialectic of production of 1 Since the end of World War II the city has two official names, Koper in Slovenian, and Capodistria in Italian, as the area is officially bilingual. The denomination Cap- odistria, written also in different forms in earlier periods (Capo d’Istria, Caput Histriae etc), derives from the Mid- dle Ages and was the official name of the city throughout its history, especially during the rule of the Venetian Re- public (1279–1797), and during the short French and later Austrian rule in the 19th century. The Slovene denomina- tion, Koper, was also present in the later centuries, yet of- ficially in use only during the Austrian rule and later after WWII. Currently, the city officially has both names, how- ever, due to space limitations we only use the Slovene one here, with all due respect for the city’s bilingual identity. space in particular. Observing the development of schools – both as institutions and as architec- ture – can thus give us insight into the socio-his- torical dynamics of the region in question. The challenge is even greater in a region with a his- tory of ethnic and ideological conflict like Istria. From the point of view of Slovenian national identity, establishing an education system after World War II represented the basis for empow- ering the Slovenian population. However, from an external perspective the construction of the Slovenian-centralist school system may be per- ceived as one of Althusser’s ideological state ap- paratuses through which the new Slovenian au- thorities established their political, national, ideological and cultural sovereignty on the terri- tory acquired after World War II. The primary school named after Janko Premrl Vojko, which operated in the centre of Koper between 1951 and 2006, was the embod- iment of the turbulent socio-political, demo- graphic and ethnic changes in Istria following World War II. The school’s history, activities and social pulse are discussed here as a case-study with the help of archival material from the Kop- er Regional Archive and existing studies. We fo- cus on the early post-war years, the period of the temporary buffer-state between Italy and Slove- nia, the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT) (1947– 1954), and especially on the period immediately Figure 1: Demolition of the Janko Premrl Vojko Primary School, 14 May 2008 (source: Personal Archive of Miloš Beltram) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 113 after its abolition (1954–1962). In terms of ed- ucation, this second period was marked by the school reform, but from the political-adminis- trative point of view it was the time when the border dispute and the division of the FTT be- tween Italy and Yugoslavia (1954) gave way to the full integration of Zone B of the FTT into the Slovenian republic and the state of Yugosla- via. The geopolitical restructuring was accom- panied by profound demographic, ethnic and social changes, linked to strategic plans for the economic renewal and development of the area as the Slovenian coastal region. The two main factors of economic restructuring, which went hand in hand with demographic and social re- structuring, were industrialisation (especial- ly with the TOMOS motorcycle factory, 1954– 1959) and the establishment and accelerated development of the Port of Koper (1957–1961). Recent historical and especially anthro- pological-ethnological research has highlight- ed the core issue of the population changes af- ter WWII in northern Istria, especially in the coastal, urbanised zone, and described them as ‘Slovenisation’ and/or ‘Yugoslavisation’ (Hro- bat Virloget 2021; Čebron Lipovec 2019a; Kalc 2019). The present analysis2 aims to test this find- ing by looking at the development of post-war education and school infrastructure. We want to highlight how the school positioned itself and what role it played in this dynamic series of his- torical events, what it can tell us about them, and how the ruptures and transitions were reflected in its mission and its work, on a symbolic level, and in people’s perceptions. We look at these issues from two perspec- tives. Firstly through the prism of the institu- tional and social history of schools and educa- tion as the foundations of a new social, political 2 The paper is the result of two scientific research projects and one programme, financed by the Slovene Research Agency (ARIS): the project ‘The potential of ethnograph- ic methods in conservation of built heritage in contested places: the case of northern Istria’ (Z6-3226) and the pro- ject ‘Migration and social transformation in comparative perspective: the case of Western Slovenia after WWII’ (J5- 2571) as well as of the research programme ‘National and Cultural Identity of the Slovene Emigration in the Con- text of Migration Studies’ (Program P5-0070). and national paradigm, and secondly from the perspective of architectural history, i.e. by ana- lysing the social and spatial positioning of school buildings as representational and social spaces. The Education System and ‘The Revival of the Slovene School in Istria’ During the decade following World War II, the northern Adriatic border region between Socialist Yugoslavia (now Slovenia) and Italy was marked by several years of negotiations on a new border between the two countries. A provision- al solution was the multicultural state of the Free Territory of Trieste, or FTT (1947–1954). This was divided into Zone A in the west, includ- ing the city of Trieste and its rural surround- ings and administered by the Anglo-American Allied Administration, and Zone B in the east, between Koper (now Slovenia) and Novi Grad (now Croatia), administered by the military ad- ministration of the Yugoslav Army. In the years after World War II, the main tasks of the peo- ple’s authorities in northern Istria (i.e. in the ter- ritory of Zone B of the FTT) were reviving the economy and renewing cultural life and the ed- ucation system. The former involved satisfying the basic needs of the population and restructur- ing the economic region, which was cut off from its historic centre of gravity - the city of Trieste - by the abolition of the FTT and the delimitation in 1954. As regards education, it was a question of restoring Slovene schools after a 20-year vio- lent fascist ban on the Slovene language and thus providing mother-tongue education to all the inhabitants. The aim was also to repair the cul- tural and national damage that the assimilation and the fascist Italianisation policies had inflict- ed on the Slovenian population of this ethnical- ly mixed area. Establishing and elevating Slovene educa- tion to an adequate organisational level faced two objective problems: a shortage of teaching staff and school premises. Many schools were housed in makeshift buildings, some teach- ers were recruited from the interior of Slovenia and local candidates underwent training to be- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 114 come teachers (Perovšek 1995, 45). While wait- ing for teaching staff to arrive, some schools were merged and others temporarily closed (Peterle Grahonja 2004, 93). Most of the school build- ings in the Istrian countryside were damaged or even destroyed during the war. Some served as military barracks for the occupying forces during the war, and after the war the Yugoslav army was stationed in some of them. The school buildings were renovated thanks to the volun- tary work of local people and the help of state loans, but this took time so school classes were held in makeshift buildings. Another problem was the inadequate design of the buildings. Al- though they had been built recently by the fas- cist regime, they were just simple one-classroom buildings designed to meet the needs of the peas- ant population, which received only the most ba- sic education. One teacher in a single classroom taught children from several years and of differ- ent ages, often in morning and afternoon shifts, demanding much organisation and work, but this was generally typical of education in the post-war years (Petelin 2020, 168). The results of repairs to existing schools and the construction of new school buildings and improvements in equipment were not visible until after 1948 (Pe- terle Grahonja 2004, 92–95). The Italian language schools were restored wherever an Italian population was present. They enjoyed administrative and curricular autono- my, but the people’s authorities sought to adapt the curricula to the new times and the ideologi- cal goals of popular democracy. There were elev- en Italian primary schools and seven secondary schools. The latter included grammar schools in Koper, Piran and Izola, a private church gram- mar school (seminario) in Koper, and in 1950 an Italian teachers’ college was founded in Koper (Peterle Grahonja 2004, 98). However, the mass emigration of ethnic Italians to Trieste, especial- ly after 1947, meant that the number of pupils attending Italian school shrank. The decline in numbers was also caused by the 1952 decree (Slu- ga and Jelen Madruša 2006, 9) which stipulat- ed that children whose surname appeared Slav- ic (i.e. they were of allegedly Slavic parents), were obliged to attend a Slovene school, even if they did not feel Slovene and regardless of their par- ents’ wishes (Beltram 1997, 207; Hrobat Virlo- get 2021, 96−97). Children with Italian or ethni- cally mixed parents could enrol in either Italian or Slovene schools3. In the so-called ‘exodus’  – the mass emigration of those who opted for Ita- ly when the FTT’s Zone B was taken over by Yu- goslavia in 1954 – many Italian teachers also left (Peterle Grahonja 2004, 92). They were initially replaced by Slovene teachers who had completed the Italian teacher training college and Italian students. Later, Italian teachers from the Cro- at part of Istria took up these positions (Beltram 1997, 207; Perovšek 1995). During this period, and especially in the 1950s, the school system also had to cope with the social dynamics associated with the restruc- turing of the region, specifically with the immi- gration of new populations, a phenomenon that accompanied or followed the mass departure of the so-called optants. While the number of Ital- ian schoolchildren shrank sharply with the peak of the ‘exodus’ in the mid-1950s, the demograph- ic pressure on the Slovene school structures in Koper, Izola and Piran and their new residential areas grew rapidly. For example, in 1956 there were 42 primary schools in the municipality of Koper, 38 of them were Slovene with 2,237 pu- pils, and four were Italian with 122 pupils. De- spite progress, the school structure was still poor, with half (47.7%) the Slovene schools being sin- gle-form-entry, just under 30% two-form entry, 15.7% three-form entry, and only four schools (10%) had a larger number of classes. In addition, many children did not meet the eight-year com- pulsory schooling requirement because most ru- ral schools taught only the first four years, while further years were taught in schools that were far away. The secondary schools included the Slovene grammar school (430 pupils), the Ital- ian grammar school (70), the teacher training college (70) and the secondary school for eco- 3 PAK, 936_2, OŠ Janko Premrl Vojko Koper 1946–2006, Šolska kronika 1952–53. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 115 nomics (119), all in Koper (Svoljšak 1956, 281– 286). The problem of compulsory primary edu- cation was solved in 1958 by a school reform that abolished the four-year primary and post-prima- ry schools and introduced a single eight-year pri- mary school (Peterle Grahonja 2004, 104). Difficulties in Planning School Needs Immigration and population growth fol- lowing the departure of the optants for Italy dictated the further development of school in- frastructure. Meanwhile, planning in the sec- ond half of the 1950s was difficult and risky. The dynamics, size and above all the age and social structure of the population (which form the ba- sis for educational planning) depended on the progress of major economic projects, the con- struction of the railway, the extension of the har- bour, land reclamation, and the growth of indus- try, tourism and other branches of the economy (Svoljšak 1956, 287). Another problem was the high population turnover. In the years 1954– 57, the coastal towns of Koper, Izola and Piran showed the greatest migratory pull in Slovenia, receiving as much as 30% of the republic’s migra- tion to urban areas (Vogelnik 1959). However, immigration was quite fluid, with people com- ing and going in large numbers. This was mainly due to a shortage of hous- ing. In the spring of 1956, there were 1,409 ap- plications for housing in Koper, which were only partially met by the authorities. New blocks of flats were still being built, and the houses left behind by the optants were only partially usa- ble due to uncontrolled management and the poor state they were in. The old housing stock generally consisted of far from comfortable ac- commodation, so it was difficult to retain new- comers from central Slovenia, especially profes- sional staff, even though their accommodation was reated as a priority. The housing crisis, the constant turnover of experts and the shortage of professional workers prevented more vigorous economic development and the opening of new businesses4. In 1956 the projection of school needs was therefore hypothetical. The drafters of the mu- nicipal development plan foresaw a strong influx of industrial workers and other personnel from Slovenia and the other republics, but the ques- tion of the nature of immigration (permanent or temporary) and the family structure of immi- grants was raised. Migratory movements with- in the coastal region were also more difficult to predict. Although there was a clear tendency to move from the inland, rural areas towards the coastal zone (Svoljšak 1956, 287–289), the devel- opment conditions of the different regions var- ied. For example, rural areas that were more fa- vourable for intensive agriculture with good transport connections were soon revitalised by immigration despite the loss of population due to the ‘exodus’ (Titl 1961, 22–24). However, the remoter parts of the municipality stagnated de- mographically due to the emigration to Italy, out-migration towards the coastal towns, and declining birth rates, and in many places expe- rienced depopulation. Between 1953 and 1961, individual local communities in these areas lost more than half their population. In the coastal towns, the population grew rapidly in number and demographic vitality (Piry 1983, 21–22; Titl 1961, 34). Towards the end of the 1950s, immi- gration stabilised and there was a growing need for school structures in areas of old and new ur- banisation, as existing school facilities could no longer cope with the demographic pressure (Jur- man and Medveš 1974). Koper Primary School  – Its Pupils and Teachers Let us now turn to the specific case of the Janko Premrl Vojko Primary School in Koper, which opened in the autumn of 1945. It was the first Slovene state school in the town because dur- ing the Austrian era (when compulsory prima- ry education was established) the Italian nation- 4 PAK, 712_1, 2 Minutes of the Municipality of Koper as- sembly 1955–1957, 9th regular session of the Koper assem- bly, 3. April 1956. