By: Gašper Blažič
I love Littoral. With this statement, I may offend the people of Lower Carniola, Upper Carniola, Styria, Pomurje (well, Prekmurje), Inner Carniola, White Carniola, and others. However, Littoral, in my mind, is that part of our country that contributes its Mediterranean share to Slovenia’s diversity. The road to the Adriatic Sea leads through Littoral, as does the road to Italy (and from it), and it combines its Mediterranean temperament with the Alpine spirit, especially along the Soča Valley. This region has suffered greatly in recent history: first due to the Soča Front, which displaced thousands of people, and later, because of the West’s dirty diplomacy, which annexed the region to Italy as a result of gaining Italy’s allegiance. Mind you – I am speaking here of an ANNEXATION.
Of course, you will say I am talking about fascism and the suppression of Slovenian identity. Imperialism and irredentism, which were spreading from Italy at the time, gained even more momentum with fascism. During World War I, the Kingdom of Italy briefly occupied Kobarid, only to withdraw due to a major Austro-Hungarian offensive. The secret London Treaty of 1915, which guaranteed Italy a substantial share of the spoils at the expense of the Central Powers (including the Habsburg Empire, to which most Slovenes belonged), was fully realised five years later with the infamous Treaty of Rapallo. This treaty legally annexed (!!) Littoral to Italy under international law. The year 1920 was also tragic for the project of a United Slovenia: while the creation of the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs in the fall of 1918 gave some hope following the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, disillusionment came quickly. The founding of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was, in reality, just an annexation (!!) of the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs to the Kingdom of Serbia. Suddenly, the Serbs were placed at the forefront, and the Slovenes at the end. Meanwhile, most of Carinthia was incorporated into Austria through a plebiscite, and twenty years later, Adolf Hitler annexed (!!) it to the Third Reich.
Littoral as an “attachment”?
Have you noticed how often I have used the word “annexation” so far? We are talking about the annexation or “Anschluss” of a territory. When the Axis powers invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941 (formerly the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes), the remaining Slovenian territory was carved up. The Italian occupation zone was called the “Province of Ljubljana”, as it was annexed to Italy. Meanwhile, the Germans annexed Upper Carniola and Styria to the Third Reich. Again, this was illegal, as these annexations had no basis in international law. The Hungarians (or rather their army, which was part of the Axis forces) once again invaded Prekmurje, which had been reunited with the motherland just over twenty years earlier.
Speaking of Prekmurje: during his first term, Janša’s government established a holiday for the Prekmurje people. It is the celebration of Prekmurje’s reunification with the motherland, as determined by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1919. This part of history is particularly painful for Hungary, as the Treaty of Trianon (1920), following the Paris Peace Treaty, saw it lose a large part of its territory. However, when it comes to Prekmurje (the former Hungarian Slovenia, which also included Porabje), no one has yet demanded that the word “reunification” be replaced with “annexation”. But if the current ruling coalition succeeds with the “annexation” of Littoral, it is only a matter of time before the transitional left similarly tarnishes Prekmurje.
There has already been a lot said about why using the word “annexation” for Littoral is unjustified and even offensive, especially when former MP and current MEP Matjaž Nemec unsuccessfully floated similar ideas in the past. His party colleague Meira Hot has now taken over this initiative. But let’s leave that aside.
Renaming a holiday is a “banana peel”
However, the politicised project to rename the holiday, introduced by Janša’s first government in 2007 (something that previous LDS governments ignored!), serves a triple purpose. Let’s examine them.
