ACTA HISTRIAE
31, 2023, 3
UDK/UDC 94(05) ISSN 1318-0185ACTA HISTRIAE 31, 2023, 3, pp. 363-528
UDK/UDC 94(05) 
Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko - Koper
Società storica del Litorale - Capodistria
ACTA HISTRIAE
31, 2023, 3
KOPER 2023
ISSN 1318-0185
e-ISSN 2591-1767
ACTA HISTRIAE • 31 • 2023 • 3
ISSN 1318-0185                UDK/UDC 94(05)             Letnik 31, leto 2023, številka 3
e-ISSN 2591-1767
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Darko Darovec
Gorazd Bajc, Furio Bianco (IT), Stuart Carroll (UK), Angel Casals Martinez (ES), 
Alessandro Casellato (IT), Flavij Bonin, Dragica Čeč, Lovorka Čoralić (HR), Darko 
Darovec, Lucien Faggion (FR), Marco Fincardi (IT), Darko Friš, Aleš Maver, Borut 
Klabjan, Urška Lampe, John Martin (USA), Robert Matijašić (HR), Darja Mihelič, 
Edward Muir (USA), Žiga Oman, Jože Pirjevec, Egon Pelikan, Luciano Pezzolo (IT),  
Claudio Povolo (IT), Marijan Premović (MNE), Luca Rossetto (IT), Vida Rožac 
Darovec, Andrej Studen, Boštjan Udovič, Marta Verginella, Salvator Žitko
Lara Petra Skela, Žiga Oman, Urška Lampe, Boštjan Udovič, Veronika Kos
Alessandro Casellato
Lara Petra Skela (angl.), Petra Berlot (it.)
Urška Lampe (slo.), Gorazd Bajc (it.), Lara Petra Skela (angl.)
Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko - Koper / Società storica del Litorale - Capodistria© 
/ Inštitut IRRIS za raziskave, razvoj in strategije družbe, kulture in okolja / Institute IRRIS for 
Research, Development and Strategies of Society, Culture and Environment / Istituto IRRIS 
di ricerca, sviluppo e strategie della società, cultura e ambiente©
Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko, SI-6000, Koper-Capodistria, 
Garibaldijeva 18 / Via Garibaldi 18, e-mail: actahistriae@gmail.com; https://zdjp.si/
Založništvo PADRE d.o.o.
300 izvodov/copie/copies
Javna agencija za znanstvenoraziskovalno in inovacijsko dejavnost Republike 
Slovenije / Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency, Mestna občina Koper
Ustna zgodovina / Storia orale / Oral History (Photo: Urška Lampe)
Redakcija te številke je bila zaključena 30. septembra 2023.
Odgovorni urednik/
Direttore responsabile/
Editor in Chief:
Uredniški odbor/ 
Comitato di redazione/
Board of Editors:
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Editors:
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ACTA HISTRIAE • 31 • 2023 • 3
Volume 31, Koper 2023, issue 3
VSEBINA / INDICE GENERALE / CONTENTS
Alessandro Casellato & Urška Lampe: Učenje iz napak, preseganje meja. 
Ustna zgodovina med Italijo in Slovenijo ........................................................................
Imparare dagli errori, attraversare i confini. La storia orale tra Italia e Slovenia
Learning from Mistakes, Crossing Boundaries. Oral History between Italy and Slovenia
Urška Lampe: Some Methodological Reflections on Oral History 
in the Borderlands: a Slovene-Italian Case Study ............................................................
Alcune riflessioni metodologiche sulla storia orale nelle 
zone di confine: il caso di studio sloveno-italiano
Nekaj metodoloških premislekov o ustni zgodovini na obmejnih 
območjih: slovensko-italijanska študija primera
Urška Strle: The Ethical Imperative in the Oral History Method: Select 
Observations on Historical Research on Migration and Border Spaces .......................
L’imperativo etico nel metodo della storia orale: osservazioni selezionate 
sulla ricerca storica sulle migrazioni e sugli spazi di confine
Etični imperativ v metodi ustne zgodovine: izbrana opažanja iz 
zgodovinskih raziskav o migracijah in mejnih prostorih
Cecilia Furioso Cenci: Arrivare troppo tardi: oralità perdute (e ritrovate) tra Italia e Slovenia ....
Arriving too Late: Lost (and Rediscovered) Orality between Italy and Slovenia
Ko prideš prepozno: izgubljene (in ponovno odkrite) ustnosti med Italijo in Slovenijo
Marta Verginella: Storiografia slovena tra fonti orali e pratiche di memoria .............
Slovensko zgodovinopisje med ustnimi viri in spominskimi praksami
Slovenian Historiography between Oral Sources and Memory Practices
Katja Hrobat Virloget: What does Silence Tell? Traumas and Memorial 
Conflicts in the Anthropological Research of Istrian Exodus and a National “Hero” ....
Cosa ci racconta il silenzio? Traumi e conflitti memoriali nella ricerca 
antropologica sull'esodo istriano e su un «eroe» nazionale
Kaj sporoča molk? Travme in spominski konflikti v antropološki 
raziskavi o istrskem eksodusu in nacionalnem »heroju«
Federica Cusan: Nomi scomodi: quando la toponimia 
orale racconta una narrazione non condivisa ..........................................................
Unconfortable Names: When Oral Toponymy Tells an Unshared Narrative
Nelagodna imena: ko ustna toponimija pripoveduje nedeljeno naracijo
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399
433
453
421
ACTA HISTRIAE • 31 • 2023 • 3
Silvia Calamai & Rosalba Nodari: Fare interviste, provocare lingue: 
il caso della Carta dei Dialetti Italiani ..........................................................................
Doing Interviews, Triggering Languages: The Case of the Carta dei Dialetti Italiani
Opravljanje intervjujev, ustvarjanje jezikov: primer italijanskega dialektološkega atlasa
Chiara Calzana: «In effetti, devo averti raccontato cose troppo intime…». 
La raccolta delle memorie del Vajont e il lavoro di relazione 
tra ricercatrice e interlocutori .............................................................................................