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 116 al-liberal municipal administrations prevented the opening of Slovene schools in order to pre- serve the traditional Romance identity of the coastal towns against the ‘Slavisation’ that was intensifying with immigration from the Slavic hinterland. In the school year 1911–12, the Ciril Methodius Society (a Slovenian cultural and ed- ucational institution), opened a private Slovene primary school in Koper, but in 1919 it was closed by the Italian occupation authorities. From then on Slovene children could only attend the Ital- ian school (Pahor 1970, 249–260). After the liberation in 1945, the reopen- ing of Slovene schools in Koper and other coast- al towns, where the Italian cultural milieu was predominant, was therefore not a simple matter. Although part of the population was of Slovene or Slavic origin, most families intended to con- tinue sending their children to Italian schools. Some simply did not want the hassle of chang- ing their children’s school, others were dissuaded by practical or logistical reasons and others were indifferent about their nationality. The Slovene school was able to come alive thanks to teach- ers who visited parents and convinced them of the need to ‘teach children a language they had forgotten or never learned’5. The presence of the Slovene schools in Koper, Izola and Piran was also important ahead of the visit by the demar- cation commission. It made the Slovene presence visible in the towns – an argument in favour of 5 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1945/46. Yugoslav territorial claims (Peterle Grahonja 2004, 96). The school was housed in the renovated building of the former Italian Scuola Marinara in a street with the bilingual denomination Vi- ale XX Settembre / Ulica 20. septembra (today’s Cankarjeva ulica), which had housed the teach- er training school before World War I. In 1951, the school moved to a new building, which was built in the old town centre in an area called Bel- veder, where there had previously been a prison. In the first year it had three classes with about 70 pupils from Koper and the immediate surround- ings, mostly children of suburban small farmers, agricultural laborers and officials. According to the school records, the beginnings were difficult because the pupils’ knowledge of the Slovene language was poor. This was due to the shortage of and frequent replacement of teaching staff, but also social reasons, a lack of discipline and other reasons, which the writer of the records at- tributed to the parents’ reservations regarding school, and to the impact of Italianisation and Italian education6. These difficulties continued to plague the school for several years, but it is true that the school was establishing and strengthening itself not only as an educational institution, but also as a fundamental social institution, embedded in the social dynamics and quite turbulent po- litical developments in the region. These histor- ical processes are reflected in the enrolment sta- 6 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1948/49; Šolska kronika 1949/50. Figure 2: School children of the elementary school in Koper, 1954-1956 (source: Personal Archive of Rudi Pavlič) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 117 tistics, which were directly influenced by various factors. The school consolidation process lasted un- til the early 1950s, when the number of pupils no longer changed significantly. The fluctuations were influenced by the annual change of gener- ations, as well as by pupils coming over from the Italian school. The school year 1953–54 marked a new, landmark phase of development, as the number of pupils more than quadrupled by the end of the decade. The number of departments multiplied accordingly, from seven in the school year 1952–53 to 21 five years later, with a teach- ing staff of 24. The rapid growth outlined here coincides with the resolution of the so-called Trieste is- sue and the migratory dynamics triggered by the division of the FTT between Yugoslavia and It- aly. Emigration from Zone B to Zone A of the FTT and immigration to Zone B from Slovenia and elsewhere had been taking place through- out the previous years. From 1953 and especially from 1955 onwards, the final, most intense phase of the ‘exodus’ began. It lasted until February 1957 – the deadline by which residents who had opted for Italian citizenship and emigration to Italy (in accordance with the London Memo- randum) had to depart. At the same time immi- gration increased sharply and by the end of the decade it had overcome the demographic deficit caused by the ‘exodus’. Increased birth rates also began to have an impact on population growth (Kalc 2019, 149–153). The migration process and the effect of the population replacement was not only reflected in schools on an annual basis, but also in an increase in the number of pupils in the course of the school year. From the beginning to the end of the 1955/56 school year, the num- ber of pupils at the Janko Premrl Vojko school increased from 330 to 409, and the same trend continued. In the following years, school enrol- ment reflects a continuous immigration of fami- Table 1: Growth in the number of pupils at the Janko Premrl Vojko Primary School in Koper between the school years 1945–46 and 1959–60.* *PAK, 963_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolske kronike. 70 97 124 109 108 97 159 180 295 409 536 719 742 850 0 225 450 675 900 1945-46 1948-49 1950-51 1952-53 1954-55 1956-57 1958-59 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 118 lies, accompanied by increasingly stable econom- ic development and the urbanisation of the area. Within a few years, the construction of another school in the town was deemed necessary7 (Sluga and Jelen Madruša 2006, 10). The new settlers in the city of Koper came mainly from Slovenia, but many also came from the Croat part of Istria, especially from around Buje which had also belonged to Zone B of the FTT before 1954. The social and national com- position of Koper and the coastal region as a whole underwent a radical change in a very short period of time. The proportion of the population that had been born in the urban coastal towns fell from 85% in 1948 to 33% in 1956. Meanwhile, the Italian population shrunk to 10%. Its age structure rose sharply, while the immigrant pop- ulation was dominated by younger, demograph- ically active generations. Slovenian Istria and es- pecially its urbanised coastal zone, which had been predominantly Italian, thus acquired a Slo- venian and partly Yugoslav character (Kalc 2019, 155–156). The school increasingly became a social lab- oratory for this new urban reality, which consist- ed of people of different origins and also social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. In the social- ist social order, the school as a basic education- al institution was one of the key elements in the renewal of social values and relations to form a people’s democracy. The programme of the League of Communists of Slovenia emphasised how schools were connected with socio-eco- nomic reality and were bound to express the cul- tural needs of the pupils and to conform them to the needs of society8. The special task of schools in northern Istria, which became part of the So- cialist Republic of Slovenia, was to help integrate the region into the Slovenian national and cul- tural space. In order to achieve this, it was neces- sary to transform the cultural environment and establish the Slovene language. As can be seen from the school records, the school invested a 7 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1957/1958. 8 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1958/59. lot of effort in language education and inculcat- ing new ideas during the post-war years because it had to deal with a very complex cultural and linguistic reality. The pupils’ insufficient knowl- edge of Slovene had a negative impact on their learning progress. There were problems with im- migrant children of other Yugoslav nationalities, as well as with children from the Slovene part of Istria. As regards the latter, the difficulties were attributed to the mother tongue having been ne- glected and a lack of Slovene national conscious- ness due to the persistent assimilation process- es and fascist education, which meant Italian was frequently used in everyday communica- tion at home and in general9. There was also an attachment to the Slovene Istrian dialect, which was full of words borrowed from Italian or Cro- atian. Towards the end of the 1950s, school re- cords mention the positive effects of schools on language skills and learning abilities. Children learnt Slovene faster, their reading culture im- proved and they became more involved in school and extracurricular activities. Visits to theatre performances, educational excursions, participa- tion in events and celebrations, additional cours- es in Slovene and local history and geography all paid off. Special credit for mastery of the Slovene language was given to the ‘hard-working pupils from Yugoslavia’ who spoke beautiful Slovene and became role models for the locals10. The Political Situation and Education In order to understand the school’s role and work in the turbulent 1940s and 1950s, it is also necessary to take into account the political sit- uation. The opening of Slovene schools in Ko- per and other coastal towns meant the redress- ing of fascist attempts to assimilate and destroy the Slovene identity. At the same time, it meant eliminating the historical ideological-nation- al dichotomy between the Italian town and the Slovene countryside. Under Austria-Hunga- ry, the Italian local authorities had used this di- 9 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1945/46. 10 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1950/51. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 119 chotomy to prevent the Slovene population from moving to the towns and exercising their nation- al rights there. The Slovene or Yugoslav people’s power, which emerged from the National Liber- ation Struggle (NOB), overcame this by imple- menting the socialist principle of national equal- ity and the policy of fraternity among nations. It considered this territory to be Yugoslav and in- troduced the political-administrative structures and systems of the socialist order from Yugo- slavia into Zone B of the FTT. In the geopoliti- cal configuration of the Littoral, when the peace treaty assigned Gorizia to Italy in 1947 and Tri- este to Zone A of the FTT, the towns of Koper, Izola and Piran were conceived as the new cen- tres of the Slovene territory. In the border dis- pute, the authorities pursued a principled policy in favour of the annexation of Zone B to Yugosla- via, and sought to create the conditions and gain the consensus of the population for this, not on the basis of nationality but on the principle of so- cialist belonging. However, this stumbled upon many obstacles, both national and ideological. Political opposition came not only from the Ital- ian bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes, which manifested nationalist and irredentist tenden- cies, but also from workers who were in favour of the Free Territory of Trieste. Since 1948, this idea had been intertwined with the Cominform positions and the pro-FTT propaganda of the ‘Cominformists’11 (Rogoznica 2011, 301–302; Čebron Lipovec 2019a, 205). This kind of an- ti-Yugoslavism was supported mainly by Italian communists, and was still alive in certain areas of Zone B in 1953. At the same time, there was strong political pressure from the esuli (Istrian émigrés) organisations and Italian political cir- cles from Zone A and from Italy, which spread rumours of persecution and dangers for Italians under the Yugoslav regime. For all these reasons, the consolidation of socialist positions in Zone B and the integration of Italians into the pro-Yu- goslav socio-political structures, as well as put- ting the principles of socialist democracy into 11 PAK, 450, Okrajni komite Zveze komunistov Slovenije Koper (1945–1965). practice (beginning with bilingualism) did not proceed as planned and without conflict. The authorities also experienced disagreements and tensions between local political cadres and those from Slovenia, who accused the former of a lack of political integrity in the struggle to eliminate anti-Yugoslav political factors. One of the aims of establishing Slovene schools during the FTT years was therefore to repair the damage suffered by the Slovenes under and before fascism due to social and national dis- crimination. At the same time, it was part of the political struggle for Zone B to belong to Yugo- slavia through the implementation of the social- ist social order and the socialist concept for regu- lating national relations. On the socialist basis of equality, the authorities recognised the nation- al rights of the Italian population while enforc- ing the principle that ‘a Slovene child belongs in a Slovene school’ and implemented it on the ba- sis of ‘objective’ criteria for determining nation- al belonging (surname, language, origin). This was their way of exerting political pressure, and in many cases it paid off and contributed to the process of integrating the local Istrian popula- tion into the Slovene nation. However, they also encountered resistance and accusations from Italian representatives for imposing Slovene edu- cation and disrespecting people’s personal iden- tity. Getting children to enrol in Slovene schools continued after the territory was annexed to Yu- goslavia and the exodus of Italian- speaking pop- ulation, along with efforts to consolidate the re- gion’s Slovene character. Complaints were made in political circles that even the Slovene com- munists often spoke Italian among themselves12. However, due to the mass immigration and the influence of the prevailing Slovene social and cultural environment, implementing the princi- ple of a national school policy became easier. The Architecture of School Buildings How did the architecture and specifically the new primary school of Janko Premrl Vojko at 12 AS, 1589 III, Centralni komite Zveze komunistov Sloveni- je, 4, 249, Zapisnik seje s tovariši iz Okrajnega komiteja Koper, 24. July 1953. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 12 0 Belveder fit into the political, ideological and social dynamics? The story of this first post- war school in the centre of Koper has a lengthy prelude connected with a modern, unfinished school building from the fascist era, and a fol- low-up that mirrors the town’s demographic and urban development after Zone B was annexed to Yugoslavia. The Fascist Primary School Scuola Anna Depangher Sauro In the interwar period, the fascist authorities built several rural schools in the Istrian country- side. These were typical one-room schoolhous- es aimed at providing the most basic education for the peasant population. The aesthetics of these buildings followed the official style of the time, the so-called Stile Littorio. By reinterpret- ing elements from Roman antiquity, it served as a tool for legitimising the alleged continuity of the Roman – and consequently presumably Ital- ian  – civilisational and territorial domination. A monumental but unfinished primary school complex was built in the same spirit and style – but much more ambitiously – on the waterfront of Koper/Capodistria (today Pristaniška uli- ca) in 1940. It was dedicated to Anna Depangh- er Sauro, the mother of the local irredentist hero Nazario Sauro. The new school was designed in 1938, at the height of fascism, with an exceptional rep- resentational significance. It served as the dom- inant feature of the monumental scenery on the promenade leading to the equally monumen- tal memorial to Nazario Sauro from 1935. In or- der for construction to begin, much of the anon- ymous fabric of the town’s Brazzol district was demolished (Cherini 1990, 265–266), follow- ing the example of Mussolini paving the way for fascist modernity in Rome. The plan for the new school complex consisted of a central dom- inant part and two wings (one for girls and one for boys). Due to disputes over symbolic aesthet- ics, in which the Minister of National Educa- tion Giuseppe Bottai intervened,13 and the out- break of war, construction came to a standstill and the building, with its extraordinary symbol- ic charge, remained unfinished. After the end of World War II, especially af- ter the Free Territory of Trieste was established, the school building became relevant again. The new authorities  – the Military Administration of the Yugoslav Army  – intended to complete the school, but again the plan was not realised as they decided to build a new school at a new lo- cation – on the site of the demolished prison at 13 SABAP FVG, fondo Istra Quarnero Dalmazia, b. 4, fasc. 172, Nuova Scuola Capodistria, prot. n. 141, 20 February 1940. Figure 3: Photomontage of the panorama of the southern edge of the old town of Koper/Capodistria with the planned monumental school dedicated to Anna Depangher Sauro, 1939–1940 (source: Personal Archive of Mario Fonda) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 12 1 Figure 4: The original plan for the new Slovene-Italian primary school in Koper, architect Ervino Velušček, 1948 (source: PAK, 24 OLO Projekti, 312.9) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 12 2 Belveder. Between 1949 and 1951, the unfinished fascist school was converted into the Triglav ho- tel and Omnia department store. The plans for the adaptation were drawn up by one of Slove- nia’s leading post-war architects, Edo Mihevc (Čebron Lipovec 2012, 216–217; Čebron Lipov- ec 2020, 259–261). The Primary School in Koper: From Osnovna šola – Scuola cittadina to Osnovna šola Janko Premrl Vojko The decision to build a new school was made for practical and ideological reasons. The practical reasons included the outdatedness and inadequate furnishings of the building used for the Slovene school, as evidenced by the school re- cords. The main Italian school was located in a wing of the former convent of the Poor Clares, while the Slovene school did not have its own premises. As already mentioned, it was original- ly housed together with the grammar school in the renovated building of the former fascist na- val school. The primary school was located on the upper floors on the north side of the build- ing, and from 1948 onwards it was housed in three dark classrooms on the ground floor. The first makeshift benches, which satisfied neither