Quaderni, Vol. XXXVI No. 1, 2025.
Original scientific paper
THE FIRST LAWS ON MINORITY SCHOOLS BETWEEN ITALY AND YUGOSLAVIA AND ITALIAN POLITICAL AND DIPLOMATIC ACTION FOR “THE REMAINERS” (1954-1964)
Arrigo Bonifacio
orcid.org/0000-0002-2349-2998
; Università di Udine
Abstract
It is a well-known fact that education in one’s mother tongue represents one of
the great pillars of the life and survival of a linguistic and national minority. At the
legislative level, the existence of a school system with Slovenian as the language of
instruction in Italy and Italian as the language of instruction in Slovenia and Croatia
is rooted in a series of laws passed in the first half of the 1960s: Italian Law no.
1012 of 19 July 1961, Slovenian Law no. 400-3/62 of 9 April 1962, and Croatian
Law no. 685-1964 of 9 July 1964. The paper, which focuses on Italian political
and diplomatic action on behalf of the Italian minority in Yugoslavia, sheds light on
the fact that the passing of these laws was not only a result of political and legal
processes in Italy and Yugoslavia, but also of tough negotiations between the two
countries, whose sustained diplomatic initiatives were occurring during a period of
high tension and conflict, aimed at obtaining the highest level of legal protection
for their respective minority living in the territory administered by the counterparty
considering the specific political climate of that period.
Keywords
Italian-Yugoslav Relations; Italian Foreign policy, the Italian Minority in Yugoslavia, Yugoslav Laws on Italian schools; Italian Law 1012/1961 on Slovenian schools
Hrčak ID:
336666
URI
Publication date:
23.10.2025.
Visits: 529 *