Page 269 - Hrobat Virloget, Katja. 2021. V tišini spomina: "eksodus" in Istra. Koper, Trst: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Založništvo tržaškega tiska
P. 269
Summary
course toward the ‘Balkan others.’ This boundary appears to be fluid as the
group that arrives earlier feels superior to the group of newcomers. The
former is the group of Slovenian and Italian Istrians who look down on all
immigrants as if they were in a lower category, referring to their own au-
tochthony, more specifically regional autochthony. The next group of ‘us’ is
the group of Italian Istrian townspeople and the first immigrants – those
from the immediate hinterland of Istria and the wider Primorska region,
Trieste and Gorizia. They create a sense of ‘us’ vs. ‘those from there,’ i.e. im-
migrants from other regions of Slovenia who arrived later and en masse.
They did not come into an Italian environment because it had already be-
come Slovenianised. Social boundaries also emerged in the other ethnic
category, the Italian one, which divides itself into ‘autochthonous inhab-
itants’ and newcomers. Because some of them had arrived from the for-
mer Yugoslav republics other than Slovenia, they were nearly ‘erased’ from
the Registry of Permanent Residence, which happened to be the case with
many other immigrants after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. In Istrian
society, these are the ‘ultimate others.’
All of the above different collective memories and social boundaries in-
dicate that Istrian society was a society of ‘strangers either way,’ as Jasna
Čapo Žmegač (2007) described the relationship between co-ethnic native
residents and immigrants in Croatian society. Another term is ‘at home but
foreigners,’ as I describe Istrian society after the ‘exodus’ in a monograph
bearing the same title (Hrobat Virloget, Gousseff, and Corni 2015).
Symbolic boundaries are also seen in the question of feeling at home
in Istria. As demonstrated above, in the aftermath of the ‘exodus’ the
Italians in Istria felt ‘at home, but foreigners’ due to their broken social
ties and the completely new social and linguistic environment. According
to the shared memories, the first immigrants who came from Istria and
the broader Primorska region felt ‘like at home’ because of the environ-
ment and their familiarity with the Italian culture. Nevertheless, there is
a noticeable lack of multi-generational ties with their home town and also
a feeling that the town is ‘soulless,’ which further affects the weak local
identity. The recorded memories reveal stories about discoveries of buried
porcelain as a remnant of the silenced or ignored past, which the newcom-
ers in Istrian towns, like in other ‘population exchange’ places in Eastern
and Central Europe, had to rediscover as an alternative to the hegemonic,
newly-created communist national history. The sea as a powerful element
of the new Mediterranean environment has become a metaphor, reflecting
the immigrants’ lack of homeliness vis-à-vis the vastness of the sea and,
267
course toward the ‘Balkan others.’ This boundary appears to be fluid as the
group that arrives earlier feels superior to the group of newcomers. The
former is the group of Slovenian and Italian Istrians who look down on all
immigrants as if they were in a lower category, referring to their own au-
tochthony, more specifically regional autochthony. The next group of ‘us’ is
the group of Italian Istrian townspeople and the first immigrants – those
from the immediate hinterland of Istria and the wider Primorska region,
Trieste and Gorizia. They create a sense of ‘us’ vs. ‘those from there,’ i.e. im-
migrants from other regions of Slovenia who arrived later and en masse.
They did not come into an Italian environment because it had already be-
come Slovenianised. Social boundaries also emerged in the other ethnic
category, the Italian one, which divides itself into ‘autochthonous inhab-
itants’ and newcomers. Because some of them had arrived from the for-
mer Yugoslav republics other than Slovenia, they were nearly ‘erased’ from
the Registry of Permanent Residence, which happened to be the case with
many other immigrants after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. In Istrian
society, these are the ‘ultimate others.’
All of the above different collective memories and social boundaries in-
dicate that Istrian society was a society of ‘strangers either way,’ as Jasna
Čapo Žmegač (2007) described the relationship between co-ethnic native
residents and immigrants in Croatian society. Another term is ‘at home but
foreigners,’ as I describe Istrian society after the ‘exodus’ in a monograph
bearing the same title (Hrobat Virloget, Gousseff, and Corni 2015).
Symbolic boundaries are also seen in the question of feeling at home
in Istria. As demonstrated above, in the aftermath of the ‘exodus’ the
Italians in Istria felt ‘at home, but foreigners’ due to their broken social
ties and the completely new social and linguistic environment. According
to the shared memories, the first immigrants who came from Istria and
the broader Primorska region felt ‘like at home’ because of the environ-
ment and their familiarity with the Italian culture. Nevertheless, there is
a noticeable lack of multi-generational ties with their home town and also
a feeling that the town is ‘soulless,’ which further affects the weak local
identity. The recorded memories reveal stories about discoveries of buried
porcelain as a remnant of the silenced or ignored past, which the newcom-
ers in Istrian towns, like in other ‘population exchange’ places in Eastern
and Central Europe, had to rediscover as an alternative to the hegemonic,
newly-created communist national history. The sea as a powerful element
of the new Mediterranean environment has become a metaphor, reflecting
the immigrants’ lack of homeliness vis-à-vis the vastness of the sea and,
267