the requirements nor the hygiene regulations, were provided by the Military Administration, and it was not until the school year 1947/48 that the Education Department provided new bench- es and cupboards. The primary school pupils had a separate entrance from the grammar school pupils, but they came together in the courtyard during breaks. In 1948, the unknown local architect Ma- tossi was still planning to complete the pre-war fascist school building, but the authorities de- cided to demolish the former monumental pris- on on the old town’s highest point, the Belveder, and build a new school on that site. The demoli- tion of the old building and the construction of the new one, which began in 1949,14 was the first and most visible urban intervention in the town 14 PAK, 23, Istrski okrožni ljudski odbor, 9, 11. November 1950. centre. The plan for the new school was drawn up by Ervino Velušček (Kregar 1952, 36; Čebron Lipovec 2018), an architect who originated from Trieste and who was completely unknown at the time but who emigrated to Italy in 1950 and created a prominent architectural oeuvre. The original plan for the school building envisaged a monumental complex with three three-storey wings to be built on the floor plan of the former prison. One wing was intended for the Slovene classes, another for Italian classes, and the third was for the administration (Kregar 1952, 36; Če- bron Lipovec 2018). In the end, only one simple single-sto- rey wing was built and handed over for use on 3 March 1951 (La nostra lotta 1951, 2). The new school building, which had only 16 class- rooms and not the larger number that had been planned, also deviated from the conceptual plan in terms of design, as it lost its original character with the reduction in size and a different roof. It is said that the original plan was abandoned due to a lack of funds (Kregar 1952, 36). From a socio-historical point of view, the po- litical-ideological function of this school build- ing was crucial as it was built to house Slovene and Italian pupils under the same roof. In pub- lic discourse it was presented as a Slovene-Italian primary school or scuola cittadina, which sym- bolised the so-called fratellanza − the brother- hood of Slovenes and Italians in Istria. It there- Figure 5: Janko Premrl Vojko Primary School, built on the site of the former penitentiary (photo: Neža Čebron Lipovec, 2007) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 12 3 fore embodied the fundamental declared ideal of the FTT Zone B, as advocated by the Slavic-Ital- ian anti-fascist union  – the Unione antifascista italo-slava (SIAU/UAIS) (La nostra lotta 1951, 2). The newspaper Istrski tednik reported on the opening as follows: ‘On the foundations of the infamous old prison, which many of us know from the time of fascist violence and terror, the first wing of the new school has been built, a magnificent build- ing that will now welcome our young generation. From now on, they will be educated to become new socialist people in the spirit of brotherhood and unity between Slovenes and Italians’ (Istrski tednik 1951, 3). The school initially housed a Slovene 5-year primary school and an Italian 5-year primary school. However, in the school year 1956/57 the Italian primary school moved out of the build- ing to another site in the historic centre15. From then onwards, the school was intended only for Slovene-speaking pupils. Due to intensive economic development – thanks to the TOMOS factory and the port – the first years after the annexation (1954) were a time of intensive workforce inflow, and conse- quently of children and schoolchildren. As a re- sult of the large population influx, and in view of the forthcoming school reform, the school was enlarged in the year 1957/1958 and given a sec- ond floor16 with an additional eight classrooms, but these were used by the teacher training col- lege17. The plans for the extension were drawn up by Miloš Hohnjec, an unknown but very prolific architect of the architectural bureau Projektivni biro in Koper in the first years following the an- nexation (Čebron Lipovec 2018, 227). In addi- tion to the second floor extension, the architect proposed a new, lower, simple pavilion with of- fices for teachers and workshops, but despite the growing space constraints, the plan remained on paper. School records report of planned ex- 15 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1955/1956. 16 PAK, 24.2, OLO Projekti, 336, 4. 17 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1957/58. tensions to the administrative building and the integration of the school into the growing new modern neighbourhood in the immediate vi- cinity, as well as a planned park at the front, but these plans were never realised. In 1954 and then in 1957, development plans were drawn up for Koper by the architect Nikolaj Bežek (Čebron Lipovec 2019b, 249– 253; 2020, 262–265). They outlined the devel- opment of new urbanisation on the southern bank of the former salt pans in Semedela, and in the long term also in Bonifika - the reclaimed marshy area of the former salt pans. These devel- opment guidelines also led to decisions concern- ing the location of new school buildings. As the new school at Belveder was short of space, a de- cision was made in 1957 to found a new school and build a completely new building18. How- ever, the school was not built until later. In the school year 1959/60, the school at Belveder had 24 units, one of which was temporarily housed in the building of the Italian primary school in order to avoid the third shift of classes19. Finally, in 1962, the new school in Koper acquired prem- ises in a new building at Bonifika. The Primary School’s Symbolism and Heritage Significance The prison, which was demolished in 1948, pri- marily symbolised the place where Slovene free- dom fighters were oppressed (Beltram 2008, 8). Already in 1930, members of the Slovene secret organisation Borba were imprisoned and tor- tured there; they were the first to protest violent- ly against fascism and the attempts to annihilate Slovene and Croat identity in the region. Con- structing the school on the site of the prison, therefore, carried a multilayered symbolic mean- ing. In the first place, there was the counterpoint between the prison’s negative and repressive function of negating an individual’s freedom, and the positive and philanthropic function of the school – an educational institution that pro- 18 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1957/58. 19 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1959/60. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 12 4 vides young generations with knowledge as a tool for achieving freedom. There is also a sym- bolic contrast in ethnic terms: the prison was an allegory of national struggles and attempts at ethnic domination. In Austrian times Italian ir- redentists were imprisoned here, during the Ital- ian rule Slavs and antifascists were the prisoners. As a contrast to these dynamics, the post-WWII authorities wanted to celebrate inter-ethnic fra- ternity – fratellanza – with a joint Slovene-Ital- ian school as a model of a just relationship be- tween Slovenes and Italians in Istria. The school therefore symbolised respectful coexistence, and its origins and first years of operation can be con- sidered a monument to the utopia that the FTT tried to implement. Yet the utopia dissolved rap- idly with the emigration of the Italians, which peaked in 1955–56. Then the declining Italian classes were moved out of the building and the school was enlarged to accommodate the rap- idly growing population of newly arrived Slo- venes and Croats. In the school year 1959/60, the school was renamed after the Slovene parti- san hero Janko Premrl Vojko.20 In 1959, a com- memorative plaque was placed on the school’s side façade in memory of the prison, the suffer- ing of the freedom fighters who were imprisoned 20 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika 1959/60. there under fascism, and the founding of Yugo- slavia’s communist party. Meanwhile, the ideal of fraternity between Slovenes and Italians was no longer present. In 1985, a commemorative plaque was added to commemorate the re-estab- lishment of Slovenian education in Istria. In this process we see not only the dissolu- tion of utopia, but in fact its opposite: from the annexation to Yugoslavia onwards, schools re- flected the expansion of Slovene identity and a change in the region’s ethnic structure and ap- pearance. However, they not only reflected the ‘exodus’ of the pre-war population, but also the process of ‘Yugoslavisation’, as the development of the port in particular brought many people from other Yugoslav republics to Koper. Pinko Tomažič Primary School This ‘ethnic metamorphosis’ (Purini 2010) and the socio-economic development of Koper and the whole region into a flourishing Slovene, Yu- goslav and socialist landscape was also symbol- ised by the establishment of the second primary school in Koper in 1958. The first post-war school was then renamed Primary School I (one year later renamed after Janko Premrl Vojko) while the new one was called Primary School II. Both schools initially shared the older, first post-war building. Primary School II moved into a new Figure 6: The commemorative plaque erected in 1959 on the side façade of the primary school. Alongside it there is a plaque with an Italian translation of the text that was added later (photo: Neža Čebron Lipovec, 2007) Figure 7: The commemorative plaque erected in 1985 on the side façade of the primary school marking 40 years since the re-establishment of Slovene education in Istria (photo: Neža Čebron Lipovec, 2007) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 12 5 building at Bonifika in 1962,21 and was renamed after the national hero of the partisan movement, Pinko Tomažič. Although the area of drained salt pans had started to be reclaimed already un- der the Kingdom of Italy in the 1920s and 1930s (Čebron Lipovec 2020, 249–251), it did not ac- tually undergo urbanisation until after it was an- nexed to Yugoslavia. The plan to develop Bonifi- ka with modern neighbourhoods making up the ‘New Koper’ was prepared by the leading archi- tect and urban planner in the region at the time, Edo Mihevc, as part of the Urban Plan for Koper in 1961. The latter was part of the larger Region- al Plan for the Slovenian Coast (the area of the northern Istrian coast within the Socialist Re- public of Slovenia) which was drawn up between 1959 and 1963. Mihevc developed a distinctive ar- chitectural idiom of ‘progressive’ and ‘Mediter- ranean architecture’ (Čebron Lipovec 2018, 245– 265) for the newly annexed region, consisting of modern architecture with elements inspired by local, vernacular Mediterranean architecture, es- pecially from the countryside. Through this lo- cally influenced yet modern architectural style, he wanted to lay the foundations for modern de- velopment in the newly annexed region, based on the qualities of historical and geographi- cal features. The new, modern villa-blocks were contemporary in their floor plans and furnish- ings, while their exteriors bore vivid earthy col- ours, accented with tile roofs, vertical windows, wooden shutters, stone details, pergolas and lush greenery. The architect wrote that this was in- tended to preserve the ‘visual continuity of the landscape’ (Mihevc 1963, 42). This way, he want- ed to create at least an external appearance that sought continuity with the region’s tradition. In this gesture we can recognise both a desire to re- spect this region, but also a desire to conceal the obvious cut in the region’s development and his- tory caused by the drastic socio-political revolu- tion and the change of population. Neverthe- less, the Mediterranean character was mainly achieved in residential and tourist architecture, 21 PAK, 936_2, Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka, Šolska kronika, 1962/63. while for public buildings  – including school buildings – he drew more directly on contempo- rary modernist trends. It was in the context of school buildings that a major breakthrough was made in Slove- nia at the time, as an echo of the development and modernisation of the teaching process (the need for a less rigid learning space, the limitation of the number of pupils, new teaching methods, etc.) (Petelin 2020, 172–173). Changes in the field of architecture began to take effect with the introduction of a new form of education after a new Law on Primary Education was adopted in 1959. It was based on the principles of the Com- munist League of Yugoslavia and established a balance between education and upbringing (Sluga and Jelen Madruša 2006, 10). All school buildings were built according to the same mod- ernist principles: the basic unit was the class- room, which was to provide the pupil with suf- ficient space, and the floor plan of the classroom should be close to square, adequately lit and have large windows; the new floor plans should be more varied and allow for a more appropriate school design; the schools should not have more than a single storey and have dynamic, asymmet- rical compositions; construction should be pos- sible using a concrete structure, but at the same time it should be organically adapted to region- al specificities; finally, schools should stand in parks, in the middle of greenery, in contact with nature. All these principles can be found in sev- eral proposed variants for the new school at Bon- ifika. At least four variants were made22, propos- ing a subdivided construction around a central pavilion (variant A); an even more subdivided, clustered design of pavilions (variant B); and a simpler, rectangular pavilion design with a wide atrium (variant C). These three variants, which directly mirror the principles of the ‘new school’, were presented only in plan form. A fourth var- iant was developed, representing the realised building: an elongated, single-storey pavilion building on columns, with three connecting tracts and two spacious, external staircases. 22 PAK, 24.2, OLO Projekti, 377, 5. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 12 6 All the designs provided for lush green- ery. The pavilion design provided a solution for building on the unstable ground of the former salt pans. The building was in fact the first to be built in the poor load-bearing area (Kresal 2016, 96–97). The school was mainly attended by pu- pils from the suburban estates. All the plans that were drawn up testify to the commitment of the already established Slovenian authorities who shifted the focus from not just solving the spatial problem and asserting Slovenian identi- ty, but also to expressing a special concern for the most modern trends in school architecture and also in education. In 2000, professional crit- ics described the Pinko Tomažič Primary School as ‘the only example of a pavilion-like transpar- ent building in the Bonifika area between the old centre of Koper and Semedela, and it could become the standard form of construction in this area’. (Ravnikar et al. 2000) They proposed it should be protected as a cultural heritage site. However, structural problems meant the build- ing was demolished in 2005, despite its architec- tural qualities. The Pinko Tomažič Primary School was the embodiment of the grand plan to expand post- war Koper beyond the former salt pans, i.e. the reclaimed Bonifika, towards the neighbouring hills. The town’s expansion and the construc- tion of new residential estates, which became necessary with the economic development that followed the construction of the TOMOS fac- tory and the Port of Koper, led to the construc- tion of several schools in the following decades. The new estates were built in concentric circles from the old town centre southwards. In the centre of Semedela, the new modernist, terraced neighbourhood, a new school was built in 1972 and named after the national hero Dušan Bor- don (Čebron Lipovec 2018, 228–229). Only sev- en years later, in 1979, a school named after An- ton Ukmar, another national hero, was built on Markovec, a hilly suburban area, west of Seme- dela. The latter complex is characterised by a dis- tinctly organic approach in its subdivided wings and its location on a ridge overlooking Koper Bay. The colour scheme of white walls, blue roofs and red details is reminiscent of the Yugoslav and Slovenian flags, although there is no docu- ment that explicitly mentions such symbolism being intentional. The school was intended for children from the newly built blocks of flats be- tween Semedela and Žusterna, which were built due to the intensive population growth, main- ly of workers from other Yugoslav republics, af- ter the intensive expansion of the Port of Koper and the extremely rapid economic development in the late 1960s and 1970s. The new and mod- ern school, located on one of the most beautiful vantage points overlooking the Gulf of Trieste, reflected the