“Maybe I Shared too Intimate Details...”. The Collection of Vajont Memories 
and the Relational Work between the Researcher and her Interlocutors
»Pravzaprav sem morda razkrila preveč intimnih podrobnosti...«. Zbiranje 
spominov Vajonta in delo na odnosu med raziskovalko in sogovorniki
Greta Fedele & Erica Picco: «Questo preferirei censurarlo»: memorie traumatiche, 
narrazione di sé e archiviazione digitale nel progetto dell’IBCC Digital Archive .............
“This I would rather Censor”: Traumatic Memories, Self-Narrative 
and Digital Archiving in the Project of IBCC Digital Archive
»To bi raje cenzurirala«: travmatični spomini, pripoved o sebi in 
digitalno arhiviranje v projektu digitalnega arhiva IBCC
PRISPEVKI
INTERVENTI
CONTRIBUTIONS
Alessandro Casellato: Incidenti che generano conoscenza .....................................
Alessandro Portelli: Relazione di apertura / Intervento conclusivo ........................
Gloria Nemec: Ascoltare sul confine. Commento alle relazioni italo-slovene ........
Giovanni Contini: Verità e narrazione in storia orale .............................................
OCENE 
RECENSIONI 
REVIEWS
Oto Luthar, Urška Strle, Marta Verginella: Užaljeno maščevanje. Spomin Slovenk 
in Slovencev na italijanska fašistična taborišča (Urška Lampe) ...............................
495
475
483
463
Članki, objavljeni v tej številki Acta Histriae, so nastali v okviru projekta / Gli articoli pubblicati in 
questo numero di Acta Histriae sorsero nell'ambito del progetto / The articles published in this issue 
of Acta Histriae were arised from the project: "Families and memories of Italian prisoners of war in 
Yugoslavia after World War II" (IT-POW FAMILIES). This research was supported by the 
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the 
Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement [grant number 839474].
499
508
516
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Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET: WHAT DOES SILENCE TELL? TRAUMAS AND MEMORIAL CONFLICTS ..., 433–452
WHAT DOES SILENCE TELL? TRAUMAS AND MEMORIAL 
CONFLICTS IN THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH OF ISTRIAN 
EXODUS AND A NATIONAL “HERO”
Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET
University of Primorska Faculty of Humanities, Titov trg 4, 6000 Koper, Slovenia 
e-mail: katja.hrobat@fhs.upr.si
ABSTRACT
The article reflects on the meanings of silence which was encountered in the ethno-
graphic research of memories on the Istrian exodus and a WWII national “hero” in the 
Primorska (littoral) region of Slovenia. Different kinds of silence are discussed, from 
the one deriving from the conflict of memories and power relations, violence and fear, to 
Freudian ideas of repression and trauma, denial and others. From the methodological 
point of view the question is raised of how to detect silence when filled with words or 
embodied. A reflection is made on the impact of research on the silenced communities. 
Keywords: silence, memory conflict, trauma, denial, fear, conspiracy of silence
COSA CI RACCONTA IL SILENZIO? TRAUMI E CONFLITTI MEMORIALI 
NELLA RICERCA ANTROPOLOGICA SULL'ESODO 
ISTRIANO E SU UN «EROE» NAZIONALE
SINTESI
Inizialmente, l'articolo riflette sui significati del silenzio che sono stati incontrati 
nella ricerca etnografica delle memorie sull’esodo istriano e su un «eroe» nazionale 
della Seconda Guerra Mondiale nella regione della Primorska (Litorale) della Slovenia. 
Vengono poi discussi diversi tipi di silenzio, da quello che nasce dal conflitto tra memorie 
e relazioni di potere, violenza e paura, alle idee freudiane di repressione e trauma, nega-
zione e altro. Dal punto di vista metodologico si pone la questione di come interpretare 
il silenzio quando è nascosto dietro le parole o incorporato. Infine, viene proposta una 
riflessione sull’impatto della ricerca sulle comunità silenziate.
Parole chiave: silenzio, conflitti di memoria, trauma, negazione, paura, congiura del 
silenzio
Received: 2023-04-06            DOI 10.19233/AH.20 3.20
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Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET: WHAT DOES SILENCE TELL? TRAUMAS AND MEMORIAL CONFLICTS ..., 433–452
INTRODUCTION
Deriving from my ethnographical fieldwork on memories of the Istrian exo-
dus1 and a controversial national “hero”, the aim of the article is to reflect on the 
type of silence linked to memory as a common point of interest between history 
and anthropology. The article sums up some of the already published reflections, 
including those which due to the Slovenian language, were limited to only a 
small number of readers (Hrobat Virloget, 2017; Virloget & Logar, 2020; Hrobat 
Virloget, 2021a),2 while the parts in English were dispersed among diverse pub-
lications (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a, 2021b). The novelty lies in the theoretical and 
conceptual upgrading and more precise historical frameworks of remembrance 
and oblivion.
The approach of anthropologists and oral historians to memory is close, but 
still some differences can be noted. The definition of memory of Halbwachs, 
the founder of the field of collective memory (Gensburger, 2020, 69), as “the 
present of the past” is essential to both disciplines, although other, different 
epistemological traditions are used (P. Nora, P. Ricoeur, J. Assman). According 
to him all social thinking is memory; it can be the evocation of the past, an effect 
of the past and effect of the present (Lavabre, 2007, 142). Researchers of oral 
history and anthropology can also agree with Alessandro Portelli’s reflection that 
oral sources tell us not only what people did but also what they wanted to do, 
what they believed they were doing, and what they now think they did (Portelli, 
2016). However, reading the works from both disciplines on memory, silence and 
oblivion, it seems that oral history is focused on the past and narratives about it, 
while in anthropology it is the individual, society and their emotional aspects in 
the present that are the forefront of research interest (e.g. Pabst, 2023). While for 
oral historians it is important to understand the historical context and the changes 
1 Despite the different interpellations reflected in the term “exodus” or “post-war migrations” [Or 
use italics instead of quote marks] (cf. Verginella, 2000; Ballinger, 2003, 42–45; Kacin Wohinz & 
Troha, 2001; Hrobat Virloget, 2021a), I use the word “exodus”. The Istrian exodus presents the final 
stage of (mainly) Italian emigration from Yugoslavia, which started shortly after World War II, when 
the Yugoslav National Liberation Army occupied the territories along the Adriatic coast (Istria, 
Dalmatia) and ceded them to the Kingdom of Italy, marked by fascist ideology after the fall of the 
Austro-Hungarian empire. The total registered population of ethnic Italians in coastal towns of the 
Slovenian part of Istria dropped from 90% before the war to a mere 10.5% after the exodus (Troha, 
1997, 59). According to censuses, in the period from 1945 to 1958, 49,132 people left the Slovenian 
part of the territory, mostly Italians, but also Slovenes and Croats. Of these 27,810 are counted as 
optants (Volk, 2003, 51; Kosmač, 2017, 193; Kacin Wohinz & Troha, 2001); between 200,000 and 
the exaggerated 350,000 persons left the whole of Istria (including the Croatian part) (Ballinger, 
2003, 1, 275). From the census of 1961, 44% of the resident population before WWII remained in 
the zones annexed to Yugoslavia (186,450), more than 55% left (232,994) and 144,505 persons 
arrived. However, their ethnic identification has been recently discussed in the frame of “national 
indifference”, from hybridity, opportunism, and fluidity to indeterminacy (Orlić, 2023, 167‒168).
