Page 103 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

sion, not like here because every month they carrots, potatoes…which they took down [to
went to get their pensions and they bought Trieste] … also wood… there was poverty… in the
rice, washing powder, pasta and candy. Here winter men took [the goods] by karjola [wheel-
there were very few sweets, there weren’t as barrow]’ (Interlocutor 4).
many sweets as nowadays when we have hun- As asserted by the historian Vida Rožac
dreds of different kinds of sweets. [Interloc- Darovec, the economic relations and exchange
utor 6] took place until the middle of the 20 century,
th
During my interviews, the aspect of inter- when the establishment of new borders meant
dependce and relations among people in the the Istrian [her study is about the case of Istria,
area emerged. Like in the past, despite the bor- note PK] population was separated from its most
der control and restrictions, communication, ex- important economic centre (Rožac-Darovec
change of goods and commerce was ‘revitalized’ 2006). However, although the border between
or resurfaced. This means not only people from Yugoslavia and Italy marked the border between 103
Yugoslavia went to Italy to sell and buy goods,
ti but also people from the nearby border area in two ‘opposing’ political and economic systems,
socialism and democracy, the exchange of goods
Italy came to Yugoslavia to purchase goods. As
an interlocutor pointed out: ‘Cross-border trade and relations continued:
ta interlocutor mentioned, the situation changed was no interest for other…we had to hide the
We sold only meat, later, after the war…there
was flourishing…’ (Interlocutor 15).
There was also interdependence, and as one
lira [Italian currency], they did not allow…
we were lucky to have some relatives down
in the sixties and the seventies:
di They [Italians, note PK] were coming to there [in Trieste] and we left them there or
they brought them [lira] here. [Interlocutor
buy meat, petrol, dairy products… they were
4]
highly appreciated… it was a situation of mu-
tual benefit… in Lokev [village on the Slo- My mother used to collect milk in the villag-
here paper. one in the morning she would collect it… everyday life in the borderland area between yugoslavia and italy after wwii ...
es, as much as 200 litres of milk… we had a
vene Karst, note PK] there were three, four
carriage at home, and a mule, and at half past
butcheries, it all worked well… not only on
then deliver the milk to all the houses, even
We were more equal…they were coming to
just half a litre… she would take it up to the
our taverns…for them it was the hinterland,
8 floor. [Interlocutor 7]
th
to come here and have a good time… they
also went to the farmers to buy produce. [In-
It was common to buy rice, pasta, wash-
studiauniversitatis terlocutor 16]
Since the 19 century the Istrian peninsula ing powder, but also fruits, which were not easi-
th
ly available in Yugoslavia at the time like orang-
and the Karst (with their respective rural com- es, bananas, strawberries and mandarins. As the
munities) had strong economic ties with the author Silvio Pecchiari Pečarič recalls (2020), he
urban centre of Trieste. The towns in the hin- first saw bananas in Trieste:
terland of Trieste and Istria and the rural sur-
roundings developed important interrelations I like going to Zone A because many things
with the port city. As pointed out by the histori- are not available in Zone B. The shops sell
an Dušan Nećak, Trieste was known as the ‘cen- things I have never seen before, even some
tre of gravity’ of the Slovene hinterland (Nećak yellow fruits I have never seen before in our
2000). In this regard, one interlocutor said his garden that I would like to try. They explain
mum told him that before the war ‘they earned to me that they do not grow here and that
their living by selling their produce… turnip, they are called bananas.