peak of ‘Yugoslav’ Koper’s econom- ic development. Concluding Discussion A dual  – historical and architectural-histori- cal – analysis of schools in post-war Koper illus- trates the dramatic changes that took place in the north Istrian region after the war, and also before it. The motives and mechanisms behind the establishment of Slovene education clearly reflect a desire to redress the injustices of fascism and earlier historical periods. This is manifested above all in the primary concern for the Slovene language, for the ‘restoration’ of Slovene identi- ty in children who had supposedly ‘forgotten’ their mother tongue or renounced it under pres- sure from the forces that wanted to assimilate and erase the Slovene character of this ethnically Figure 8: Pinko Tomažič Primary School in the 1980s. (source: Personal Archive of Zdenko Bombek) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 12 7 mixed area. At the same time, these approaches clearly reveal the processes of establishing Slove- nian dominance in the urban space of the ac- quired territory, through the construction of a socialist social order within the Yugoslav state. However, an architectural-historical analysis of the construction and aesthetics of schools, es- pecially the first post-war primary school in the town centre, reveals a partially different inter- pretation: in the public media discourse, espe- cially during border-negotiation period of the Free Territory of Trieste (1947–1954), the school was a symbol of the coexistence of Slovenes and Italians, united under the common ideal of a so- cialist future and of fraternity – fratellanza – be- tween two equal peoples. It was this fratellanza that the new school in the town centre was sup- posed to foster, as it was originally conceived as a school for pupils of both languages. Despite the monumental plan for a two-nation school, only the Slovene wing was built, and shortly af- ter the incorporation of Zone B of the Free Ter- ritory of Trieste to Yugoslavia, the Italian class- es were relocated. The first school then acquired a different population and – under the influence of rapid economic development and mass immi- gration – became a school for immigrants from different Slovenian regions and other Yugoslav republics. So, what is the heritage value of the Janko Premrl Vojko Primary School? It was a monu- ment to the short and utopian period of the FTT and its fate, as well as a material bearer of the col- lective memory of Koper’s new, post-war popula- tion. At the same time it undoubtedly testified to a historic process that could be called a post-fas- cist reaction to the suppression of Slovene identi- ty. However, due to the newly acquired post-war position of power, the Slovenian population be- came numerically and culturally dominant, also as a result of the national or republican context and the establishment of the nation state. At the same time, educational institu- tions were a monument to the new socialist re- ality where education was implemented in a new value system. This was based on the equal- ity of social classes, self-management, the secu- lar state and the integration of the Yugoslav peo- ples, while upholding the values of the National Liberation Struggle (Narodnoosvobodilna bor- ba, NOB) – the struggle for freedom, peace and anti-fascism. The buildings of the Janko Premrl Vojko and Pinko Tomažič primary schools were therefore the primary carriers of these histori- cal and social values, while their heritage signif- icance is also based on specific architectural and technical achievements, such as adaptation to lo- cal specificities, modernist solutions, etc. It is an eloquent fact that both the town’s first post-war school and the second school in Bonifika were demolished in a short period of time at the beginning of the 3rd millennium. The official, technical justification for the demo- lition on the grounds of poor construction qual- ity is undermined by the fact that the irrevers- ible intervention was carried out without any professional evaluation of the significance of the destroyed buildings. The demolition is a typical example of symbolic erasure and negation (nega- tion symbolique, Veschambre 2008) of the mon- uments of a bygone era and past ideologies – in this case socialism. Equally eloquent is the fact that the demolition of the schools was not ac- companied by a professional debate on their heritage significance, in which elements of so- called ‘extruded history’ can be identified. This concept, as defined by Pamela Ballinger (2012, 380), concerns attitudes towards history that ad- dress ‘uncomfortable’ topics – particularly in the post-war period. These are usually stories of de- feat, which enter the public consciousness at in- appropriate moments and are difficult to fit into public narratives and into scientific conceptual frameworks; such problematic and disputed nar- rative is the issue of the ‘exodus’ (Hrobat Virlo- get 2021). However, the demolished schools do mark the local collective memory, as proven by the jubilee monograph on the school which was published when the school was closed down and demolished (Poklar and Jelen Madruša 2006). It was prepared by former teachers and pupils. The school’s exceptional importance for the lo- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 12 8 cal population is also evidenced by the exist- ence of the social media Facebook groups and their exceptional activity. The Janko Premrl Vo- jko Primary School has almost 2,000 follow- ers and was founded only a few months after the building was demolished (November 2008), while Pinko Tomažič Primary School often ap- pears in posts on various Facebook groups about Koper’s history, for example Koper, kot je bil ne- koč / Capodistria com’era una volta (Koper as it used to be). The comments under the posts dis- play a wide range of different reactions – from pure nostalgia and a sense of belonging, to igno- rance about the presence of Italians. The variety of comments, emotions and attitudes expressed testify to the extraordinary heritage of these two schools, while the lack of knowledge about the history behind the buildings and the institution can again be considered ‘extruded’ history. For 15 years, the site of the Janko Premrl Vojko school lay empty, awaiting the construction of an un- derground car park and a new public park on top of it. Since 2022, the existence of the first post- war school building has been commemorated in the new ‘Museum Square’ above the car park. Each of the three entrances to the car park has a large white slab with a short introductory text and an axonometric projection of the building. This ‘site of memory’ is presently (autumn 2023) visible but invisible: the white letters carved into the white slab are completely illegible. The mem- ory of the school and its dissonant heritage sig- nificance is ‘invisibly commemorated’. However, in the absence of any interest from the academic and political spheres in eval- uating the significance of the post-war schools in the northern Istrian urban space, a special, co- incidental and symbolic moment is taking place right now (autumn 2023). After 67 years, the Slovenian and Italian primary schools in Kop- er have been reunited, albeit temporarily, in the same building  – the new building of the Kop- er Primary School, while the old building of the Italian school is undergoing renovation. Archival Sources AS: Arhiv Republike Slovenije. SABAP FGV: Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio del Friuli Venezia Giulia PAK: Pokrajinski arhiv Koper / Archivio Regionale di Capodistria. Figure 9: The ‘invisibly commemorated’ history of the post-war primary school on white slabs with white letters at the northern entrance to the new underground car park on the site of the old school (photo: Neža Čebron Lipovec, 2023) st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 12 9 References Althusser, L. 2018. Ideologija in ideološki aparati države in drugi spisi. Translated by Z. Skušek. Ljubljana: Založba /*cf. Ballinger, P. 2012. ‘Entangled or “Extruded” Histories? Displacement, National Refugees, and Repatriation after the Second World War.’ Journal of Refugee Studies 25 (3): 366–386. Beltram, V. 1997 ‘Razvoj šolstva.’ In Zbornik Primorske: 50 let, edited by S. Valentinčič, 202–207. Koper: Primorske novice. Beltram, V. 2008. Koprski zapori: s poudarkom na političnih zapornikih v obdobju fašistične vladavine; ob 65. obletnici prve osvoboditve političnih zapornikov septembra 1943. Koper: Združenje protifašistov, borcev za vrednote NOB in veteranov. Cherini, A. 1990. Mezzo secolo di vita a Capodistria: spoglio di cronaca giornalistica 1890–1945. Trieste: Cherini. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2012. ‘Arhitekturni pomniki povojne izgradnje Kopra po drugi svetovni vojni.’ Annales: anali za istrske in mediteranske študije. Series historia et sociogia 22 (1): 211–232. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2018. ’Izgradnja slovenskih obalnih mest v času po drugi svetovni vojni: primer mesta Koper.’ PhD Diss., University of Primorska. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2019a. ‘Post-War Urbanism along the Contested Border: Some Observations on Koper/Capodistria and Trieste/Trst.’ Dve domovini 49:199–220. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2019b. ‘“Revolucija mesta”: staro mestno jedro v povojnih urbanističnih načrtih za Koper.’ Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino 55:245–265. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2020. ‘Oris urbanega razvoja Kopra od Giacoma Fina do danes / Ritratto dello sviluppo urbano di Capodistria da Giacomo Fino ad oggi.’ In Koper: urbana geneza; ob 400-letnici / Capodistria: genesi urbana; a 400 anni dalla Pianta di Capod’Istria, edited by D. Krmac and D. Rogoznica, 221–279. Koper: Histria editiones. Hrobat Virloget, K. 2021. V tišini spomina: »eksodus« in Istra. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem. Istrski tednik. 1951. ‘Na istem mestu: prej jetnišnica - zdaj šola.’ Istrski tednik, March 3. Jurman, B., and Z. Medveš. 1974. Načrt razvoja mreže osnovnih šol v občini Koper. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut. Kalc, A. 2019. ‘The Other Side of the “Istrian Exodus”: Immigration and Social Restoration in Slovenian Coastal Towns in the 1950s.’ Dve domovini 49:145–162. Kregar, J. 1952. ‘Pismo iz Kopra.’Arhitekt 3:35– 37. Kresal, J. 2016. Edo Mihevc: izbrana dela. Ljubljana: Beletrina. La nostra lotta. 1951. ‘Simbolo della fratellanza la nuova scuola elementare.’ La nostra lotta, March 7. Lefebvre, H. 1992. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Mihevc, E. 1963. ‘Piano regolatore della costa slovena.’ Casabella-continuità 280:40–53. Pahor, D. 1970. ‘Pregled razvoja osnovnega šolstva na zahodnem robu slovenskega ozemlja.’ In Osnovna šola na Slovenskem 1869–1969, edited by V. Schmidt, 235–337. Ljubljana: Slovenski šolski muzej. Perovšek, F. 1995. Moja resnica: spominski utrinki iz delovanja po letu 1945 na Primorskem in v Ljubljani. Ljubljana: Društvo piscev zgodovine NOB Slovenije. Petelin, D. 2020. ‘Ljubljansko osnovno šolstvo med letoma 1945 in 1965 v luči šolskega prostora in nove arhitekture.’ Šolska kronika 29 (1/2): 158–188.  Peterle Grahonja, V. 2004. ‘Slovensko šolstvo Julijske krajine in STO 1945–1954: Tržaško okrožje in koprski okraj.’ In Cona B tržaškega svobodnega ozemlja: zbornik ob 50-letnici priključitve cone B STO Jugoslaviji, edited by Z. Bonin, 85–104. Koper: Pokrajinski arhiv Koper. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 130 Piry, I. 1983. Demografska gibanja na slovenski obali. Ljubljana: Inštitut za geografijo Univerze Edvarda Kardelja. Poklar, I., and M. Jelen Madruša, ur. 2006. Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka Koper 1945/46–2005/2006. Koper: Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka. Purini, P. 2010. Metamorfosi etniche: i cambiamenti di popolazione a Trieste, Gorizia, Fiume e in Istria: 1914–1975. Udine: Kappa Vu. Ravnikar, V., M. Zorec, T. Gregorič, and N. Koselj. 2000. Evidenca in valorizacija objektov slovenske moderne arhitekture med leti 1945–70: aplikativna raziskava. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za arhitekturo. Rogoznica, D. 2011. Iz kapitalizma v socializem: gospodarstvo cone B Svobodnega tržaškega ozemlja; 1947–1954. Koper: Pokrajinski arhiv Koper. Rotar, D. 1980. Pomeni prostora: ideologije v arhitekturi in urbanizmu. Ljubljana: Delavska enotnost. Sluga, N., and M. Jelen Madruša. 2006. ‘Iz šolske kronike: naših šestdeset let.’ In Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka Koper 1945/46–2005/2006, edited by I. Poklar and M. Jelen Madruša, 9–12. Koper: Osnovna šola Janka Premrla Vojka. Svoljšak, I. 1956. Koper urbanistični program. Ljubljana: Projektivni atelje. Titl, J. 1961. Populacijske spremembe v Koprskem Primorju: Koprski okraj bivše cone B. Koper: Titl. Veschambre, V. 2008. Traces et mémoires urbaines: enjeux sociaux de la patrimonialisation et de la destruction. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Vogelnik, D. 1959. ‘Selitve delovne sile v Sloveniji 1954–1957.’ Ekonomska revija 10 (2): 183–236. Summary The article analyses the role of establishing education and constructing primary schools after World War II in Koper, along the north Istrian coast. This is the re- gion that was the subject of major international negotia- tions on the demarcation between Italy and Yugoslavia. The central topic is observed from two interconnect- ed perspectives and methodologies: on the one hand through the social history of the development of edu- cation, and on the other through an architectural-his- torical lens that considers the aesthetics and meaning of school buildings. The central case study is the first pri- mary school building, which was built in the historical centre of Koper after the World War II (in 1951), and lat- er renamed the Janko Premrl Vojko Primary School. The institution’s development is observed with the help of detailed data from school chronicles, which testify to the revival of Slovenian education in the city and re- gion. This was abolished during the fascist violence, but after World War II it became the focal point of the na- tional and political empowerment of the Slovenian pop- ulation. We also note that in the process of empower- ing the Slovenian part of the population, the institution of the school contributed to exerting pressure on the Italian-speaking population, which was gradually emi- grating from the region. After the annexation of Istria to Yugoslavia in 1954, another process took place within the framework of the development of education, main- ly in the city centre, but also in the city surroundings - the Yugoslavisation of the urban coastal area. This was the result of intensive immigration of new residents from the entire republic and federation due to the inten- sive industrial development (TOMOS factory, port). The architectural-historical analysis of the first post-war elementary school also sheds light on the symbolism of the building at the time of its construction, during the temporary buffer state of the Free Territory of Trieste, when the building, erected on the ruins of a prison, sym- bolized the still-living ideal of brotherhood (fratellan- za) between Slovenians and Italians in Istria, but van- ished with the abolition of the buffer-state in 1954. We also discuss Koper’s second post-war school, dedicated to Pinko Tomažič and built in 1961 on the outskirts of the city centre on the dried salt pans, or Bonifika, which marked the period of exceptional population and eco- nomic growth after the annexation to Yugoslavia. We conclude by reflecting on the heritage significance of both schools as architecture and as institution in gener- al: the first post-war school was initially a monument to utopia, and then became a monument to the city’s post- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e pr im a ry s c h o o l in p o st w a r k o pe r /c a po d is t r ia a s a s o c ia l la bo r a to ry 131 war Yugoslav identity, while the second primary school is primarily of exceptional importance as modernist ar- chitecture. These findings are crucial in light of the fact that both schools were demolished 15 and 18 years ago, respectively. Povzetek Članek obravnava vlogo vzpostavljanja šolstva in grad- nje šol po drugi svetovni vojni v Kopru, ob severnoistrski obali, torej pokrajini, ki je bila predmet velikih medna- rodnih pogajanj o razmejitvi med Italijo in Jugoslavijo. Osrednjo temo opazujemo z dveh povezanih zornih ko- tov in metodologij: na eni strani skozi perspektivo soci- alne zgodovine razvoja šolstva, na drugi skozi arhitek- turnozgodovinsko analizo estetike in pomena šolskih zgradb. Osrednja študija primera je prva stavba osnov- ne šole, ki je bila po 2. svetovni vojni zgrajena v historič- nem jedru Kopra, kasneje pa preimenovana v OŠ Janka Premrla Vojka. Razvoj ustanove opazujemo skozi na- tančne podatke iz šolskih kronik, ki pričajo o oživlja- nju slovenskega šolstva v mestu in regiji, ki je bilo v času fašističnega nasilja ukinjeno, po drugi svetovni vojni pa je postalo osrednja točka nacionalnega in političnega opolnomočenja slovenskega prebivalstva. Ugotovimo pa tudi, da je v procesu opolnomočenja slovenskega dela prebivalstva prav institucija šole prispevala k pritiskom na italijansko govoreče prebivalstvo, ki se je postopoma, hote ali nehote, odseljevalo. Po priključitvi Istre Jugo- slaviji leta 1954 se je v okviru razvoja šolstva, predvsem v mestnem jedru, a tudi v mestni okolici, odvil drugi pro- ces – »jugoslavizacije« urbanega obmor skega prostora. Ta je bil posledica intenzivnega priseljevanja novih pre- bivalcev iz celotne republike in federacije zaradi inten- zivnega ekonomskega razvoja industrije (tovarna TO- MOS, pristanišče). Arhitekturnozgodovinska analiza prve povojne osnovne šole, zgrajene leta 1951, pa osvetli še pomen stavbe ob njeni izgradnji, v času začasne tam- ponske države Svobodno tržaško ozemlje, ko je zgrad- ba, postavljena na ruševinah zapora, simbolizirala takrat še živ ideal bratstva (it. fratellanza) med Slovenci in Ita- lijani v Istri, ki pa je z ukinitvijo STO izumrl. Obravna- vamo tudi drugo povojno šolo, posvečeno Pinku To- mažiču, zgrajeno leta 1961 na obrobju mestnega jedra, na osušenih solinah ali Bonifiki, ki je zaznamovala prav čas izjemne rasti prebivalstva in gospodarstva po priključitvi Jugoslaviji. Sklenemo z razmislekom o dediščinskem pomenu obeh objektov ter šol kot ustanove nasploh in ugotovimo, da je predvsem prva povojna šola (OŠ Janka Premrla Vojka) bila sprva spomenik utopiji, nato pa po- vojni jugoslovanski identiteti mesta, medtem ko je dru- ga osnovna šola predvsem izjemnega pomena kot mo- dernistična arhitektura. Ti ugotovitvi sta ključni v luči dejstva, da sta obe šoli bili porušeni 15 oz. 18 let nazaj. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 13 2 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i 133 ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.11(2)133-148 © aut hor/aut hors Abstract This article describes the factors that led to the construction of a monument to the sailor and irreden- tist Nazario Sauro in Koper in the interwar period. The monument on Koper’s waterfront announced the beginnings of the town’s new urban transformation. However, it did not reach its final epilogue due to the outbreak of World War II. This historical study deals with the ideological pretensions of the cen- tral fascist authorities, who enabled the financing and construction of the monument, alongside local actors. The erection of the monument was the result of extensive financial and organisational efforts. Key words: Nazario Sauro, Koper, fascism, urbanism, collective memory. Izvleček Prispevek podaja vzvode za izgradnjo in postavitev monumentalnega objekta pomorščaku ter ireden- tistu Nazariju Sauru v Kopru v času med obema svetovnima vojnama. Spomenik na koprskem nabrež- ju je naznanil zametke nove urbanistične preobrazbe mesta, ki pa ni doživela končnega epiloga zaradi izbruha druge svetovne vojne. V historično obravnavo so vpete ideološke režimske pretenzije central- nih fašističnih oblasti, ki so bile poleg lokalnih akterjev tiste, ki so omogočile financiranje in izgradnjo spomenika. Fizična postavitev obeležja je bila rezultat obsežnih finančnih in organizacijskih naporov. Ključne besede: Nazario Sauro, Koper, fašizem, urbanizem, kolektivni spomin. Introduction The main purpose of the paper is to pres-ent the circumstances, reasons and events that led to the erection of the monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper1 in 1935, and which have been less known to the general public until now. These facts shed further light on the com- plex roles of various actors and their activities and plans that led to the monument’s erection. The present paper is only part of a larger PhD thesis, which will comprehensively address all 1 Over the centuries, Koper passed under different govern- ments. Under Italian rule it was called Capodistria. the aspects of the erection of the monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper and its impact on the local population’s views from the 1930s until the signing of the London Memorandum in 1954. In the previous century, writing the history of ‘contact spaces’ was heavily ideologically and politically coloured, and was largely the domain of national identities marked by a national-polit- ical paradigm that represented one of the most important dividing lines of the common space (Pelikan 2012). The roots of national divisions dating back to the 19th century are thus present- ed through historical works on the basis of more or less exclusivist, national and ideological con- The Historical Background to the Erection of the Monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper as an Example of a Fascist Cult of Personality Zgodovinsko ozadje postavitve spomenika Nazariju Sauru v Kopru kot primer fašističnega kulta osebnosti Leon Vrtovec Ul. Oktobrske revolucije 21, 6310 Izola, Slovenia e-mail: vrtovec.leon@gmail.com st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 13 4 cepts. This, however, prevents methodological al- teration and limits exploration of the plurality of political, social, economic and cultural elements operating in the multi-ethnic and multilingual environment of Istria (Pelikan 2012). Histori- cal interpretations influenced by a political-ideo- logical prism or treated by a specific generational group seeking to create a discourse with which a particular segment of the population will identi- fy, are more prone to anachronism or fabrication and are therefore less relevant. We must there- fore be guided by transnational historiography that understands the reasons for the asymmet- ric treatment of individual historical actors and tries to move away from stereotypical and sim- plistic representations of historical events and re- alities (Verginella 2012). A comprehensive scien- tific analysis of the facts and the search for clues within a precise time frame allow us to find so- called event details and as yet unknown inter- stices in the micro-stories that could lead us to further understand the impact of a local phe- nomenon on the macro level and vice versa. The focus here is on ‘contact’ defined by the demar- cation and coexistence of regional and national identities, and political and economic systems, etc. As an example, consider the history of sym- bols in the public space of an environment where different national identities are in contact with each other. The dominant ideological or social elite used public space to shape individual and collective identity. Symbols used in such an en- vironment are an effective means of visual com- munication and create a distinct national-spatial identity. These influences, based on a precisely structured narrative of the past, serve to objecti- fy national identity (Schama 1996). With the signing of the Rapallo Treaty be- tween the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slo- venes (SHS) and the Kingdom of Italy, and the establishment of the new border in November 1920, the political reorganization of the terri- tory of the Julian March and Istria was tempo- rarily closed. With the annexation of Trento and Trieste, Italy achieved the much-desired na- tional unity and integrity after World War I. Nevertheless, this achievement could not sup- press expansionist desires and prevent the emer- gence of fascism. For the former Austrian terri- tories – Trieste with its wider surroundings and Istria – the new geopolitical reality had different consequences. Firstly, Mitteleuropa’s econom- ic interests ceased gravitating towards Trieste. There followed a transition from the precise and flexible Austrian state bureaucracy to Italian ad- ministration with its Bourbon customs and rig- idly vassal relationship with the state apparatus. Meanwhile, there was a rapprochement of the lo- cal capitalist circles with the militarists and the irredentist national liberal oligarchy, which as- serted its anti-Austrian, anti-Slavic and anti-so- cialist line (Steffè 1978, 13–38). The new gov- ernment had repercussions on all aspects of the area’s social life, but above all it radically changed its cultural image. This was evident in the man- ifestation of power through symbolism, embod- ied in public commemorations and the erection of buildings with symbolic value. A clear example of the latter is the erection of a monument to the Istrian seafarer Nazario Sauro in Koper. Sauro was born in Koper on 20 September 1880. Prior to World War I, he was employed as captain of a small steamer called San Giusto by the Koper maritime company, sailing regularly between Koper and Trieste. Sauro of- ten expressed his sympathy for the Kingdom of Italy through minor provocations aimed at the Austrian authorities, but above all, he had regu- lar contact with the Italian consulate in Trieste. During the July Crisis in 1914, at the outbreak of World War One, Sauro’s employment with the maritime company Capodistria was terminat- ed, partly because of his unruly behaviour and partly because of his anti-Austrian stance (Sauro 2017, 111–112). Many prominent Austrian-Italian political representatives of the liberal-nationalist camp emigrated to Italy in the summer of 1914. Nazario Sauro expressed the intention of enroll- ing his son in a school in Udine as an excuse to obtain a passport that would allow him to cross into Italy. Despite the general mobilisation, the Austrian authorities allowed him to leave be- t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 135 cause he did not meet the medical requirements due to an eye injury. From Koper he travelled to Venice where he visited Giovanni Giuriati, a lawyer and president of the Trento - Trieste or- ganisation because he wanted to join the Ital- ian army as a volunteer. Nazario Sauro had often sailed along the eastern Adriatic coast before the war and wanted to join the Italian armed forces as an informer and scout. When Italy declared war in May 1915, he was enlisted in the Italian Royal Navy to fight against the Austrian fleet in Istria and Dalmatia. He took part in some na- val military operations and was captured by Aus- tro-Hungarian forces on 31 July 1916 while try- ing to escape from the submarine Pulino, which ran aground on the island of Galiola, between the island of Unije and the Istrian peninsula. As a citizen of Austria-Hungary, he was convict- ed of desertion and executed on 10 August 1916 (Ponis 2016). His conviction by a military court and subsequent execution had a strong public resonance, which was later manifested at the na- tional level, especially during annual commemo- rations. In the interwar period, the myth of Naz- ario Sauro was shaped through metaphors in the public sphere (naming of schools, streets, pub- lications, etc.), culminating in the erection of a monument in Koper in 1935. The construction of the monument to Nazario Sauro clearly shows the politics of remembrance imposed by various actors at national and local levels. Methodological Approach In this article, I try to shed some light on the background and the reasons that led to the erec- tion of the monument to Nazario Sauro in Ko- per. The research was based on various archival sources and preserved photographic material. In particular, I would like to highlight the influ- ence of fascist ideology and architecture in shap- ing the urban image of Koper at the time. The latter is mainly presented chronologically on the basis of preserved archival material and the sub- ject is not dealt with more broadly. The aspects of forming a place of collective memory through the erection of a monument to Nazario Sauro would also go beyond the scope of this paper, so it is necessary to highlight a few key aspects that empirically provide reasons for a better un- derstanding of the coexistence of symbolism with public rituals. Pierre Nora, one of the lead- ing researchers on places of collective memory, stressed the social function of collective memory for national identity. He made it clear that col- lective memory creates its own specific dynam- ics, and that memory is not only a fundamental element of any community but a clear reflection of it (Nora 1989). In his work entitled Il culto del littorio, G. Gentile examines in depth the na- tional myth of Greater Italy, which obsessively linked its perception of itself as a European su- perpower to the glory of its ancient history. The latter is clearly visible in the urban interventions in Koper in the second half of the 1930s with the tendency to preserve the town’s historical con- tinuity from the period of the Venetian Repub- lic. Collective memory links individual experi- ence with public experience, whereby individual history is side-lined and public history acquires its own autonomous narrative, giving way to the political exploitation of memory, which is cer- tainly a fundamental element of mass nation- alisation (Mosse 1975). The collective memo- ry is thus formed on the basis of public rituals, organisations, and cultural and religious acts, which are centred on the element of belonging. The construction of powerful symbols in fascist Koper, which would serve as tools of social be- longing and national cohesion, culminated in the erection of the monument to Nazario Sauro. The article sheds light on the events and circum- stances that led to the erection of the monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper, which were largely pushed into the background due to the ideologi- cally tinged public media at the time. From irrendentism to the Subsequent ‘Fascisation’ of the Cultural Landscape The ethno-national conflict in the Austrian Lit- toral, especially in Trieste and Istria, escalated steadily in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The irredentist movement, which aspired to the st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 136 annexation of all the Italian ‘unredeemed lands’ (terre irredente), was part of democratic and re- publican forces in Italy and was always an im- portant component of the left. However, one decade before World War I broke out, the move- ment moved to the political right . The discourse on irredentism as a possible class weapon, as a step towards militarism, is revealed in a series of nationalist journals on Italian soil in the first decade of the 20th century, in the years preced- ing World War I. Despite its strong presence in the Italian political discourse of the time, it did not receive any concrete encouragement from its supporters and defenders to achieve its ‘main mission’ – the annexation of all the ‘unredeemed lands’ (terre irredente). Nor did its inclusion in Italian politics at the beginning of the twentieth century significantly change the appearance of irredentism from that of the second half of the nineteenth century. More radical changes took place after the congress in Rome, at the end of December 1912, when about 30 representatives of the democratic wing left the nationalist move- ment because of its completely undemocratic spirit. After the Libyan war, which precipitated the integration of nationalists into the political struggle, the determined and intransigent wing of the nationalists welcomed into their midst a group of irredentists from Trieste (Fauro, Tama- ro, Alberti, Xydias) and the Roman group cen- tred around the magazine L’Idea Nazionale. To- gether they founded the so-called ‘imperialist irredentism’, of which Ruggero Timaeus-Fau- ro became the most characteristic representa- tive.2 As the initiator of the ‘new irredentism’ movement, he became an advocate of the liber- ation of the ‘unredeemed lands’, but no longer in the name of a national or democratic ideal, but in the expectation of Italian domination in the Adriatic. According to Ruggero Timeus-Fau- ro, the Adriatic question would be resolved out- side Austria-Hungary by Italy gaining the for- mer possessions of the Venetian Republic and becoming the sole power in the Adriatic. In con- 2 For more on Fauro’s nationalist doctrine see in particular Verginella (2016, 705–720). trast to some of the young intellectuals in Tri- este, such as the Stuparich brothers, Scipio Slata- per and Angelo Vivante, Timeus-Fauro rode the wave of nationalism and populism, insisting that any reconciliation with the Germanic and Slav- ic worlds was impossible in the context of a dual monarchy because it would indicate the weak- ness of the Italian national component. Break- ing away from liberal-nationalist circles, which continued to advocate the defence of Italian in- terests within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he preferred to equate the national struggle with the quest for power and expansionism. He perceived the national struggle as an inevitable destiny that would be achieved by the complete disappear- ance of one of the races living there, and the Slav- ic danger could only be eliminated by the annex- ation of the ‘unredeemed lands’ to the Kingdom of Italy and the complete isolation of the Slavic population living in the territory of the Austri- an Littoral (Verginella 2016, 709). Some histori- ans have placed Pio Riego Gambini, the creator of the ‘Istrian Youth Fascio’ (Fascio Giovanile Istriano), founded in Koper on 1 October 1911, and the editor of the magazine Giovane Istria (1913), alongside Ruggero Timeus-Fauro on Is- trian soil.3 Gambini expressed his thoughts and views in La Giovane Istria and other publica- tions, as well as in some public appearances from September 1911 to August 1914, including a rath- er high-profile appearance in 1913 in front of stu- dents from the University of Naples, returnees from the Libyan campaign and fellow students from various colleges. Unfortunately, the texts of his speeches dedicated to Giuseppe Mazzini, the founding of the Italian University in Trieste and the speeches he addressed to the members and trustees of the ‘Istrian Youth Fascio’ in Ko- per in May 1914 have not been preserved. In the spirit of irredentist ideology, the young Gambini directed the strong fascio in Koper towards boy- cotting Austrian government measures, scare- mongering and keeping a watchful eye on what was happening on Italian soil (Žitko, 2016, 699). 