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| Capodistria, Istria — Old Italian City |
In Capodistria (Koper in Slovene), the ancient Italian odonyms are disappearing. Signs bearing the old Italian names of the streets are being removed. The operation, ordered by the Chief Inspector of Media and Culture in Slovenia, is already underway in the city's streets and squares.
Historical Background
The city of Capodistria, today the capital of the northern part of Istria annexed to Slovenia in 1991 (and now renamed ‘Koper’), was historically an Italian city. From its foundation by the ancient Romans in 128 BC up until the middle of the 20th century, Capodistria was inhabited by a Romance population which spoke Latin, Venetian and Italian. The city remained always linked culturally and politically to Italy: Roman Italy, medieval Kingdom of Italy, Republic of Venice, Patriarch of Aquileia, modern Kingdom of Italy.
There is still an Italian minority (formerly a majority) which lives in Capodistria today. Their rights and heritage are supposed to be respected, protected and preserved, in accordance with modern democratic principles and international agreements. But in countries like Slovenia these principles mean nothing, especially with regard to the historical Italian population of Istria.
Removal of Italian Street Signs (2024)
Historical Background
The city of Capodistria, today the capital of the northern part of Istria annexed to Slovenia in 1991 (and now renamed ‘Koper’), was historically an Italian city. From its foundation by the ancient Romans in 128 BC up until the middle of the 20th century, Capodistria was inhabited by a Romance population which spoke Latin, Venetian and Italian. The city remained always linked culturally and politically to Italy: Roman Italy, medieval Kingdom of Italy, Republic of Venice, Patriarch of Aquileia, modern Kingdom of Italy.
It was at Risano, a settlement near Capodistria, in the year 804 AD, that the local population of Istria and Trieste held an assembly and issued the Placito del Risano (Placitum of Risano), in which they refused to allow foreign Slavic peoples to intrude upon their land.
In the 18th century the city of Capodistria gave birth to Gian Rinaldo Carli, an early advocate of Italian unification and author of ‘La Patria degli Italiani’ (“The Fatherland of the Italians”). It was the birthplace of Nazario Sauro, an Italian sailor and patriot executed by the Austrians during World War I. From here sprang the famous physician Santorio Santorio, the painter Francesco Trevisani, the theologian Pier Paolo Vergerio and the Italian general Vittorio Italico Zupelli. It was also the place of origin of Ioannis Kapodistrias (Giovanni Capodistria), a Venetian noble and statesman who would later become the first leader of Greece.
According to the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census – despite being notoriously biased against the Italians – the city of Capodistria was nearly 88% Italian and less than 5% Slovene.
The demographics of Capodistria in the early 20th century were as follows:
1900
7,205 Italians (86.5%)
391 Slovenes (4.7%)
167 Serbo-Croats (2%)
67 Germans (0.8%)
1910
7,909 Italians (87.9%)
445 Slovenes (4.9%)
154 Serbo-Croats (1.7%)
66 Germans (0.7%)
1921
8,432 Italians (97.7%)
91 Slovenes (1%)
2 Serbo-Croats (0%)
1945
5,554 Italians (90.3%)
582 Slovenes (9.4%)13 Serbo-Croats (0.2%)
The native Italian inhabitants were forced out of this land after World War II, when the territory was occupied by the Yugoslav Communists. This event is known as the Istrian Exodus or Julian-Dalmatian Exodus. Approximately 93% of Capodistria's Italian population (14,000 of 15,000 including the city and surrounding district) was forced into exile; others were killed in the Foibe Massacres – a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Italians carried out by the Yugoslavs during and after the war. The city was subsequently repopulated by immigrant colonists coming from other areas of Yugoslavia, i.e. present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.
There is still an Italian minority (formerly a majority) which lives in Capodistria today. Their rights and heritage are supposed to be respected, protected and preserved, in accordance with modern democratic principles and international agreements. But in countries like Slovenia these principles mean nothing, especially with regard to the historical Italian population of Istria.
Removal of Italian Street Signs (2024)
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| Slovene municipal employee overturning an Italian street sign in Capodistria |
According to a report by Radio Capodistria (rtvslo.si – August 23, 2024), the street signs in Capodistria bearing the ancient Italian odonymns are being removed by the Slovene government.
The Slovene Inspectorate of Culture and Media, led by Sonja Trančar, made the decision. All signs written only in the Italian language must be removed. The municipal employees have already begun taking down the Italian street signs. The first sign to be removed was the one in Via del Porto (Porto Street), near the Muda Gate – an Italian Renaissance archway built by the Venetians in the 16th century. Operations are now underway in Via della Calegaria (Calegaria Street) and in the next days will likely continue in other areas of the city.
