Sconfinamenti storiografici e attraversamenti di confini - Historiographical digressing and crossing borders

a cura di Marta Verginella

Indici e Abstracts

Gli autori di questo numero

Ana Cergol Paradiž è assistente di Storia dell’Ottocento presso il Dipartimento di Storia dell’Università di Lubiana. Si occupa di storia delle donne, storia della medicina, storia sociale e storia demografica. Tra i suoi lavori: Evgenika na Slovenskem [L’Eugenetica in Slovenia], Sophia, Trieste 2013; con Irena Selišnik, Women’s sexual morality and the First world war in Slovenia in Uzduž i poprijeko. Brak, zakon i intimno građanstvo u povijesnoj i suvremenoj perspektivi, 2015;
Yugoslavia I. Slovenia in The history of East-Central European eugenics, 1900-1945: sources and commentaries, Bloomsbury Academic 2015; Illicit sexual relationships in the early 20th century: the issue of abortion in Love and sexuality: anthropological, cultural and historical crossings, Red Atena 2010.

Marko Klavora. Nato a Šempeter pri Novi Gorici nel 1978, è uno storico sloveno. Laureatosi in Storia e sociologia della cultura presso la Facoltà di Lettere dell’Univerza v Ljubiani con una tesi su Klement Jug, alpinista e filosofo sloveno, ha poi concentrato la sua attività di ricerca sulla storia orale in particolare dell’area dell’Alto isontino. All’interno del centro di ricerche scientifiche dell’Univerza na Primorskem, ha lavorato come ricercatore conseguendo il PhD con un lavoro sulla ricostruzione della memoria nel periodo del Governo Militare alleato. Tra il 2011 ed il 2013 è stato ricercatore presso lo Inštitut za slovensko izseljenstvo in migracije. Nel 2013 ha iniziato a lavorare presso il Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije. E’ attualmente curatore e responsabile del settore storico del Goriški muzej.

Jernej Mlekuž è ricercatore presso lo SMI, Slovenian Migration Institute at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. La sua ricerca verte sulla teoria e la metodologia dello studio delle migrazioni, gli aspetti culturali dei processi migratori, la cultura popolare, i media, il nazionalismo, l’alimentazione e la cultura materiale, l’epistemologia. Attualmente lavora a kranjska klobasa (salsicce della Carniola), un cibo che gioca un ruolo significativo nella formazione della consapevolezza nazionale slovena. È autore di Burek. The Culinary Metaphor, CEU Press 2015, pubblicato in sloveno, serbo e albanese, coeditore di Going Places: Slovenian Women’s Stories on Migration, Akron university Press 2014, e Go girls! When Slovenian women left home, ZRC Publishing, 2009.

Kaja Širok ha conseguito il dottorato di ricerca in Storia contemporanea presso l’Università di Nova Gorica. Attualmente è direttrice del Museo Nazionale di Storia Contemporanea (Slovenia). Svolge attività di ricerca e di docenza presso varie istituzioni tra cui l’Università di Nova Gorica (dal 2011) e l’Università di Lubiana (dal 2015). La sua ricerca si concentra sulle narrazioni storiche nazionali e sugli studi di memorie collettive, con temi quali la formazione dell’identità, commemorazione, memorie contese e memorie di confine e le varie interpretazioni delle immagini collettive del passato. È autrice di Kalejdoskop goriške preteklosti. Zgodbe o spominu in pozabi (2013).

Matjaž Stibilj attualmente lavora presso la biblioteca civica di Aidussina. Si laurea nel 2010 in storia e sociologia della cultura presso la Facoltà di Lettere di Lubiana con una tesi sulle unità giovanili di lavoro volontario provenienti dalla zona A negli ani 1945 e 1946. Prosegue la sua attività di libero ricercatore: negli ultimi tempi dedica la sua attenzione alla storia industriale e sociale del diciannovesimo secolo.

Urška Strle dal 2011 è research fellow presso il Dipartimento di Storia dell’Università di Lubiana. Si laurea in Storia nel 2004 con una tesi riguardo i movimenti femministi in Slovenia e sui periodici femminili slovacchi. Nel 2010 completa il dottorato con una tesi sugli Sloveni in Canada: Emigration through the Prism of Oral Testimony. Nel 2012 l’International Committee for Canadian Studies in Ottawa le assegna un postdoc fellowship per uno studio sugli Sloveni in Canada. Tra il 2006 e il 2013 lavora presso lo Slovenian Migration Institute SRC SASA di Lubiana. Fa parte di diversi gruppi di lavoro in progetti nazionali e internazionali. Si occupa prevalentemente di storia delle migrazioni e storia orale.

Petra Testen lavora come Research Fellow al Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, per l’Institute of Cultural History. Dal 2014 collabora con il Department of History Faculty of Arts University of Ljubljana al progetto di ricerca Women and the First World War. Le sue ricerche vertono prevalentemente sulla storia culturale, il quotidiano, la storia delle donne e la storia orale.