3 For more on the ideological views and activities of P. R. Gambini, see Quarantotti Gambini (1940, 158–169; 1954). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 137 In terms of his ideological and political thoughts, Nazario Sauro was initially a support- er of the socialists but distanced himself from them because of their anti-militarist stance. He established close contacts with Vico Predonzani and the aforementioned Riego Gambini and ad- vocated the creation of a socialist Mazzinian fas- cio, which eventually became the ‘Istrian Youth Fascio’ with its headquarters in the Tacco Pal- ace in Koper. Due to the age limit of 24, Sau- ro did not formally join it but regularly attended meetings. Informal meetings of the young irre- dentists of Koper were frequently held in Sau- ro’s cabin on the steamer San Giusto while sail- ing (Sauro 2017, 56–57). It would be superficial to characterise Sauro’s ideological thoughts as merely traditional irredentist, aimed at defend- ing the Italian identity of the Istrian coastal towns and their institutions. From the surviving sources, we can conclude that Sauro was strongly inspired by Mazzini’s ideas of the Risorgimento, which were diametrically opposed to the mili- tant slogans and precepts of the national inter- ventionist circles of the Italian right at the time. However, it must be understood that by the time war broke out, irredentism had gradually ac- quired a strong nationalist ideological-political connotation, which was increasingly identified and consolidated in the state institutions, mov- ing away from classical irredentism. Under the influence of interventionist circles, the idea of cultural domination was replaced by theses sim- ilar to those published by Ruggero Timeus-Fau- ro in his pamphlet entitled Trieste. He empha- sised the aspect of national defence with the aim of extending Italy into Balkan territory within the framework of imperialist logic (Cattaruzza 2005, 71–79). The latter was ‘spiced up’ by Ga- briele D’Annunzio with his picturesque prose and punchy slogans, thus displacing the ide- as of cultural irredentism, which drew its inspi- ration from the concepts of Mazzini and Marx (Seton-Watson 1967, 409–427). The outbreak of World War I brought about a strong radicalisa- tion in Italian cultural and political life, acceler- ating processes that had emerged in the pre-war years in the most radical irredentist circles (Cat- taruzza 2005, 71–79). The movement of the ir- redentist lands was profoundly transformed by the popularisation of nationalist and imperialist ideas. From its original strict territorial limita- tion, it acquired a new importance for the Ital- ian political and military leadership of the time, due to the major political changes before, during and after World War I. From national antago- nisms under Austrian rule, it evolved into strong support for interventionism and developed as a handy instrument for achieving foreign politi- cal and military goals. The irredentist circles be- came a tool and a striking force for the interven- tionist phenomenon and created the basis for fascist ideology to flourish and establish itself even before the March on Rome. In his rheto- ric, Mussolini described Italy’s entry into World War I as the beginning of the fascist revolution, so the role of the war, which cost Italy 651,000 lives, was presented by the fascist regime as re- generation (Mortara 1925, 28–29). Italian nationalism did not subside after World War I, which ended in victory and the re- alisation of the ideal. Instead, it intensified and strengthened its former anti-Slavic orientation. The policy of national defence was therefore seen as the only appropriate policy for the protection of Italian identity, even after the annexation to Italy. As there were no longer any real historical reasons for it, national defence became a formula that was able to gather the consensus of the ma- jority of the population by artificially emphasis- ing the danger to national identity. On the other hand, this formula fostered radicalisation in the maximalist sense among a large part of the pro- letariat of Trieste, and radicalisation in the na- tionalist sense among the Slavic population of the Julian March. In this tense atmosphere, fas- cism found fertile ground for its development. In almost all the territories annexed after the war, it was able to present itself as a defender of vic- tory and its fruits (Ara and Magris 2001, 147). The systematic construction of the memory of the Great War was consequently reflected in the ‘fascisation’ of the cultural landscape (Bosworth st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 138 and Dogliani 1999; Gentile 1994, 38–49). The metamorphosis of the new state was supposed to reflect the glory days of the Roman Empire, which would have developed Italian society ac- cording to the model of a new avant-garde civili- sation of global status (Klabjan 2017). According to Mussolini, architecture had great importance in this transformation, especially as a medium of the regime – a handy tool in the hands of the politics of the time (Nicoloso 2008). The build- ings constructed as a direct consequence of the Great War had to embody the dominant narra- tive, creating and maintaining a national con- sciousness that was crucial in the construction of a commemorative iconography. National- ist groups, local committees, veterans’ organisa- tions, the army, families, and local and state in- stitutions in the northern Adriatic region were based on irredentist tendencies, displaying im- ages of the fallen or of so-called martyrs who fought for the redemption of the ‘unredeemed lands’. The transformation of the towns and cit- ies, beginning with Trieste, did not only mean the removal of ‘Austrian’ symbols and chang- es in street names but was a much more radical process that changed the appearance and trans- formed the very identity of the cities in the long term (Klabjan 2017). A complex visual trans- formation that transcended the local charac- ter – with the city of Trieste taking most cred- it for this – sought to acquire a new role in the Italian state. The new urban image of Trieste, re- moved from the Habsburg monarchy, had to re- flect dynamism, new forces and intellect (Can- ali 2018, 251–335). A concrete example was the erection of the ‘Victory Lighthouse’ (Faro della Vittoria) on 24 May 1927 – the 12th anniversa- ry of Italy’s entry into the war. The idea of erect- ing a lighthouse had already emerged in irreden- tist circles at the end of October 1918, as a result of the euphoria following the victory at the Pi- ave River. With some modifications to the origi- nal plan, work finally started in January 1923 on the site where the Austrian fortress of Kressich (built in 1854) once stood. A military installa- tion, intended to protect the city from possible attacks from the sea or to control possible unrest and rebellions in what was then the monarchy’s largest port, completely lost its original purpose in the post-war landscape urbanism. While the old building provided an excellent foundation for the new structure, the choice of location was primarily symbolic and can be interpreted as the submission of a defeated Austria to a victorious Italy (Salimbeni 2001, 139–143). The lighthouse has two other important symbolic elements – a statue of winged victory on the top and, at the base, the anchor of the Italian battleship Audace, which was the first Italian ship to arrive in the port of Trieste on 3 November 1918. In combi- nation, they give symbolic meaning to a build- ing that had no practical value, as the port of Trieste already had a functioning lighthouse (Collotti 2000, 33–61). Symbolically, the Victo- ry Lighthouse should be a tribute to all fallen Italian sailors, including Nazario Sauro. Howev- er, the figure of the executed sailor Nazario Sau- ro already served this purpose when the founda- tion stone for the monument was laid in Koper in 1926. The fusion of the two symbols of victo- ry and sacrifice would not lead to the desired na- tional cohesion that could be based on the his- torical experience of the Great War. In Trieste, there is also a monument to fall- en Italian soldiers on San Giusto Hill. The sym- bolism of this site is not accidental, as it rep- resents anachronistic historical continuity between the remains from Roman times and the later cathedral as a symbol of Christianity, and the medieval fortress, which testifies to the city’s autonomy from Habsburg rule onwards. Not only Trieste, but the whole of the Julian March was strongly subject to the erection of similar symbols. An example is the monument to Dante Alighieri erected in Tolmin at the end of the 1920s, a small regional centre in the upper Primorska region, which was a step away from commemorative buildings dedicated to wartime events. At the request of the Tolmin fascist or- ganisation, the city of Florence donated a bronze bust of the poet Dante Alighieri, the work of the sculptor Moschi. The statue was unveiled on 9 st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 139 August 1929 in the presence of the Italian heir to the throne, Umberto Prince of Savoy, and the Vice-Mayor of Florence, Dauphiné. The base of the statue bore the inscriptions: ‘Dante pres- so il confino misurato da Dio’ (Dante at the bor- der set by God) and ‘Florence to the most Italian Tolmin’. According to legend, Dante entered a cave, known as Dante’s Cave, somewhere in the area of today’s Triglav National Park. This myth was therefore used to confirm the borders of the Treaty of Rapallo (Kastelic 2007, 34–44). In the evolution of its political religion, fas- cism tried to portray the ‘rituals of death’ as ‘rit- uals of life’. Especially when celebrating death, it had to symbolically express vitality and faith in the future. It wanted the sacrifice of those who fell for the country to be the potion that would breathe new life into the nation and give it strength for its rebirth. In this context, the fas- cist liturgy wanted to promote the ‘myth of col- lective harmony’, which was a key tool in the project of ‘transforming the character of the Italian citizens at the time’ (Gentile 1994, 54– 59). Many memorials were built in line with this guiding principle: the cemetery in Redipuglia and the Kobarid ossuary – both inaugurated in 1938, the Park of Remembrance in Gorizia, the monument to Filippo Corridoni in San Marti- no sul Carso (today Italy), all set along the cur- rent Slovene-Italian border in the upper Primor- ska region, etc. The Reason Behind the Construction of the Memorial on the Waterfront of Koper The basic concept behind the monument to Naz- ario Sauro in Koper in 1935 is somewhat differ- ent from the above. The reason for it took shape like the sacrifices made in the Great War, but as a monument to a hero it was subjected to a specific ideological-mythical narrative, which was meant to serve as a collective example and memorial of sacrifice. During the fascist period, Nazario Sau- ro’s life story was therefore further subjected to historical falsification. The result was a person- ality cult of Nazario Sauro, marked by a tradi- tion of naval battles and extreme individual he- roic acts. The monument’s design, which would conceptually encompass both, was focused on the construction of a sacral building, but it lat- er differed slightly from the original plans, and the unveiling ceremony also took place during the period of great changes in foreign politics in the 1930s. The extant archival material reveals the extensive organisational and financial ef- forts required to erect the monumental memori- al to the seafarer Nazario Sauro in Koper. Prepa- rations took two decades and fostered a diverse mythology on which the nationalist-tinged fas- cist discourse based itself. When the monument was inaugurated in Koper on Sunday 9 June 1935, the fascist MP Carlo Delcroix gave a speech in which he stressed the importance of the ‘war- rior tradition’ of the local population associated with Sauro. In addition to the so-called martyrs of irredentism, he also mentioned the heroes of the Battle of Lepanto (1571). The sea, the winged lion of Venice, the King and the Duce, faith, the homeland, war and sacrifices, the nation, and the maritime tradition were the key elements used in his speech. On the waterfront, which was named after a seaman from Koper, he con- cluded his speech with the thought that both the Istrian towns and the monument were looking at the homeland of Italy (Marini 1936). Official wreath-laying ceremonies at the Nazario Sauro monument continued until 1943, when fascism fell and Italy surrendered. The imposing mon- ument on Koper’s waterfront, largely destroyed by German forces on 22 May 1944, was only the physical materialisation of a symbol with which the local population of the Julian March, and es- pecially of Istria, as well as of the whole Apen- nine peninsula could identify. The monument created to commemorate the fallen hero of Ko- per wanted above all to celebrate the greatness of the nation, which was symbolically represent- ed by winged victory. The creation of the myth of Nazario Sauro was the result of a long peri- od of commemorations and events between the two wars. The idea of erecting a memorial to Naz- ario Sauro was first mooted immediately after st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 14 0 the end of World War I, on 26 December 1918, when a committee was set up under the leader- ship of Captain Biagio Cobolo. On 7 January 1919, a call for tenders was issued for the erection of a monument to Nazario Sauro (Derin 2002). Seven years later, on 10 August 1926, a ceremony was held in Koper to mark the symbolic laying of the foundation stone, with a speech by Giovan- ni Giuriati, then Minister of Public Works of the Kingdom of Italy and formerly President of the Free State of Fiume. In the same year, a competi- tion was held for Italian artists to come up with a design for the monument. The members of the jury included Leonardo Bistolfi, Cipriano Efisio Oppo, Francesco Salata and a few prominent lo- cal political figures. Out of 34 sculptors and ar- chitects, the first prize was awarded to the archi- tect Enrico Del Debbio and the sculptor Attilio Selvi from Trieste. The second prize went to the architect Umberto Piazzo and the sculptor Rob- erto Terracini from Turin, and the third prize was given to the sculptor Adolare Plimieri from Trieste. The winning project was based on tri- angular geometric shapes that allowed the pris- matic volumes to support a column on which the symbolic figure of Istria was placed. The work, which the jury judged to be ‘particularly origi- nal’, underwent a few more changes before it was realised. The modifications were mainly the re- sult of new construction concepts connected with a change of location. It was envisaged that the monument would stand closer to the sea and would be oriented towards the peninsula Debeli Rtič (Punta Grossa) to the north and so towards Trieste (Neri 2006, 352). Although the founda- tion stone was laid in 1926, followed by the com- petition, the actual beginning of construction was postponed for almost a decade, presuma- bly due to the economic crisis at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s (Faveri 2010). Commemorative ceremonies were nev- ertheless regularly held on an annual basis. For example, on Saturday 7 July 1928 the ceremo- ny in commemoration of Nazario Sauro took place in the presence of a destroyer of the Roy- al Italian Navy, which was named after the irre- dentist hero. During the event, the destroyer’s crew received a battle flag as a tribute from the town. On the fifteenth anniversary, 10 August 1931, Minister Siriani gave a solemn speech4. It was not until 1932 that Mussolini approved the formation of a special Committee for the erec- tion of a monument to Nazario Sauro in Kop- er, within the framework of the Commission for National Monuments in Honour of Cesare Bat- tisti and Nazario Sauro. The Committee con- sisted of General Vittorio Zupelli as chairman, Senator Francesco Salata, lawyer Nino de Petris (Commisario prefettizio) for the municipality of Koper as member (Cherini 1990),5 Command- er Daponte from the Government Cabinet (Ga- binetto Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri) as member, and the sculptor Selva and the archi- tect Del Debbio as competition winners. At its second meeting on 16 January 1933, the Com- mittee discussed the final terms of the contract for the construction of the memorial in Koper6. Following a request from the Ministry of Pub- lic Works, Article 4 of the contract authorised civil engineers from Pula to manage the tech- nical aspects of the works. The latter were also authorised to settle the financial accounts for the works, including payment for the artwork, which had a fixed price.7 Just how much impor- tance was ascribed to the monument’s final ap- pearance is evident in Article 10 of the contract, which stipulated that the approval of the high- est authority in the country, the Prime Minis- ter, was required for artistic corrections during the construction phase. Any request was to be addressed to the Monuments Committee. Re- garding the suitability of artistic creations, the 4 PAK, 7, 510, Fond Mestne občine Koper. 