2 The book is currently in translation to English, expected to be published in 2023 by Berghahn 
books.
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Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET: WHAT DOES SILENCE TELL? TRAUMAS AND MEMORIAL CONFLICTS ..., 433–452
in memorial narratives in relation to identity creations through time, anthropolo-
gists are more interested in the relations and effects of memory and silence on 
the emotional aspects, identification processes and belonging, relations between 
individuals and diverse social groups (e.g. family, nation, class), power relations, 
legitimisations in the present, etc. (e.g. Pabst, 2023; Vodopivec, 2008; Dosse, 
1993; Crapanzano, 2011; Smith, 2006; Baussant, 2002). 
Silence as a research topic was introduced by linguistic studies in the 1970s. It 
was first set forth in relation to negatively marked absence as indicative of passiv-
ity, avoidance, negative emotions, silencing, powerlessness etc. This, together with 
different aspects of eloquent, communicable silence, was taken up by researchers 
from other disciplines, such as anthropology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, law 
and historiography (Marković, 2020, 172‒73). The scientific interest in the frame 
of cultural anthropology and history was first linked to memory studies; recently, 
studies have been done on Holocaust survivals, intergenerational transmission 
of traumatic memories, conflict and violence, and nationalisation processes, but 
also other topics, such as religion (e.g. Kidron, 2009; Straub & Rüssen, 2010; 
Vinitsky-Seroussi & Teeger, 2010; Pabst, 2022; Marković, 2020; Hrobat Virloget 
& Škrbić Alempijević, 2021; Soler, 2021). 
Remembering and forgetting are inseparable and both are selective. An act of 
remembering involves at the same time selective, partial or other forms of forget-
ting (Assmann & Shortt, 2012, 5). Silence is much more complex and heteroge-
neous as its functions and consequences cannot be equalised. “Keeping silent”, 
“concealing”, and “silencing (oneself)” describe entirely different activities, 
motives, and intentions (Straub, 2010, 117). My reflection on silence will start 
with a brief account on a silence encountered in a short ethnographic fieldwork 
on a controversial national “hero”, while further discussion on the Istrian exodus 
derives from a much more accurate fieldwork of more than a decade.
THE SILENCE ABOUT A NATIONAL “HERO”. CONFLICTS 
OF MEMORY AND IMPOSED SILENCE
The first case discusses a collective silence in the case of the Slovenian national 
“hero” of World War II (since 1953), Karlo Maslo from the Brkini region. He was 
a commander of a military troop, battalion and brigade in the National Liberation 
Struggle. When the idea of erecting a monument to Karlo Maslo was proposed, 
the municipality of the region of his provenience – Kozina-Hrpelje – after much 
debate, refused to place it in their area.3 The bust was eventually placed in Koper/
Capodistria in 2010, where the only memory about him is probably linked to the 
official Slovenian narrative (Hrobat Virloget & Čebron Lipovec, 2017, 60). 
3 Besides oral sources, newspaper articles reported on the postponing of the erection of the monument 
(Primorski dnevnik, 22. 8. 2009: Heroj čaka na spomenik, https://www.primorski.eu/novice/49739-
heroj-aka-na-spomenik-CUPR49774 (last access: 2023-08-22).
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When I wanted to find some information on this “hero” in his birth region, and 
try to understand why the “local” people do not support the official memory of 
him, I encountered only whispering. When asking my friends to ask their grand-
fathers about him, I received answers such as: “I hope you haven’t told them that 
somebody from […the village] knows about him!”, or: “You are walking on thin 
ice.” Only horrific fragments were documented, like: “the one who was killing 
people (after the war) with a pick”, “many people lost their lives because of him 
for nothing”, “a rapist”, etc. (Hrobat Virloget & Čebron Lipovec, 2017, 55−65). 
Analogous accounts of multiple rapes and other similar misdeeds are recorded 
through personal on-line blogs, and even in a published monograph (Perme et 
al., 2000). A family recounted to me the loss of a family member due to fascist 
and Nazi revenge for the partisans’ attacks led by the aforementioned “hero”; 
according to people’s perception, this revenge was the reason for many villagers’ 
deaths: from revenge. I tried to break locals’ silence by taking my uncle from 
the region with me on ethnographic field-research to the homes of his friends/
colleagues, hoping to get more trust from locals.4 Yet still, older people who 
experienced the hero first-hand fell silent as soon as he was mentioned. Only their 
children, who had heard about his deeds in the privacy of their families, dared to 
talk about memories of him as an “anti-hero”, a rapist, and a murderer. If I took 
out my audio-recorder, or even a notebook, everybody went silent. Thus, the only 
way of getting some information about him was through casual conversations, 
with no possibilities of recording. 