Marta Verginella è professore ordinario di Storia dell’Ottocento e Teoria della storia presso il Dipartimento di Storia dell’Università di Lubiana. Collabora con l’Istituto regionale per la storia del movimento di liberazione del Friuli Venezia Giulia di Trieste e l’Università del Litorale di Capodistria. Si occupa di storia sociale e di storia delle donne, in particolare studia le pratiche identitarie in aree multietniche e l’uso politico della storia nel contesto sloveno e in quello del confine italo-sloveno. Fra i suoi lavori pubblicati in italiano: Il confine degli altri (Roma 2008); il numero monografico di Qualestoria, La storia al confine e oltre il confine. Uno sguardo sulla storiografia slovena (XXXV, 1, 2007); La guerra di Bruno: l’identità di confine di un antieroe triestino e sloveno (Roma 2015).

Abstracts

Marko Klavora
Abstract – The establishment of the italian-yugoslav border in 1947 and the memory of the community of Log pod Mangartom
Concerned about their jobs in the Rabelj lead and zinc mine, the miners of Log pod Mangartom wrote to the Government of the People’s Republic of Slovenia in February 1947 urging it to intercede on their behalf with the (Italian) administration of the mine to secure their employment. The author examines the miners’ letter to the Government of the People’s Republic of Slovenia through the prism of a community and its members living in a border area (amidst specific social and historical moments and their short-term intersection), by taking into account events of long duration that are manifested in the collective (social) memory of the inhabitants of Log pod Mangartom. Individuals and the community to which they belonged are not perceived as passive observers of the «great» history. Rather, the author’s main intention is to demonstrate how individuals (and the community) used their life strategies, ways of life and traditions to oppose, change, adapt and subject themselves to each political change, and particularly to the new political and economic conditions established after the dissolution of the Allied Military Government and the annexation of the former Zone A (in the upper Posočje area) to Yugoslavia.
Key words: collective memory, border, miners, Rabelj, oral history.
Parole chiave: memoria collettiva, confine, minatori, Cave del Predil (Rabelj), storia orale.

Urška Strle
Abstract – Go West! Illegal postwar migrations from the Soča region in the light of a case study
The article focuses on the life-story of a Slovenian emigrant Stanka that serves as a basis to elucidate the processes of illegal migrations from the western Yugoslavian outskirts towards Italy. The personal perspective enables a more thorough and detailed insight into the massive outflow of Slovenian population in the initial postwar years and intends to upgrade the politicized and ideologically conditioned understanding of the phenomenon. In order to better understand the issue, the text encompasses the time before and after the act of Stanka’s flight itself, trying to illuminate all the crucial events in her life that eventually led to or were conditioned by her emigration. Her story is embedded in the family environment and is also contextualized with historical development. Oral history interviews, informative conversations, analysis of various ego-documents and biographical notes are therefore supported with relevant literature from the field of historical and migration studies in order to reconstruct Stanka’s migratory experience.
Key words: illegal migrations, Slovenians, Italian refugee camps, life-story, case study.
Parole chiave: emigrazione illegale, sloveni, campi italiani per rifugiati, narrazione, studio di caso.

Petra Testen
Abstract - Our «raw material». The Slovenian Women As Domestic Servants in Gorizia between the 19th and 20th Centuries
The following text tackles the issue of Slovenian servants in Gorizia between the 19th and 20th Centuries, when the relationships among individual ethnic communities, especially between Italians and Slovenians, had become particularly tense. In the struggle of Slovenians for the right to their own culture and language, as well as their ever growing efforts for recognition in economic terms, housemaids had become the protagonists of nationalistic spurs that had been forming in the area. Thus, if on the one hand they were being taken away from the dullness of anonymity in this situation – which became evident when census was being taken, as they were being encouraged to declare Slovenian as their language of use in order to increase the size of the Slovenian community – on the other, they were subject to the supervision of the city elite, both morally and physically. Due to the predominant ideal of the purity of the «body of the nation», these women represented a potential threat to their own Slovenian community, simply because, given the nature of their work, they were able to cross, undisturbed, the national (and cultural) borders that were dividing the opposing local communities. One should also keep in mind that in those years housemaids were also involved in both public and personal, ever more heated struggles for better working conditions and a better social position and for political rights.
Key words: slovenian servants/maids, Gorizia/Gorica, Slovenian national community, oral history.
Parole chiave: domestiche slovene, Gorizia/Gorica, comunità nazionale slovena, storia orale.

Jernej Mlekuz
Abstract – When the silenced speak out. The testimonies of housemaids from the Slavia friulana
The so-called dikle – girls from the region of Slavia friulana who used to work in Italian cities as housemaids in many cases didn’t understand their work as «maledet», cursed and «schiavitù», slavery. At least this is what they tell us today, long decades later when the experience, meanings, testimonies have been covered by a lot of ubiquitous dust; the dust we cannot completely blow away, clean, remove in order to come to the original sparkle (of the original experience). And yet, this is the only voice – no matter how muted – that can stand up against the voice of authority that has resounded for half a century. Some girls, as personal testimonies tell us, were also looking for an «adventure», a change in life, at least partial financial, economic independence, they wanted and tried (at least partly) to shake off the shackles of a patriarchal family, to replace hard farm work with the more attractive duties of an urban household, wanted to get to the city where they could admire and desire shiny shoes in the window, although they usually couldn’t afford them.
Key words: Slavia friulana, emigration, housemaids, domestic workers, testimonies.
Parole chiave: Slavia friulana, emigrazione, domestiche, testimonianze.