- The first aim of this renaming is a Titoist-driven monopoly over history and manipulation of historical facts, including the promotion of long-debunked religious and mythological fabrications of Titoism. Littoral, except for the current coastal areas of Istria where Italians dominated the towns, was always Slovenian. The vast majority of Slovenians in Littoral historically belonged to the Habsburg Empire. Only a part of the Slovenian population on the western edge of Slovenian ethnic territory belonged to the Venetian Republic (hence the area is still called Beneška Slovenija or Venetian Slovenia). However, even the Venetian system at the time demanded cultural and linguistic homogenisation, making it even less tolerant of the Slovenians living there compared to the “prison of nations”, as we used to call the Austrian Empire. Therefore, we could similarly talk about the (re)unification of Littoral with the motherland in 1947, when the second Paris Peace Conference facilitated the return of most of Littoral, and the 1954 London Memorandum returned Istria to the new Yugoslavia, but not Trieste and Gorizia. Although the entire Slovenian coast from Trieste to Štivan was historically inhabited by Slovenes – the same goes for the karstic region behind this coast – Trieste was not turned into an Italian exclave akin to Kaliningrad. Similarly, western Gorizia Region and western Goriška Brda are now part of Italy. If those neotitoists support the introduction of the term “annexation” with the argument that Littoral was never “ours” in history, they forget that this applies even more to Prekmurje, which historically belonged to Hungary for centuries. So, did Slovenia (or the Kingdom of SHS in 1919) annex Prekmurje? The answer is NO. Prekmurje was reunited with the motherland thanks to the Paris Peace Conference, which was a small patch on the Slovenian wound after the loss of Carinthia and Littoral.
- The second aim of renaming “reunification” to “annexation” is evidently the glorification of the post-war communist regime, which allegedly secured Littoral for Slovenia. In other words, we are being subtly convinced by the current regime’s handlers that Tito’s army “annexed” Littoral. However, the truth is quite different. By the end of World War II, the West could no longer fall for Italy’s déjà vu tactics from the first war. In 1943, the fascist regime fell, and Italy was occupied by the Germans, which also led to the German occupation of Littoral region and the so-called Province of Ljubljana (i.e., Ljubljana with Inner Carniola, Lower Carniola, and White Carniola, where there was the so-called “liberated territory”). After Mussolini’s fall, Tito’s army could have occupied this area but did not. Instead, it used the armed Italian units, which controlled the artillery, for its dirty revolutionary goals in brutal attacks on Turjak Castle and Grčarice. The main targets here were Slovenes in anti-communist units (village guards and the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland). Ironically, the communists considered both groups to be collaborators with fascist Italy, but Italian artillery units still attacked them, causing a massacre that eventually led to the formation of the Home Guard army at the end of 1943. When the German military machine finally collapsed in 1945, the communists briefly based themselves in Trieste. However, their goal was not to achieve national objectives but revolutionary ones, including hopes that the Communist Party of Italy would take power (which did not happen). Tito’s army ultimately had to leave Trieste, and the British took over, already drawing the boundary line with Stalin’s sphere of interest. It soon became clear that the slogan “Trieste is ours” would not lead anywhere. This was fully evident in 1954, when Trieste was definitively awarded to Italy. International politics needed to correct the mistake from 1915, so it is not surprising that the final decision to dissolve the Free Territory of Trieste was made in London. And this was already several years after the Yugoslav communist regime had put “British spies” on trial, despite the fact that in 1945 the British were reliable allies of Tito’s regime, even by returning war prisoners from Carinthia. Therefore, the latter had little credit in the return of the Littoral. Quite the opposite: the red regime, which in the local Littoral area included former blackshirts (who, according to the testimony of local residents, still proudly wore their fascist tassels down to their waists just a few years before the end of World War II), brutally persecuted democratically inclined Littoral Slovenians, most of whom were supporters of the Liberation Front. At the same time, they threw members of other nations into the karst pits, something the Western Allies certainly could not overlook. Who could understand this twisted irony? Ergo: Tito did not “annex” the Littoral; rather, he was willing to sacrifice it to Italy if the latter became a communist state.
And finally, let’s not forget that the project of renaming the holiday is aimed at introducing new divisions into the Slovenian space, also with the purpose of diverting attention from more essential issues. The current coalition needs such “banana peels” to throw not only at the opposition but also at critical civil society and the wider Slovenian public. Many will think that the change of a single word is just a dispute over trivial matters. The ruling coalition is counting on exactly this – once they deal with the issue of the Littoral, new distractions will follow. All following the model: divide and rule. Let’s not allow this!