Why such an omnipresent silence? Individual memories that do not conform 
to the collective view of the past are censored, rejected, stigmatised, or excluded 
from collective (national) discourse (Halbwachs, 1925; 2001; Assmann, 2007, 
16). In the states of Eastern Europe during the Cold War, only the official, “puri-
fied” version of the past was communicated; there was no place for reflections 
on the nation’s own responsibility for acts perpetrated during WWII. The official 
memory relied on the double role of heroes and victims – anti-fascist heroes, 
resistance fighters and victims of fascism. The master narratives were dominated 
by myths of victimhood, heroism, collective resistance against the German oc-
cupying fascist forces and the downplaying or ignorance of collaborationism 
(Karge, 2010). In Tito’s Yugoslavia, all memories which did not conform to the 
image of partisan heroism were banned in the name of the idea of “Brotherhood 
and Unity” on which the state was founded. The positive partisan past, creat-
ing the perception of WWII as solely a national liberation struggle and socialist 
revolution, omitting all internal and national conflicts, was a “policy of memory” 
which legitimated the ruling Communist Party. But the pain of the supressed 
memories remained and was evoked in the nationalist discourses of the wars of 
the 90s (Bet-El, 2004, 211). It has long been thought that the official memory in 
Yugoslavia was “frozen” until Tito’s death in the 80s, a view which was rejected 
4 It did not help that my family derives from the same region. 
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Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET: WHAT DOES SILENCE TELL? TRAUMAS AND MEMORIAL CONFLICTS ..., 433–452
by Heike Karge. The enormous self-sponsored local activity in erecting village 
monuments and organising local commemoration events presented active spaces 
in the officially allowed “spaces of memory” which, by stressing the message of 
traditional, dolorous remembrance of the dead (local victims), challenged the two 
main pillars of the official war narrative: the “socialist revolution” and “brother-
hood and unity” (Karge, 2009). 
“An amnesia of national experiences” (Judt, 2005, 829) started to be shat-
tered at the end of the 1970s in Western Europe, but in Eastern Europe only after 
1989 (Karge, 2010; Berger, 2010), when a new “cleansing of the past” took place 
(Karge, 2010, 138). After interpretative pluralism was introduced in Slovenia in 
the 1980s, the interpretations of WWII were purely political and ideological and 
in diametrical opposition to each other. The idea of national reconciliation of the 
opposite ideological sides prevailed, where the side that lost the war, burdened 
with collaboration, strived for their interpretative dominance (Godeša, 2018). 
Bojan Godeša described the contradictory political evaluations of WWII which 
continue into the present as “battling myths with myths” (Godeša, 2018, 86).
However, why, so many years after the democratisation of memory narratives, 
are people still afraid to talk? One reason can be the prevailing perception of the 
National Liberation Struggle during WWII, of which this national “hero” was a 
part and which is still considered the foundation of Slovenian identity (Hrobat 
Virloget & Čebron Lipovec, 2017, 62). In the psychological sense it could be 
said that people’s silence became a survival strategy and a basis of their identity 
(Hrobat Virloget, 2021b, 14). Psychotherapists argue that after the war, the of-
ficial narrative demands only heroic stories to be told. Victims can only speak 
if the injustice has been unambiguously recognised and named (Erzar, 2017, 31, 
85). This has not been the case with the aforementioned national “hero”. Until 
interpretations of historical events or someone’s vision of the past are acknowl-
edged as falsified constructs, memories concerning them remain suppressed 
(Althounian, 2005, xiv). 
A similar persistent silence, also after the change of socio-political circum-
stances post 1991, was researched by Urška Lampe in the case of the Borovnica 
camp in Slovenia, where imprisoned Italians were held after WWII. Memories of 
it were kept only by the local individuals, upon whom a regime of fear was estab-
lished. People did not dare to speak about it due to the political pressures and fear 
of the regime as well as relations among the community (Lampe, 2021, 144‒150). 
The environment of fear and violence can be frequently noted in everyday talk 
in the Brkini region in comments such as: “it was worse after WWII, than during 
it” or people from Brkini “had to be careful of what they said […] because they 
ended up in jail for every incorrect word” (Hrobat Virloget & Čebron Lipovec, 
2017, 60, 62).5 We can speak about shared fear, anxiety, and thus also silence, 
5 The observation derives also from years of everyday discussions with my family, relatives and others from 
the Brkini region.
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Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET: WHAT DOES SILENCE TELL? TRAUMAS AND MEMORIAL CONFLICTS ..., 433–452
that connect people in a “conspiracy of silence”, where “silence is understood as 
the denial of voice and where to be silent means to be silenced” (Marković, 2020, 
177; Zerubavel, 2006).
Urška Lampe argues that the breaking of an (imposed) collective amnesia does 
not depend solely on the favourable (changed) socio-political circumstances (Pas-
serini, 2014, 16), but on the desire of the community upon which amnesia was 
imposed (Lampe, 2021, 151‒152). The “public secrecy”, as Urška Lampe calls this 
silence (Lampe, 2021, 147), in the case of the Brkini “hero”, got its voice in the 
rebellion against the erection of the monument. As Aleida Assman and Linda Shortt 
argue, one of the important actors in redefining the past is the generational change. 
With the transition from one generation to another, shifts in the frame of relevance 
and references happen. When the younger generation receive a public voice, they 
can make a rupture in the repressive silence which the older generation had main-
tained (Assman & Shortt, 2012, 7). The younger generation,6 which was listening 
to the contra-memory of their parents in the intimate sphere of their families, was 
not burdened with the fear of speaking as their parents were; they grew up in an 
environment of more plural frames of memory and they broke the silence. 
THE SILENCE ON THE ISTRIAN EXODUS. CONSPIRACY OF 
SILENCE, TRAUMAS, MEMORY CONFLICTS
If history is a product of power and the ultimate product of power is invisibil-
ity (Trouillot, 2015, xxiii), the next study case speaks about invisible memories of 
the Istrian exodus in the frame of the Yugoslavian, and later Slovenian, dominant 
narrative (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a). 