Ana Cergol
Abstract – Forbidden sexual relations according to court records on infanticides and abortions between 1860 and 1910 in the Trieste Region
On the basis of court records on abortions and infanticides of the Court of Trieste, this article tries to reconstruct a small part of the history of extramarital affairs in the Trieste Region during the second half of the long 19th century. The analysis is primarily based on the comparison of the circumstances and reasons why unmarried women were committing these (then) crimes. The article focuses particularly on the role of their (extramarital) partners. The dynamics of the relationship between the defendant and her partner may in fact differ substantially depending on whether there was an abortion or an infanticide. During the trials for infanticide, the child’s father is, except in very rare cases, completely absent (the child who was killed immediately after birth by the mother or that was not offered the necessary help is often a result of sexual intercourse with strangers, for example soldiers), while in cases of abortion he is involved in the hearing and often tried as the “instigator” or “offender.” In addition to relations with extramarital partners, the defendants’ motives differ according to the wide social context. As for infanticides the main motive for the crime is the shame of extramarital conception and the obvious consequence of forbidden sexual relations, it is usually they themselves who decide to leave the community where they had conceived. By fleeing, they try to avoid public humiliation, since they have no one to protect them. They are normally women from the lowest social classes without property and with little chance of getting married. The disapproval of others (including parents) and the fear of dishonour prove to be the main causes also in cases of abortion, while the social status of these women, in comparison to that of infanticides, is more heterogeneous. Less frequent is also the act of escaping. (It can be assumed that it is the compassion of other women who are sometimes even prepared to help them to terminate the pregnancy that ties them to the family environment.) The findings in legal acts of course only partly correspond to reality. The credibility of the investigation procedure (and of the testimonies in court) is always uncertain. Despite this, such sources give us the opportunity to analyse (at least partially) the social relations that are, due to its intimate nature, (otherwise) hardly traceable.
Key words: Trieste Region, infanticides, abortions, women’s history, forbidden sexual relations
Parole chiave: area triestina, infanticidi, aborti, storia delle donne, madri nubili

Matjaž Stibilj
Abstract - The Slovenian-Italian brotherhood and the Julian youth voluntary work brigades from A Zone active in Yugoslavia
The article deals with youth work units – brigades of the Venezia Giulia zone A after the Second World War, mostly in the year 1946. The Union of antifascist youth of the Venezia Giulia organized these work brigades in order to participate in youth work campaigns in Yugoslavia. Youth work units of the zone A were presented by the pro-Yugoslav forces as a manifestation of the people’s desire to unite Venezia Giulia with Yugoslavia. The participation of Italian youth in these brigades represented only a part of the complex relationship between the Slovenian and the Italian anti-fascist movement in this territory. The principle of Italo-Slavic brotherhood had guaranteed the ideological basis of this cooperation. In fact, the brotherhood had been regarded as a precondition for the affiliation of young Italians in the work brigades. Sent from Venezia Giulia zone A to the fields of youth voluntary work in Yugoslavia in 1946, these bi-national brigades can be considered as the most direct and intense form of implementing the policy of the Italo-Slavic brotherhood, as well as one of its greatest trials.
Key words: youth work brigades, youth work drives in Yugoslavia, the Union of Antifascist youth of the Venezia Giulia, slovenian-italian brotherhood, collective memory
Parole chiave: brigate di lavoro volontario, campagne giovanili di lavoro volontario in Jugoslavia, Unione gioventù antifascista della Regione Giulia, fratellanza italo-slava, memoria collettiva

Kaja Širok
Abstract - Fragility of memory. Remembrance and identity in the «goriziano» border region
Il «goriziano» (Goriška), the border area between Slovenia and Italy, has been (and still is) a place of contested memories, where different groups construct their identities on different, very often opposing interpretations of the region’s past events. What for one side is a source for memory building, sinks for the other into oblivion, what one side celebrates, the other forgets. The territory was ravaged by acts of violence in both the First and Second World Wars, as well as in postwar years. Younger generations are reminded of the past chiefly through memorials, crypts and military burial grounds, silent witnesses to the atrocities that the twentieth century inflicted on the region. The monuments, (hi)stories and preserved narratives that construct the national heritage act on the 20th century as ruptures of history, requiring all the collective groups to collaborate and accept different constructions of memory, interpretations of the past and our own complex story.
Key words: memory, Gorizia, Great war, Second world war, monuments.
Parole chiave: memoria, Gorizia, Prima guerra mondiale, Seconda guerra mondiale, monumenti.