5 On 13 October 1934, Nino Derin was appointed the new Podestà of Koper. 6 The engineers from Pula were also obliged to comply with Article 12 of the contract, which provided for the super- vision of both the amount and quality of the materials and the execution of the works, and the engineers were re- quired to supervise the completion of the individual works and to make payments to the subcontractors accordingly. 7 Interestingly, Francesco Salata used the foreign term ‘for- fait’ to emphasise the unchanging cost of an artwork. (PAK, 7, 510, Fond Mestne občine Koper). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 14 1 Special Committee was able to rely on the rec- ommendations of an external expert advisor, whose suggestions were then sent to the Duce for review. Another aspect indicating the signifi- cance of the monument’s erection can be detect- ed from this meeting – Zupelli compared it with the Victory Memorial in Bolzano as a response to the pro-German demonstrations. In view of possible violence and demonstrations by the Yu- goslavs, Zupelli stressed that the erection of a monument to Nazario Sauro in Koper was es- sential for confirming Italy’s new and inviolable right to the Adriatic. It is noteworthy that in the case of Nazario Sauro, the Italian political lead- ership did not question Nazario’s ‘anti-Austrian- ism’ and whether the erection of the monument would lead to pro-Austrian or pro-German demonstrations, but rather that the planned erection was primarily intended to demonstrate Italian supremacy in the Adriatic. The Mayor of Koper, Nino de Petris, added that on 15 January 1933, the general assembly held in Koper to cel- ebrate the ‘fascist befana’ voted in favour of an agenda item stipulating that in the 11th year of the fascist era a monument should be erected to the Italian hero, the martyr of irredentism and defender of the Italian character of the Adriat- ic Sea – Nazario Sauro, as a solemn warning and response to Yugoslav provocations. Based on ex- tant sources, it is clear that the memorial on the Koper seafront was not only intended to pre- serve the memory of the town’s seaman but that it was also intended to reflect the ‘warrior sea- faring tradition’ of its Italian population. Ac- cording to prominent representatives of the au- thorities, the monument was also supposed to reflect historical continuity in past naval battles, from the Battle of Lepanto (1571) at the time of the Venetian Republic to Sauro’s naval exploits in World War I (Marini 1936, 129–140).8 The completion date was set for 10 August 1933, fol- lowed by the opening on 10 August 1934, coin- ciding with the anniversary of Nazario Sauro’s execution. On 23 March 1933, Prime Minister 8 The latter is evident from the speech given by Carlo Del- croix at the unveiling of the monument. Benito Mussolini authorised the signing of the contract with the competition winners, and on 3 May the contract was signed and endorsed by a decree of the Council of Ministers (Consiglio dei ministri). On 18 May, the contract was approved by the Ministry of Finance. In line with the con- tract, 300,000 lire were released in June 1933 so the works could begin. The Commission for Na- tional Monuments in Honour of Cesare Battisti and Nazario Sauro also drew up a funding pro- gramme for the works in Koper, which was orig- inally included in the budget of the Ministry of Public Works. The cost of demolishing the for- mer Patzowsky salt warehouse, where the mon- ument was to be erected, and of building a wall along the quay called ‘Riva Nuova’ amounted to 39,652.30 lire (equivalent to €42,138.06). The landscaping of the monument’s surroundings amounted to a further 708,183.37 lire (equivalent to €752,578.63). Sources indicate that the Minis- try of the Interior contributed 640,000 lire, as the construction work did not only benefit port activities.9 Construction of the Monument to Nazario Sauro As work had not begun even a year after the con- tract was signed, the completion date was post- poned to 10 August 1934 and the proposed open- ing date to 4 November 1934, the anniversary of the Italian victory in World War I. The multi- ple postponements of the construction dead- line could not be blamed on possible subversive or anti-state actions or on the ‘inactivity’ of the people involved but on the technical complexity and demanding nature of the construction itself, as can be seen from the archival documentation. The sculptor Selva expressed the opinion that in order for the monument to be of the desired quality the construction deadline should be ex- tended, and that it would only be reasonable to talk about the date of completion once work had actually begun (Marini 1936, 129–140). Frances- co Salata pointed out that the selected contrac- tors or artists should be encouraged as much as 9 PAK, 7, 510, Fond Mestne občine Koper st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 14 2 possible in their work, as the foundation stone had been laid way back in 1926. The cabinet of the Minister of the Interior gave the final green light for the start of construction work on the site of the monument on 4 September 1934, when the work actually began. We can find out more about the phase of viewings and preparations for construction from the report by the municipal engineer from Kop- er, dated 13 January 1933. It was written at the re- quest of the Prefect of Koper, Nino de Petris, and could be used to present the progress of the pre- paratory work at the meeting of the special com- mittee. This document shows that the architect Del Debbio and the sculptor Selva had already visited the site in Koper in the autumn of 1930 and determined the most suitable location for the monument and the orientation of its compo- nents. They also noted that the ‘backdrop’ to the monument would also need to be developed. It would consist of a nearby park and a platform on which the sculpture would stand. To this end, it was decided to take some building material from the seabed of a nearby shipyard and an islet cre- ated by the excavation of material for the Dreher brewery. The two competition winners then be- gan visiting Istrian quarries and examining rock samples in order to determine the most suita- ble material for the monument’s construction. On the basis of the results (inspection, measure- ments and the rocks themselves) and some sug- gestions from the committee, they refined the original plan. At the same time, a unit of the Royal Engineers from Pula (Corpo reale Civile di Pola) was given the task of examining samples from the plot on which the monument was to be built in order to draw up a plan for the foun- dations. In the course of drilling, it was realised that the new foundations would partly rest on the remains of the former salt warehouse, so Sel- va and Del Debbio proposed to shift the monu- ment’s location so the entire composition would rest on more solid ground. In addition to draw- ing up a plan for the foundations, the Royal En- gineers from Pola were also required to provide the ministry with an estimate for the amount of material (soil) that would have to be brought in to build suitable foundations. The quality of the soil from the Dreher brewery that was to be used for the foundations was not assessed. In addition, the municipal engineer in Koper stressed the ne- cessity of landscaping the wider area around the monument that had often been used as a waste dump. In his view, there was a risk the landscap- ing might not be carried out later, or it might cost more. On 28 January 1935, Bianchetti, Head of the Cabinet of the Council of Ministers, in- formed the Ministry of Public Works that the estimate given by the engineers from Pola for the purchase and development of the land to be used for the monument amounted to 105,000 lire. Bi- anchetti added in his letter that the Prefecture of Koper estimated another 250,000 lire would be needed to pave the entire surface around the monument  – in addition to the already antici- pated costs. The municipality of Koper was not able to cover this cost, so it turned to state aid, which approved all the planned financial inputs. A letter from January 1935 shows a rough esti- mate of the additional costs amounting to about 355,000 lire (105,000 lire estimated by the en- gineers from Pola and 250,000 lire by the Pre- fecture of Koper). Bianchetti also informed the Ministry of Public Works that the engineers from Pola had been given permission to begin urgent construction work in the area surround- ing the monument. The podesta, or mayor, of Ca- podistria tried to take advantage of the monu- ment’s construction  – for which the state had allocated a considerable sum of money – to car- ry out additional infrastructure works in the town itself, requesting an additional 185,000 lire for this purpose. These would be earmarked for the redevelopment of St. Mark’s salt warehouse (the present-day Taverna), but his tactical inten- tion did not succeed. In a letter from 23 February 1935, we can see that the Prefect of Pola informed the podestà of Koper that the Ministry of the In- terior had not approved an additional 185,000 lire for the landscaping of the monument’s sur- roundings. The letter also made it clear that, given the financial situation, such renovations st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 14 3 could only be carried out after the opening cer- emony. The available sources also show that the restoration of public property in Koper did take place, as on 18 January 1935 the Milanese compa- ny Imprese Generali began landscaping the area around the monument. On this occasion, the ar- chitect and conservator Ferdinando Forlati, the new podestà of Koper Nino Derin, the engineers Maier and Madonizza, and representatives of the construction companies tasked with the ad- ditional work were present to see the works be- gin (Cherini 1990, 248). The monument’s shape resembled a sub- marine, consisting of an elongated oval base on which a staircase and a pillar in the form of a conning tower were erected. The monument was constructed mainly from roughly hewn granu- lar cubes of Istrian stone. The height of the mon- ument measured from the walkway to the top of the tower was 10 m. At the rear of the mon- ument, on the first terrace, there were two 2.3 m high bronze statues representing Nazario Sauro and his mother. The visual representation of this encounter was based on a real event that hap- pened on 6 August 1916, when the gendarme- rie of Koper received a telegram demanding that Nazario Sauro’s mother and sister appear before the court of the Austrian Admiralty in Pola. De- spite the fact that Anna Depangher Sauro, Naz- ario’s mother, firmly denied knowing the cap- tured Italian sailor before the military court in the hope of saving him, the court sentenced Naz- ario Sauro to death. The event had a strong prop- aganda connotation under fascism, as such an extreme act embodied the virtues that Italian mothers were supposed to possess in the time of fascism (Sauro 2017, 249–259).10 The front of the monument, facing the sea, had a 2.5 m high bronze statue of a helmsman holding a ship’s rudder. The sculptor Silva mod- elled the helmsman on the sailor Gianni Pi- 10 The extant archival material shows that the judicial au- thorities verified Sauro’s identity through a request made to the municipality of Koper on 3 August 1916. In the let- ter, the municipality was asked to confirm that Nazario Sauro was the son of Giacomo/Beretta and Anna Depang- her (PAK, 7, 510 Spomenik Nazario Sauro, Fond Mestne občine Koper). ras from Sardinia. Piras had been a crew mem- ber on the submarine Giacinto Pullino when it ran aground and subsequently became a prison- er of war (Derin 2002). The main statue, which was placed on top of the tower, symbolised the winged goddess of victory with a sword and shield. The bronze sculpture, weighing a total of 5 tonnes, measured 6.8 m in height, which meant that the entire monument measured a full 17 m from the ground.11 The base of the monument was adorned by an exedra of evergreens forming two lateral grassy patches. Six lights placed in the flowerbeds themselves illuminated the mon- ument in all its grandeur.12 On 9 June 1935, the monument to Nazario Sauro was inaugurated in Koper in the presence of King Vittorio Emanue- le III, Corrado Ricci, Armando Diaz and more than 50,000 people. On this occasion, the Savoy dynasty awarded the architect Enrico Del Deb- bio and the sculptor Attilio Selva the Knight- hood of St. Maurice13 (Neri 2006). The Urban Interventions in Koper as a Reflection of Fascist Ideology Less than two years after the signing of the con- tract, on 16 January 1935, the Royal Monument Conservation Department of Trieste (R. So- praintendenze alle opere antiche e di arte) took part in a wide range of restoration works in Ko- per.14 In addition to the many proposals for fin- ishing works around the monument, they also began renovating St. Mark’s salt warehouse (the present-day Taverna). After the proposal to de- molish the warehouse was rejected, its use was changed to that of ‘a folkloristic social facility with catering services’.15 Saint Justina’s column (Colonna di S. Giustina), dedicated to the Battle of Lepanto, was relocated to Carpaccio Square, 11 Note: In the surviving archival material on the monu- ment, the main statue is also referred to as naval glory. 12 PAK, 7, 510, Fond Mestne občine Koper. 13 PAK, 7, 110 Spomenik Nazario Sauro, Fond Mestne občine Koper. 14 PAK, 7, 510, Fond Mestne občine Koper. 