I interviewed 53 people, from which I have transcripts (made with a dicta-
phone): 24 Slovenes, 21 Italians, and 8 immigrants from the former Yugosla-
via. Four more people were interviewed without a dictaphone/transcripts and 
4 thanks to student research; additional information was obtained by everyday 
(not-recorded) discussions and the method of participant observation (Hrobat 
Virloget, 2021a).7 The interlocutors were the current inhabitants of Istria, that is, 
the Istrians who remained (Slovenes and Italians) and the immigrants during and 
after the exodus (Italians from Italy and Croatia, Croats, Bosnians, people from 
Kosovo, Montenegro). I managed to conduct only one very long interview with an 
6 Included among them was a person with an important leading function in a local public institution (I do not 
name him in order to preserve anonymity).
7 In the article I reflect also on additional memories which I have heard in the public presentations 
of my book (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a) and others collected in the frame of the project My Story 
from Silence / Moja zgodba iz tišine (1. 8. 2022-1. 6. 2023). The methodology in this case was not 
ethnographic – memories were collected during 5 workshops with three psychotherapists and by 
written personal memories (the call for proposals “Incentives for Solutions: a Long-Lived Society”, 
co-financed by the Istria and Karst NGO Forum - ISKRA and the Ministry of Public Administration 
from the Fund for NGOs through the non-governmental organisation PINA).
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Italian migrant, the president of an association of esuli8 abroad. He was surprised 
when he did not manage to convince other Italian esuli to speak with me, so I 
quickly gave up and concentrated only on today’s Istrians.
The interviews were conducted in a public space or at the homes of the inter-
locutors. The main problem was that most of the interviewees, mainly Italians 
who remained in Istria after the exodus, refused to be interviewed (ca. 70%). 
In addition, in my encounters with people I felt a discomfort due to something 
unutterable, something people preferred to avoid, especially Italians. When my 
friend, a member of the Italian minority, tried to find Italian interlocutors to 
discuss this subject with me, she was surprised when they all declined, saying 
that too much time had passed since the exodus. She was never told anything 
about it nor now they did not want speak. Thus, people refused to talk not only 
with me, as a researcher not belonging to the Italian community, but also with 
someone who is “of them”. I felt that one reason for that was my belonging to “the 
other”, the dominant “nation” from which they did not expect any comprehen-
sion. This became clear when after my first interview on the radio about exodus, 
my interlocutor, a known local Italian politician, called me to congratulate me 
for my courage. As with most of my interlocutors, he agreed to an interview with 
me only when his friend assured him that I am “different” – meaning from other 
Slovenes – because I am comprehending.9  
Originating from the nearby region, Karst, I could define my ethnographic 
position according to Pier Paolo Viazzo as neither “native” nor “distant,” a “view 
from up close” or a “view from the neighborhood” (Baskar, 2014, 438). The few 
people who had the courage to speak with me, however, found it very difficult 
to talk about the consequences of the exodus, and for most women the conversa-
tion ended in tears. Silence was different for Slovenes from Istria or immigrants 
from other republics of the former Yugoslavia. When their memories touched the 
experience of seeing violence against Italians10 some of them refused to continue, 
some whispered, especially in public. I also felt that some were relieved they could 
finally tell somebody their memories. Interesting was the decision by somebody 
from Macedonia to end the silence and to speak to a researcher. The decision to tell 
me ‒ in a whisper ‒ about the violence perpetrated on Istrian Italians came from his 
belief that everyone involved was dead by now, and that the time of the “official 
memory” (that the interlocutor connects with historians), which differs from its 
own memory, has passed: “I will say something else, I don’t know if I should… 
Historians probably won’t take offense, no-one will… Most are already dead…” 
(Hrobat Virloget, 2021a, 41). 
For decades after the exodus, talking about it was taboo, not only in the domi-
nant Yugoslav discourse, but also among the Italians who remained. The “quiet 
8 The term by which the Istrian migrants define themselves, meaning “exiled”, “refugees”.
9 Before the radio broadcast.
10 Mostly banging on their doors to make them leave. 
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detabooization” of the controversial topics of the exodus and the “foibe”11 did not 
begin in Yugoslavia until the beginning of the liberalisation of public domain in 
the 1980s. The regime was slowly losing its grip on historiography, but it was not 
the historians who were the first to mention this but the writers. The first to speak 
out were the Italians who stayed in Istria (Dota, 2010, 73–85; Hrobat Virloget, 
2021a, 42). 
In the interviews with Italian women, unprocessed childhood trauma is what 
marks memories of the exodus and the humiliation they experienced as Italians, 
stigmatised in the Yugoslavian discourse due to the collective guilt of fascism 
and war crimes. An Italian interlocutor told me the story of an Italian lady who 
in a conversation with Italians during the time of my research (so, decades after 
Slovenia’s independence) mentioned her school experiences of humiliation from 
the Yugoslav authorities.12 Nobody reacted and simply remained silent:
After hearing this story I said nothing to the lady as the others were also 
silent… They do not want to talk, they try to play things down […]. They do 
not want to deal with this problem. Perhaps too painful. Perhaps someone 
persuaded them it was not so… Because at the time it was happening, we 
were not allowed to talk about it. So we had to conceal it” (Hrobat Virloget, 
2021a, 35). 
The story is a typical case of a conspiracy of silence, a phenomenon “whereby 
a group of people tacitly agree to outwardly ignore something of which they 
are all personally aware” (Zerubavel, 2006, 2). It is common knowledge never 
discussed in public, an undiscussable, uncomfortable “open secret”, tightly con-
nected to denial (Zerubavel, 2006, 2‒4). According to Halbwachs (2001), “the 
social space” (a system of inter-individual relations) enables the transmission 
of memory; if these “collective milieus” do not exist, the silence appears (Gens-
burger, 2020). Such can be the case in this environment, where people avoid 
talking about exodus.
Besides being treated as fascists by the new Yugoslavian regime in Istria, 
Italians became strangers in their own home due to the upheaval of socio-
political circumstances and the entirely changed social network. After two 
decades of oppressive fascistic politics they also experienced a painful change 
in their social status, a reversal from the dominant self-perception as repre-
sentatives of civiltà (civilisation) in contrast to the “barbaric” Slavs (Baskar, 
2010, 110−18). The individual memories of the Italians who remained do not, 
11 On foibe cf.: Ballinger, 2003, 129–67; Dota, 2010; Pirjevec 2009; Verginella, 2009, 53‒67; Orlić, 
2012, 19 etc.
