Original scientific paper
Carlo Combi's Views on the History of Istria and its Ethnic Composition
Miroslav Bertoša
Abstract
The Istrian Irredentist Carlo Combi (Koper, 1827 - Venice, 1884), was a lawyer, editor, professor, and newspaper and magazine journalist in Genoa, Milan, Turin, Padua, Rijeka, Koper, Trieste, and Venice, who developed spiritually and intellectually during the Italian Risorgimento at the culmination of a period which historians call the decade of preparation (decenio di preparazione) from 1849 to 1859. During this period the basically justified demands of the majority of Apennine bourgeois Italians who wanted unification of the Italian provinces, were transformed into a desire to annex non-Italian areas with Croatian, Slovenian, and other South Slavic majorities, and to encroach on foreign soil with explicit nationalistic tendencies. Istrian Irredentist emigration, as well as the movement's other activities which survived in Istria despite Austrian censorship and police surveillance, emphasized more and more that the totality of Istrian history and cultural heritage be pronounced Romance and Italian, and hence demanded its separation from Austria and annexation to Italy. Such nationalistic and political sentiments found specific expression in many pseudo-scientific »historical« articles and sketches where Istria was presented as the »Porta Orientale« (Eastern Gate) of Italy. Combi published a miscellany in Koper (1857-59) with this symbolic title, a label first applied to Istria by Cesare Correnti in his almanac, Nipote del Vesta Verde. Combi filled all three volumes with articles - mostly his own - on the geography, ethnology, farming, and culture of Istria, and, according to the noted Istrian historian B. Benussi, »in this way wanted to show that Istria, by its history, its language, its institutions, and its social and civic life was in fact Italian«. Combi reiterated his claims that the »Porta Orientale« was significant for Italy »because of national independence and security of naval movements in the Adriatic«. Although a few eminent scholars - Tršćanin P. Kandler, for example - reacted negatively to the almanac and Combi's presentation of Istrian history, Porta Orientale made a considerable impact in the intellectual and middle-class circles of Istrian and Apennine Italians. Although in 1859 Combi was chief of the Secret National Committee for Trieste and Istria (Comitato Nazionale Segreto per Trieste e l'Istria) he continued his activities in Koper until the middle of 1866, when he had to leave Istria under orders from the police.
In emigre circles, among such eminent figures as Pacifico Valussi, S. Bonfiglio, T. Luciani, A. Coiz, and others, Combi played a significant role. He published articles in the magazines Rivista Contemporanea, Perseveranza, and Politecnico with typical titles: »Etnografia dell'Istria« (The Ethnography of Istria), »La Frontiera Orientale d'Italia e la sua Importanza« (The Eastern Border of Italy and Its Importance), and »Importanza delle Alipi Giulie e dell'Istria per la Difesa dell'Italia Orientale« (The Importance of Alipi Giulie and Istria for the Defense of Eastern Italy), and so on.
Although Combi was a compiler, taking ideas from other thinkers, these views he presented very persistendy. His »historical« and »ethnographic« compilations were improvisations with no scientific basis, but they represented the heart of the pragmatic political goals to which he dedicated himself. This has earned him the epithets of »propagator of the Irredentist idea« and »right-wing patriot« in contemporary Italian historiography.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
219368
URI
Publication date:
29.12.1974.
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