These actions aroused the immediate protest of the Comunità Nazionale Italiana (CNI), the official organizational representative of the Italian national community in Slovenia. The deputy-mayor of Capodistria, Mario Steffè, who is a member of the Italian community, is likewise opposed to these resolutions.
According to a second report by Radio Capodistria (rtvslo.si – August 23, 2024), the Slovene mayor of the city, Aleš Bržan, did not fully comply with the order; instead, he has unilaterally opted for a sort of compromise: instead of removing the signs, he has ordered them to be turned backwards as form of “protest”, so that the signs remain but the Italian names are no longer visible.
The Slovene government interprets the law on the public use of the Slovenian language in a way which effectively nullifies the law that is supposed to guarentee the rights of indigenous minorities. The signs in Capodistria constitute a historical patrimony and memory of the old Italian names of streets and squares prior to the Yugoslav occupation. Inspector Trančar maintains that these signs violate Slovene nationality because they are written only in Italian. Additionally, it was previously reported that the Slovene clergy at St. Anne's Franciscan Friary (a former Italian convent) refused to display an Italian sign and demanded that the ancient Italian names be translated into Slovene, before the Inspectorate ordered their removal altogether. The Italian identity therefore is no longer welcome in Capodistria, even though this city was Latin and Italian for over 2,000 years.
The persecution of the Italian Istrians did not end with the war, and did not even cease with the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990's, nor with the entry of Slovenia into the European Union in 2004.
Unable to resort to outright violence or intimidation, the Slovenes manage to find new ways to eliminate the historical Italian character of Istria. In recent years there have been coordinated efforts to rebrand Italian port towns like Capodistria, Pirano, Isola and Portorose as “Slovene destinations” for tourists; local Istrian-Italian food products and cultural figures are assigned Slovene names; in 2018 they demolished the historical Palazzo Longo (after it had suffered decades of neglect); now they are removing the old Italian street signs, so that only the current Slovene names will remain.
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| Before and after the removal of the sign Piazza del Duomo, Capodistria |
Ever since the end of World War II and the annexation of these territories by Yugoslavia we have witnessed ethnic cleansing; expulsions; destruction of monuments; demolition of historic buildings; renaming of cities, towns, streets and squares; removal of Italian street names and signs; the Slavicization of Italian surnames; the re-writing of history books; the denial or rationalization of past crimes; nationalization and theft of historical Italian figures; appropriation of Italian heritage by tourist boards; provocative declarations by politicians; and revisionist campaigns across the Internet conducted by nationalists from post-Yugoslav countries who seek to suppress the Italian history of these regions.
These are the same people who still today cry about “Fascism” and “forced Italianization programs” from 100 years ago. Meanwhile, we are in 2024 and the only ones behaving like this are our Slavic brethren on the other side of the Adriatic, who for the last century have done the utmost to destroy and erase all traces of Italian culture and civilization in Istria and Dalmatia – a work which they still continue today. Anachronistic appeals to “Fascism” or “Italianization” are little more than manipulative political tools invoked by intellectually dishonest people to obfuscate and justify the intollerant and undemocratic behaviour of Balkan governments towards ethnic minorities, in particular towards the Italians who lived in these lands long before the Slavic peoples did. For decades they have painted themselves as innocuous victims of “Fascist aggression” in order to mask their own beligerance and hostilities against Italians which has persisted without cessation since the 19th century.
Slovenia is the first to object when Italy honors the Italian victims of the Foibe Massacres, because it offends Slovene sensibilities to be reminded of the horrors comitted by the Yugoslav Partisans. The Slovenes also object when Italian politicians call for an ethnic census to determine how many Slovenes live in Italy, so as to better understand whether or not the current policies make sense. The Slovenes are eager to object the moment any Italian citizen publicly says or does anything which can be vaguely interpreted as nationalistic, revanchist or sectarian. But in their own country the Slovenes behave as ferocious nationalists and identitarians; they do not grant the Italians in Istria the same rights or accomodations that they demand for the Slavic minorities in Italy.
While the Republic of Italy bends over backwards to cater to its ethnic minorities, often at the expense of its own Italian citizens and national interests, strictly enforcing bilingualism in schools, signage in minority languages and putting strong emphasis on a ‘multicultural’ narratation of local Italian history, the Republic of Slovenia instead carries on the national tradition of ethnocide, historical revisionism, cultural appropriation and forced Slavicization.
See also:
German Saints Stolen by the Slovenes
Why do Some Countries Steal History and Heritage from Other Nations?
Why do Some Countries Steal History and Heritage from Other Nations?