12 I have frequently heard memories of humiliation experienced by Italian children in school, frequent-
ly from the children of Slovenian schools or the Yugoslav system. It can be about spitting, taunting 
from the children of Slovenian schools or in this case, not wanting to give firewood to the child to 
warm the class with the explanation that for the few of them it is not needed. 
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to this day, coincide with either the Slovenian or Italian dominant narrative 
about the exodus. They differ from the Slovenian narrative in that the latter 
interprets the exodus as a voluntary migration or as a consequence of the 
victory over fascism. Although scholars have brought into question this kind 
of narrative after the independence of Slovenia (e.g. Gombač, 2005; Kacin 
Wohinz & Troha, 2001), as shown by many interviews and the feedback that 
I received in general it seems that it had no effect on the dominant narratives 
(Hrobat Virloget, 2021a, 53).13 Unlike the Italian memory, however, Italians 
who remained are well aware of the cause-and-effect links between the exodus 
and fascism, which the Italian public discourse denies. Moreover, the burden 
of not recognising collective responsibility for fascist violence by the Italian 
state fell on the Italians who remained in Yugoslavia (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a). 
The silence of the Istrians of all ethnicities who experienced exodus lies in 
the incompatibility of their memories with the dominant collective memory. 
Usually, as stories of defeat, the bearers of negative heritages and imaginaries, 
these kinds of memories are uncomfortable for both scholars and societies, 
therefore they are excluded from national narratives (Ballinger, 2012, 380; 
Baussant, 2019, 38, 155, 176; 2002, 286). Scholars in Yugoslavia have re-
searched this topic less intensively than on the Italian side (e.g. Dota, 2010; 
Gombač, 2005), while the topic of the demographic and social restoration of 
Istrian society was almost completely ignored (Kalc, 2019, 148). While the 
silent memory of the esuli became part of the Italian national victimisation 
narrative in the 1990s (Corni, 2018, 74–78; Focardi, 2020, 214‒58), it is inter-
esting to note that the memories of the Italians who remained continued to be 
uncomfortable not only for Slovenian, but also the Italian national discourse. 
As stories of the ones who decided not to leave their home, Istria, they do not 
conform with the dominant Italian narrative “of no choice left for Italians” 
and thus of the forced ethnically-based migrations.  
Among Italians who remained I noticed also some silence and pretence of 
not knowing about some Italians who collaborated with the new system and 
even helped exert pressure on Italians to leave (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a, 103). 
Oral historians say silence is the result of the tense social relations that arise in 
rebellious movements and which, with changes in social systems and hierarchies, 
conceal social conflicts, shifts in power relations, and civil war in a time when 
there is violence among members of the same nation, community and even family 
(Pavone, 1992; Portelli, 1997; Van Boeschoten, 2005, 39; Rožac Darovec, 2012).
From a psychological point of view, the reason for the silence about the 
exodus could be attributed also to the fact that it was probably considered 
impermissible to mourn, to express painful memories in the society of the win-
ners, where the affected persons - Italians who remained in Yugoslavia - were 
13 For interpretations of Yugoslavian historography cf. Dota, 2010, 57‒102; for a case of Yugoslavian narra-
tive defending the absence of pressure on Italians, cf. Beltram, 1986, 191.
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perceived as being on the side of the war’s losers. This can be more obvious in 
the context of the white-black stereotypical dichotomy of Italians perceived as 
“fascists” and Yugoslavs perceived as “innocent victims” and war winners. The 
memories of the Italians who remained can be seen as an unauthorised expres-
sion of grief, when, due to external and public expectations or prohibitions, 
society at large does not recognise or deny the events related to it (Erzar, 2017, 
85−87; Hrobat Virloget & Logar, 2020, 263‒64). 
However, I found out that a major part of silence on the exodus could be 
attributed to the emotionally charged memories and unprocessed (mostly child-
hood) traumas. If memory does not process traumas from the past, which is often 
the case with concentration camp survivors, rape victims and other victims of 
trauma, there is the danger of a “conspiracy of silence” (Emrich, 2010, 63). The 
first “silent community” was observed in the 1970s among parents and children 
of the Holocaust (Straub, 2010, 106). With this kind of silence, connected to 
Freudian ideas about repression, when individuals bury traumatic and painful 
memories in the subconscious (Zerubavel, 2006; Vinitsky-Seroussi & Teeger, 
2010), people avoid memories that would repeat humiliation, emotional pain and 
fear (Jurić Pahor, 2004, 40; Emrich, 2010, 63; Straub, 2010, 118). For Aleida 
Assman (2010) trauma is an inability of verbalisation and narration. We may then 
ask the question: if the community shares memories on which collective identity 
is based (Halbwachs, 2001), can the collective identity rely on collective silence? 
As evidenced by the general silence surrounding the exodus among the Istrian 
Italians, the answer is yes (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a). 
An interesting recent study of a silenced community is about the Harkis, the 
Algerian fighters on the French side in the Franco-Algerian war, by Vincent 
Crapanzano (2011). They have been stigmatised as traitors by Algerians and 
betrayed, marginalised, and silenced by the French for whom they risked their 
lives (Crapanzano, 2011, 9). Their silence is a different kind of silence, the 
one that speaks about the presence of difficult and shameful memories. As the 
anthropologist argues, “despite psychologists’ stress on forgetting, repression, 
and foreclosure, forgetting is often far harder than remembering” (Crapanzano, 
2011, 9). The prevailing self-narrative of the Italians who remained is that of 
the anti-fascist fighters. However, this positive image is often in conflict with 
the dominant narrative of the majoritarian nation about them, stereotyping 
them as fascists (Hrobat Virloget & Čebron Lipovec, 2017, 48‒55; Hrobat 
Virloget, 2021a, 56‒59). This can be one of the reasons for the mistrust and 
silence towards the majoritarian nation and towards me as a researcher who 
is part of it. Luisa Passerini (2014, 29) notes that silences are relative. We 
have to reflect, “in respect to whom and what is it a silence”? Relations of 
power between the majoritarian narrative and the minoritarian are one of the 
reasons, but as it has been shown, the conspiracy of silence is linked also to 
the members of the Italian minority themselves. The reason for silence does 
not derive solely from the authoritarian regime, but “is also accepted or even 
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chosen by whole community or society” (Passerini, 2014, 23). In this case, it 
is a way to survive in a majoritarian narrative different from theirs, to remain 
invisible14 in a society with the self-perception of the heroic winners.
