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Two Exoduses: Croatian (1919-1941) and Italian (1943-1955)
Darko Dukovski
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, Rijeka, Hrvatska
Sažetak
In reference to the Paris Peace Conferences held on 1919-1920 and 1946-1947, i.e. with substantial geopolitical changes taking place in Central and Southeast Europe, exoduses affecting populations remaining outside their parent countries during those changes prove the non-existence of a clear international strategy concerning the rights and status of national minorities. Furthermore, they also prove the precedence of military and political arguments over the ethnic-related arguments. Who from the highest ranks of the world and European political elite really cared about the tens of millions of refugees and exiles who “wandered” across Europe after the WWI and WWII and predominantly found or wanted to find their new “homeland” overseas, in the countries of South and North America, Australia and New Zealand? These conferences barely discussed those issues, let alone offered possible systematic solutions to these problems. The public knows little or nothing about the first so-called “humane” population exchanges between Greece and Turkey in the twenties of the 20th century where the newcomers were not warmly welcomed as expected by the natives. More or less, this was the destiny of nearly all refugees after the WWI and WWII. There are other huge exoduses as well, namely those of Jews and Germans, Poles, Romanians, Greeks, Macedonians, Hungarians, Croats, Italians and others between the two wars, but especially after the WWII. Europe had not yet been sensitised nor interested in the refugee problem.
Exodus of the Croatian population from Istria in the twenties and thirties of the 20th century was triggered and caused by the violent Italian fascist politics of assimilation and expatriation, by the violent nature of the fascist government and the economic deterioration, and by the bleak prospects in the Istrian province. In the forties and fifties there was a mass exodus of the Italian population that was triggered by the unresolved state and legal status of Istria, by the diplomatic struggle for its unification with Croatia and the unresolved national issues. Thus exodus is just one of the consequences and outcomes of a strained international situation and problematic local issues which are, in the end, much more important to common people.
Ključne riječi
exodus; Istria; Croatian populations; Itralian populations; World Wars
Hrčak ID:
35558
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2008.
Posjeta: 5.033 *