15 Letter from F. Forlati from the R. Sopraintendenze alle opere antiche e di arte from Trieste to the prefect of Koper, 16 January 1935 (PAK, 7, 510, Fond Mestne občine Koper). st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 14 4 and the aforementioned Monument Conser- vation Department also organised the restora- tion of the Carpaccio House. Some sacral build- ings were also renovated  – in the Romanesque rotunda of St. John the Baptist, now the Chap- el of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the munici- pality financed the demolition of the old sac- risty and the erection of a new altar. The chapel known as the Santissima del Duomo was also re- stored. The idea of asphalting the nearby main square (today’s Tito Square) was quickly aban- doned so as not to destroy the ‘typical Italian square’, as the architect Ferdinando Forlati, head of the Royal Monument Conservation Depart- ment in Trieste, described it at the time. Some minor works were also carried out in the Log- gia Café (removal of the glazing on the Gothic vaults and restoration of the ceiling in the interi- or). In addition, the façades of important build- ings that were most visible at the inauguration of the Nazario Sauro monument were repaint- ed. Forlati also issued clear instructions that the Isola Codex of Dante’s Divine Comedy should be presented in the Museum of History and Art ahead of the ceremony and had the ‘less relevant literary works’ removed from the shelves16. However, things began to get complicated two months before the ceremony. Forlati wrote a letter directly asking the Prefecture of Koper whether they preferred to discuss things rath- er than working. The available documentation shows that the municipality’s ownership of the salt warehouse, and consequently the planned construction works, would not be resolved by the date of the monument’s inauguration. Nei- ther was there any progress in the renovation of Carpaccio House and the Loggia. The surviv- ing sources also show that despite delays in the main construction works, minor ‘aesthetic’ im- provements in the town continued to be made, such as the removal of the modest wooden build- ings in the square named after Vittor Pisani (to- 16 PAK, 7, 510 Spomenik Nazario Sauro, Fond Mestne občine Koper. day’s Ukmarjev trg).17 At the beginning of April 1935, the architect Forlati also inspected the so- called ‘Venetian House’, then owned by Arturo Steffè. The conservation department spent 2,500 lire restoring the windows on the house. Steffè received a letter from the government indicat- ing that the typical 14th-century Venetian-style building was the subject of a sale between him and the son of Nazario Sauro for a price of 4,000 lire. Ultimately, the sale did not go through be- cause the future owner wanted to use the ground floor for a mechanic’s workshop. The building was unsuitable and most of it would have had to be demolished. This did not make sense due to its historical value and the cost of demolition. Forlati also ruled out the possibility of the build- ing being bought by the Monument Conser- vation Department from Trieste. However, he wanted to emphasise the ‘Venetianness’ of Kop- er in a different way. At the end of April 1935, he proposed that the statue of the Venetian winged lion be moved from the Libertas Rowing Club to the façade of the salt warehouse because he thought it did not serve the right ‘purpose’ on the sports club building. He justified his pro- posal on the grounds that the statue had recent- ly been placed on the external wall of the Kop- er sports club and that relocating it again would not cause any major inconvenience. Nino Derin, the new podestà of Koper, was of the same mind and wanted to emphasise Koper’s ‘Venetian as- pect’ with a Venetian flag measuring 2 x 3.5 m, which the municipality of Koper had ordered from the Venetian section of the National Veter- ans’ Association of Military Volunteers 1915-1918 (Azzurri di Dalmazia)18. From a broader perspective, the ‘urban re- newal’ of Italian cities at the time coincided 17 Forlati referred to Planning Law No 778 of June 1922 and demanded that the ‘unsuitable buildings’ be removed be- fore the monument’s inauguration. In his view, this would restore the square’s ancient beauty and make the whole area ‘worthy’ of a monument to a fallen hero of Koper. For- lati should be credited with evaluating and protecting the town’s anonymous architecture (Čebron Lipovec 2020, 249–158). 18 PAK, 7, 510 Spomenik Nazario Sauro, Fond Mestne občine Koper. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 14 5 with an architectural trend that emerged after the move away from Futurism and towards clas- sical elements of Expressionism, the Renaissance and, above all, the Italian imitation of ancient Rome. This was overseen by the Ministero Cor- porativista with twenty associations, the seven- teenth of which was dedicated to the ‘Belle Arti’. Control over the architectural sector was fur- ther tightened with the creation of the nation- al Syndicate of Fascist Architects, headed by Al- berto Calza Bini between 1923 and 1936. Three architects made the decisions on urban plan- ning at the national level: Gustavo Giovanno- ni, Marcello Piacentini and the aforementioned Calza Bini. They were also present in the Fine Arts and Public Works Committees and were authorised to approve urban development plans (Kastelic 2007, 155–156). The architect Ferdinan- do Forlati had the main say regarding Koper, es- pecially from the point of view of architectural and cultural heritage. In the absence of ‘suitable traces of the Roman Empire’, he focused on the iconography and motifs of the Venetian Repub- lic. The history of the Serenissima’s hegemony in the Adriatic coincided well with Italy’s imperial- ist aspirations in the Mediterranean and the Bal- kans. The reconquest of Trieste and the Istrian peninsula was reminiscent of the territory that the Venetian Republic had once dominated, and the port cities of the newly conquered territories were thus once again under the former domina- tion. Venice had the opportunity to regain its status as a privileged centre on the Adriatic (Fin- cardi 2001, 3–5).19 In Koper, the Italian authorities used ar- chitecture for two purposes: as a tool for mark- ing space and as a convenient ideological appara- tus (Čebron Lipovec 2020, 249–158). The town of Koper, as an urban interventions entity, had only just begun its transformation when the war interrupted the planned constructions. The Nazario Sauro monument and its surroundings 19 Marco Fincardi points out that the rise of fascism saw two Venetians take the reins of very important state portfolios: Giuseppe Volpi became the Minister for Finance and Gio- vanni Giuriati Minister for Public Works. We cannot say this was a political affirmation, but a targeted strategic in- vestment for the port of Venice and the coastal industry. had been designated as a place of commemora- tion for years. The promenade and park in which the collective imaginary was able to find its link with the past also provided an ideological vision for the future. In addition to the monument, a primary school named Anna Sauro Depang- her was built in Koper between 1939 and 1940, but never opened due to the outbreak of the war (Sauro 2017, 311; Čebron Lipovec 2012, 215).20 The naming of the school after the self-sacrific- ing mother of an executed seaman from Koper probably had strong symbolic value. The mod- ernist building, which was never completed, dis- tanced itself from the historic land subdivision and created new intermediate market spaces with offset sections. Conclusion The tendency to present Italy as a ‘strong’ na- tion on a par with other ‘great’ nations took on more militant forms in Italian nationalism, and especially later under fascism. This ‘violent’ atti- tude was also adopted towards members of the same nation (Erjavec 1988). Social loyalty to the state apparatus had to be nurtured and glorified through historical practices. In interwar Kop- er, the monument to Nazario Sauro embodied several ideological concepts including historical myth, the ideological narrative of fascist rheto- ric, and was a suitable tool for constructing gen- eral commemorative belonging to the ruling local community. At the same time, it is neces- sary to take into account the change in the so- cial perception of the subject in question, which changed together with the figures in power in local politics, along with a change in the exter- nal appearance of this space. The creation of the myth of ‘Nazario Sauro’ did not actually be- 20 In her article entitled Architectural monuments in Kop- er’s reconstruction after World War Two, Neža Čebron Li- povec states: The central body of the building was built in 1940 according to plans drawn up by the architect F. Maz- zoni and assistant engineers S. Scimone and V. Quasimodo (SAT, ASopTS Istria Quarnero Dalmazia, busta 2, fasc.117 and busta 4, fasc.172). The partially preserved plans in the archival material are not signed, but the accompanying documents from Edilit mention the architect of the post- war remodelling of the school, ‘our architect Matossi’, ‘il nostro architetto Matossi’. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 14 6 gin with the laying of the foundation stone or the establishment of the competent committee, but germinated over decades and became deep- ly ingrained in the general consciousness of the population. The process presented was therefore multi-layered. It was primarily the regime’s offi- cial institutions that made it financially possi- ble, committing substantial financial resources, and managing and coordinating the most im- portant projects for the construction of the im- posing monument and the landscaping of its sur- roundings. At the local level, it is also possible to trace a number of actors who, through their respective competencies, kept the basic concep- tual framework in line with the guidelines of the ruling elite. Their work was crucial in shap- ing social consciousness and transmitting ideas with which the public could identify, regardless of the historical discontinuities in the treatment of Nazario Sauro and his actions. The latter was also passed on to generations that were not fa- miliar with heroic deeds, sacrifice in war, and naval tradition. Even though the younger gen- erations felt that ‘old-school’ irredentism was archaic, they were nevertheless able to identify with the aspirations and visions of the new fas- cist regime through the prism or the symbolic myth of the domestic environment, regardless of the new circumstances. Archival Sources PAK: Pokrajinski arhiv Koper / Archivio Regionale di Capodistria.  SAT: Archivio della Soprintendenza di Trieste. References Ara, A., and C. Magris. 2001. Trst, obmejna identiteta. Ljubljana: Študentska založba.  Bosworth, R. J. B., and P. Dogliani. 1999. Italian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation, Constructing Memory and Anti-Memory. London: Macmillan. Canali, F. 2018. ‘Avanguardie artistiche nella Trieste tra le due guerre.’ Quaderni 29:251– 335.  Cattaruzza, M. 2005. L’ italia e il confine orientale. Bologna: Il Mulino. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2012. ‘Arhitekturni pomniki izgradnje Kopra po drugi svetovni vojni.’ Annales: anali za istrske in mediteranske študije. Series historia et sociologia 22 (1): 211–231. Čebron Lipovec, N. 2020. ‘Oris urbanega razvoja Kopra od Giacoma Fina do danes.’ In Koper urbana geneza ob 400-letnici, edited by D. Rogoznica and D. Krmac, 249–258. Koper: Histria. Cherini, C. 1990. Mezzo secolo di vita a Capodistria, spoglio di cronaca giornalistica 1890–1945. Trieste: Self-published.  Collotti, E. 2000. ‘Sul razzismo antislavo.’ In Nel nome della razza: il razzismo nella storia d’Italia 1870–1945, edited by A. Burgio, 33–61. Bologna: Il Mulino. Derin, A. 2002. Capodistria: un mondo scomparso per sempre. Trieste: Astra. Erjavec, A. 1988. Ideologija in umetnost modernizma. Ljubljana: Partizanska knjiga.  Faveri, G. 2010. ‘Le statistiche dei salari industriali in periodo fascista.’ Quaderni Storici 45 (2): 319–357.  Fincardi, M. 2001. ‘Gli “anni ruggenti” del leone: la moderna realtà del mito di Venezia.’ Contemporanea 4 (3): 3–5.  Gentile, E. 1994. Il culto del littorio. Rome: Laterza. Kastelic, E. 2007. ‘Vpliv fašizma na kulturno dediščino Primorske.’ Degree thesis, University of Ljubljana.  Klabjan, B. 2017. ‘Erecting Fascism: Nation, Identity, and Space in Trieste in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.’ Nationalities Papers 46 (6): 958–975. Lober, Č. 2016. Fašistična kolonizacija Istre: historična arheologija Raše. Master’s thesis, University of Ljubljana.  Marini, R. 1936. ‘Il monumento.’ In Nazario Sauro e l’Istria, 1916–1936, edited by R. Alessi and G. Stefani, 129–140. Trieste: Studio Col.  st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i t h e h is to r ic a l ba c k g ro u n d t o t h e er ec t io n o f t h e m o n u m en t to n a z a r io s a u ro in k o pe r ... 14 7 Mortara, G. 1925. La salute pubblica in Italia durante e dopo la guerra. Bari: Laterza.  Mosse, G. 1975. The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich. New York: Fertig.  Neri, M. L. 2006. Enrico Del Debbio. Viareggio: Idea.  Nicoloso, P. 2008. Mussolini architetto: propaganda e paesaggio urbano nell’Italia fascista. Turin: Einaudi.  Nora, P. 1989. ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux des Mémoire.’ Memory and Counter-Memory (26): 7–24.  Pelikan, E. 2012. ‘Zgodovinopisje ob slovensko- italijanski meji.’ Acta Histriae 20 (4): 281– 292.  Ponis, R. 2016. Nazario Sauro: il Garibaldi dell’Istria. Trieste: Alpe Adria.  Quarantotti Gambini, P. A. 1940. ‘Pio Riego Gambini e la fondazione del fascio Giovanile Istriano (1911).’ Porta Orientale (6–7): 158–169. Quarantotti Gambini, P. A., ed. 1954. Quattro lettere. Trieste: La Editoriale Libraria. Salimbeni, F. 2001. ‘Il Faro della vittoria a Trieste tra architettura e ideologia.’ Quaderni giuliani di storia 22 (1): 139–143.  Sauro, R. 2017. Nazario Sauro: storia di un marinaio. Venice: La musa Talia.  Schama, S. 1996. Landscape and Memory. London: Fontana.  Seton-Watson, C. 1967. Storia d’Italia dal 1870 do 1925. Rome: Laterza.  Steffè, B. 1978. Od fašističnega škvadrizma do pokolov v Rižarni (s poročilom o procesu): Trst - Istra - Furlanija 1919-1945. 2nd ed. Trieste: Aned. Verginella, M. 2012. ‘Asimetrije, nesporazumi in zrcalni pogledi: od narodno osredotočene do pluralne in navzkrižne zgodovine severnojadranskega prostora.’ Acta Histriae 20 (4): 312–334.  Verginella, M. 2016. ‘Dokončni boj med “severnojadranskimi rasami” v iredentističnem in fašističnem diskurzu.’ Acta Histriae 24 (4): 705–720.  Žitko, S. 2016. ‘Italijanski nacionalizem in iredentizem: valilnica za kasnejši nastanek obmejnega fašizma.’ Acta Histriae 24 (4): 689–704. Summary In the last century, the writing of the history of ‘con- tact spaces“ was strongly ideologically and politically colored and to a greater extent the domain of national identities. The dominant ideological or social elite of- ten used public space with the aim of forming individ- ual and collective identity. The manifestation of polit- ical power took place through symbolism, which was present both in public commemorations and in newly built buildings. In Koper, the Italian authorities, for ex- ample, used architecture in two ways: as a tool for mark- ing space and as a convenient ideological apparatus. The article deals with the erection of the monument to the Istrian sailor Nazario Sauro. A myth was formed about the latter in the period between the two wars, through metaphors in public space (naming of schools, streets, editions of publications, etc.), which reached its peak with the erection of a monument in 1935 in Koper. The construction of the monument clearly indicates the imposition of memory politics by various actors, both at the national and local levels. The professional article presents the buildings that were built as a direct result of the ‘Great War’ in the Austrian Littoral. The article also deals with the extensive organizational and financial ef- forts that were necessary to erect a monumental memo- rial to the aforementioned sailor in all its grandeur. The ideological pretensions of the central fascist authorities, which together with local actors enabled the financing and construction of the monument, are given historical consideration. In the period between the two wars, the erection of the monument to Nazario Saura probably marked the beginning of Koper‘s urban transformation. Due to the outbreak of World War II, this transforma- tion never experienced an epilogue. Povzetek V prejšnjem stoletju je bilo pisanje zgodovine »stičnih prostorov« močno ideološko in politično obarvano ter v večji meri domena nacionalnih identitet. Prevladujo- st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st u d ia u n iv er si ta t is h er ed it a t i, le t n ik 11 (2 02 3) , š t ev il k a 2 / v o lu m e 11 (2 02 3) , n u m be r 2 14 8 ča ideološka oz. družbena elita je pogosto izrabljala javni prostor z namenom oblikovanja individualne in kolek- tivne identitete. Manifestacija politične moči je poteka- la preko simbolike, ki je bila prisotna tako v javnih ko- memoracijah kot tudi v na novo zgrajenih objektih. V Kopru se je italijanska oblast npr. arhitekture posluži- la pri dvojem, in sicer kot orodja za označevanja pros- tora ter kot priročnega ideološkega aparata. Strokovni članek obravnava postavitev spomenika istrskemu po- morščaku Nazariju Sauru. O slednjem se je v obdobju med obema vojnama preko prispodob v javnem prosto- ru (imenovanje šol, ulic, izdaj publikacij itd.) oblikoval mit, ki je svoj vrhunec dosegel s postavitvijo spomeni- ka leta 1935 v Kopru. Izgradnja spomenika jasno naka- zuje na vsiljevanje politike spomina različnih akterjev, tako na nacionalni kot tudi na lokalni ravni. V članku so predstavljeni objekti, ki so bili zgrajeni kot neposredna posledica »velike vojne« v Avstrijskem primorju. Čla- nek obravnava tudi obsežne organizacijske in finančne napore, ki so bili potrebni za postavitev monumental- nega spominskega obeležja omenjenemu pomoršča- ku v vsej njegovi veličini. V historično obravnavo so pri tem dane ideološko-režimske pretenzije centralnih fa- šističnih oblasti, ki so bile poleg lokalnih akterjev tiste, ki so omogočile financiranje in izgradnjo spomenika. V obdobju med obema vojnama je začetek urbanistič- ne preobrazbe Kopra najverjetneje predstavljala prav postavitev spomenika Nazariu Sauru. Slednja pa zaradi izbruha druge svetovne vojne nikoli ni doživela končne- ga epiloga. st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i st ud ia universitatis he re d it at i Založba Univerze na Primorskem www.hippocampus.si issn 2350-54 43