Silence can be paradoxically filled with words, which presents a special 
methodological challenge. Such was the case of the conversation with an Italian 
lady, which unfolded in such a way that she mostly read from her notes, a mixture 
of personal memories underpinned by “objective” historical facts of the history 
of Pula/Pola during and after WWII. When after one hour she had read through 
everything she had written, she broke down in tears. All her relatives joined the 
exodus, and she remained alone with her grandparents and father, a pain she 
had never got over. She explained why she had written down her memories for 
the interview: “Because these things hurt, people don’t want to talk about this 
because they relive it… That’s why I made notes yesterday because I wanted to 
relive these things a little, so that I wouldn’t cry in public. People don’t want to 
relive things because these are painful situations, very painful” (Hrobat Virloget, 
2021a, 32).
Even though they speak, people can censor and discipline their memories as 
they try to consciously avoid them or restructure them in a rational and impersonal 
way. These are tactics to retain control over emotionally burdensome memories 
that are not compatible with a majoritarian collective memory, as demonstrated 
in studies of silence concerning the Franco-Algerian War by pieds-noirs (Smith, 
2006, 147‒59). Silence cannot be defined on the basis of absence of speech, be-
cause it is precisely verbal communication that can have the function of conceal-
ment (Marković, 2020, 178‒79). Traumatic personal experiences are avoided by 
narrating the “grand narrative”, by speaking about politics and history (Waynryb, 
2002, 30; Marković, 2020, 185). The case above is one of several cases indicating 
the fear of showing unwanted emotions as pain or trauma in front of the researcher 
and especially in the public space (for example, in bars). Indeed, the whispering 
about the violence against Italians happened mostly in the public space, while in 
a home environment these kinds of memories seem to be more clearly expressed.
Many silences pass unnoticed by the researcher (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a, 
32; Marković, 2020, 181; Passerini, 2014, 17). Such was the case of an inter-
view with an Italian who returned to Italy after his family went to Yugoslavia 
in a “contra-exodus”.15 If I had not been told previously by his son that his 
14 The invisibility of the Italians who remained, as a strategy of survival in a majoritarian nation, was evoked 
a few times in our discussions by the journalist and historian Stefano Lusa.
15 The “counter-exodus” consisted of thousands of workers from Monfalcone and Friuli who set-
tled in Yugoslavia with the aim of building a socialist state. Their number is most frequently put 
at around 2,000 or between 3,000 and 3,500, while some Slovenian sources talk of 10,000 peo-
ple—including POWs. The reason was ideological, but unemployment due to destroyed industry 
was another reason. According to the Italian historian Raoul Pupo, this is only propaganda that 
aims to reduce the scale of the exodus as a kind of counterbalance; however, the numbers do not 
support this argument (Purini, 2010, 263–72; Pupo, 2015, 33–34). 
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father would keep quiet about his father-in-law’s experience of Goli Otok - the 
communist re-education camp ‒ I would have had no idea about this, but even 
being aware of it, I did not dare question him on the matter (Hrobat Virloget, 
2021a, 32). It is known that following liberation in 1956, all internees at this 
camp had to keep silent about their experiences, otherwise they would be rear-
rested (Purini, 2010, 272). Another case as the case of the “hero” mentioned 
above when the period of the fear of speaking has ended, but the silence of the 
ones who experienced it, persists.
DETECTING SILENCE AND THE IMPACT OF RESEARCH
As anthropologists and oral historians, we are not trained to detect the silence 
behind words and gestures of our interlocutors, in contrast to psychotherapists, 
for whom right silence is a medium for entering the intrapsychic world of a per-
son (Bohak, 2012, 40–51; Tojnko, 2014, 72–75; Hrobat Virloget & Logar, 2020). 
I became aware of that in the study case where I conducted an interview together 
with a psychotherapist, where only the therapist’s eye observed a slight moment 
of hesitation, some small physical gesture that even seventy years later expressed 
embodied fear while discussing communist spies in an Istrian village. After being 
asked about them by the psychotherapist, who noticed something different in the 
man’s behaviour, the man tried to change the topic of conversation (Hrobat Virlo-
get & Logar, 2020, 165). Psychotherapists are aware that “the body remembers” 
(Van der Kolk, 2014; Gostečnik, 2008, 251) and researchers of humanities and 
social sciences agree that silences are embodied. Even these silenced memories 
can be transmitted from generation to generation via a system of signs as a form 
of communication of the unspeakable past in the present. In Halbwachs’ words, 
the transmission of (non)memory is performed intimately as a “lived” memory 
interwoven with the social milieu of everyday experience (Kidron, 2009, 18; Hal-
bwachs, 2001; Wajnryb, 2001). The psychological present past is inscribed into 
the body and behaviour, no matter how much time has passed since the events. In 
the case of intergenerational transmission of silence emotions and behaviour are 
borrowed, because they belong to the parents’ past (Straub, 2010, 73, 102). This 
can be the case of holocaust survivors, their perpetrators, or people on the “wrong 
side” during the war where one generational trauma and crime are kept secret and 
subconsciously transferred onto the next generations (Bohleber 2010, 80; Pabst, 
2022, 165). In German society psychoanalysts have detected a wider phenomenon 
of the inability to ask, where not wanting to know acts as a defence strategy. In the 
families’ silence something absent is experienced as massively present (Bohleber, 
2010, 72, 79). This was the case of an Italian who remained, one of those who 
refused to give me an interview during my research. She spoke about the family’s 
silence in tears at the presentation of my book (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a).16 
16 Organised by the Italian minority in Izola/Isola (11. 2. 2022).
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[The book] made me think about the silence. My mom’s silence and the 
education that she gave us and I can’t speak [tears]…. I’m wondering how 
much does this education of silence influence our daily silences, it’s this 
that made me think of your book. Why are we still afraid to talk, not only 
about the past but also about the present. I think in school I was educated 
to be silent about certain topics (Interlocutor 1, 2022).
The ethnologist Kathrin Pabst observes that traumatic events are silenced 
by the survivors in an attempt to forget and protect their children, while the 
next generation feel the “ghosts” of the untold, but they do not dare to ask in 
order to avoid touching the pain they feel from their parents. The conspiracy 
of silence and the trauma comes primarily from the untold, from not address-
ing the cause of the trauma, while the reason for it, e.g. forced migrations, 
war, are only of a secondary importance (Pabst, 2023, 90, 97). 
However, when speaking about exodus I have the feeling that in recent years 
people feel it is easier to speak about it than at the time of my fieldwork, which started 
twelve years ago. I wonder if that is also the consequence of the impact of my book, 
which was accepted with great interest in the wider public of the Primorska (littoral) 
region (Hrobat Virloget, 2021a). Historians would warn to be attentive to the time 
and social context when the research was done, since some decades ago victimisation 
discourses were not so fashionable as today (Verginella, 2012; Bidussa, 2009). My 
interlocutor commented that the book made her aware why she gets so emotive, why 
she is not able to talk when she has to speak about herself and exodus. Psychoanalysts 
argue that in order to erase something, in this case the pain that produces silence, 
it has to be first activated and recognised, it has to become present and has to be 
transferred from the unconscious to the conscious (Emrich, 2010, 64). When research 
gives voice to the silenced, even if they, too, are analysed in the critical frame, when 
the silence is articulated, publicly acknowledged and placed in a wider historical 
and social context, can this enable them to break their silence? As my book and 
some other researches (e.g. Lampe, 2021) reflect, the professionals, by addressing the 
silences, “can contribute to the healing processes for individuals, within families and 
societies” (Pabst, 2023, 100).17    
CONCLUSION
The article has shown some reflections of the reasons and meanings of silence 
in ethnographic research. The reflections stem from the in-depth research of 
17 The methodological reflections derive from some previous and current ARIS research pro-
jects: Migration and social transformation in a comparative perspective: the case of Western 
Slovenia after WWII, led by Aleksej Kalc (J6-3143; 2021-2024), and Urban Futures: Imag-
ining and Activating Possibilities in Unsettled Times, led by Saša Poljak Istenič (J6-2578; 
2020-2023). The article content derive also from the written application of my project Eth-
nography of silence(s), that started latter, in October 2023 (ARIS J6-50198; 2023-2026).
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memories on the Istrian exodus and short ethnographic fieldwork on a WWII 
national “hero”. In the dominant research silence is treated as a consequence of 
socio-political power relations, the relationship between dominant and marginal-
ised social groups and memories. Indeed, silence ensues when memory cannot rely 
on collective memory because it is unacknowledged. It has been shown that the 
silence can persist also after the change of the old socio-political circumstances 
that instilled silence; the change of generations and the community’s desire to 
break the silence can also be important. Another interpretation of silence is con-
nected to Freudian ideas about repression, when traumatic and painful memories 
are buried in the subconscious in order to avoid painful experiences from the past. 
By keeping silent people protect themselves and avoid everything that reminds 
them of the emotional trauma. Silence can also derive from tense social relations, 
violence, fear, the conflict between the war winners and losers, etc. The denial 
can connect people in a conspiracy of silence and collective silence can become 
the identity base of a community. 
In some study cases it has been shown how difficult it is to detect silence, espe-
cially when it is hidden by words (speaking) or embodied and transmitted through 
generations through the “ghosts” of the untold. Finally, a reflection is made on the 
impact of breaking the silence and healing of the individual and social wounds 
when a research contextualises, acknowledges and articulates the silence.
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KAJ SPOROČA MOLK? TRAVME IN SPOMINSKI KONFLIKTI 
V ANTROPOLOŠKI RAZISKAVI O ISTRSKEM EKSODUSU IN 
NACIONALNEM »HEROJU«
Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET
Univerza na Primorskem, Fakulteta za humanistične študije, Titov trg 4, 6000 Koper, Slovenija
e-mail: katja.hrobat@fhs.upr.si
POVZETEK 
V članku avtorica razmišlja o razlogih in pomenih molka v etnografskem 
raziskovanju na primeru poglobljene raziskave spominov na istrski eksodus 
v Istri in kratke terenske raziskave o nacionalnem »heroju« iz druge svetovne 
vojne v Brkinih na Primorskem. V prevladujočih raziskavah je molk obravnavan 
kot posledica družbenopolitičnih razmerij moči, razmerja med dominantnimi in 
marginaliziranimi družbenimi skupinami ter spomini. Molk se namreč pojavi, ko 
se spomin ne more opreti na kolektivni spomin, ker ga ta zaradi svoje drugačne-
ga pogleda na preteklost cenzurira, izloči. Pokazalo se je, da lahko molk traja 
tudi po spremembi starih družbenopolitičnih okoliščin, ki so povzročile molk; 
na spremembo lahko vpliva menjava generacij in želja skupnosti po prekinitvi 
molka. Drugi vzrok molka je povezan s freudovskimi idejami o potlačenju, ko se 
travmatične spomine zakoplje v podzavest, da bi se izognili ponovitvi bolečin iz 
preteklosti. Molk lahko izhaja tudi iz napetih družbenih odnosov, nasilja, strahu, 
konflikta med zmagovalci in poraženci vojne itd. Zanikanje lahko ljudi poveže 
v zaroto molka. Če kolektivna identiteta sloni na kolektivnih spominih, lahko ta 
sloni tudi na kolektivnem molku. Avtorica si zastavi vprašanje, kako prepoznati 
molk, sploh če je ta skrit za besedami ali utelešen in se prenaša skozi generacije z 
»duhovi« neizrečenega. Na koncu je podan razmislek o tem, kako lahko raziskava, 
ki kontekstualizira, priznava in ubesedi molk, vpliva na prekinitev kolektivnega 
molka ter celjenje individualnih in družbenih ran.
Ključne besede: tišina, spominski konflikt, travma, zanikanje, strah, zarota tišine
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