Page 112 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

Introduction

n 2005 and 2008 two seemingly minor build-
1
ings were demolished in Koper/Capodistria,
Ia seaside town in northern Istria, Slovenia.
The buildings were the Janko Premrl Vojko pri-
mary school and another primary school named
after Pinko Tomažič. The site of the former is
currently an empty void in the heart of the old
town. Meanwhile the latter building, located
on the outskirts of the town, has been replaced
by a modern, box-shaped building that now ac-
112 commodates the pupils and teachers of the two
demolished schools. The two old buildings, Figure 1: Demolition of the Janko Premrl Vojko
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 11 (2023), številka 2 / volume 11 (2023), number 2
built after the end of World War II in the years Primary School, 14 May 2008 (source: Personal ti
that represented a turning point in the history Archive of Miloš Beltram)
of the town and Istria as a whole, were demol- space in particular. Observing the development
ished without any analysis of their heritage val- of schools – both as institutions and as architec-
ues. The demolitions did not provoke much pub- ture – can thus give us insight into the socio-his- ta
lic debate at the time. However, aversion to and torical dynamics of the region in question. The
regret about these irreversible interventions has challenge is even greater in a region with a his-
come to light in recent years on social networks. tory of ethnic and ideological conflict like Istria.
The unresponsiveness of society at the time of From the point of view of Slovenian national
the demolitions raises many questions about the identity, establishing an education system after di
significance of this architectural heritage for the World War II represented the basis for empow-
local community, and its perception of the post- ering the Slovenian population. However, from
war history of the town and region. These ques- an external perspective the construction of the
tions represent the starting point of the present Slovenian-centralist school system may be per-
paper. ceived as one of Althusser’s ideological state ap-
In his seminal classic work Louis Althuss- paratuses through which the new Slovenian au-
er (2018) singled out education as the first of the thorities established their political, national, here
state’s ideological apparatuses. The same role has ideological and cultural sovereignty on the terri-
been attributed to urbanism and architecture by tory acquired after World War II.
several authors (e.g. Rotar 1980), following Hen- The primary school named after Janko
ri Lefebvre’s (1992) trialectic of production of Premrl Vojko, which operated in the centre of
Koper between 1951 and 2006, was the embod-
1 Since the end of World War II the city has two official iment of the turbulent socio-political, demo-
names, Koper in Slovenian, and Capodistria in Italian,
as the area is officially bilingual. The denomination Cap- graphic and ethnic changes in Istria following
odistria, written also in different forms in earlier periods World War II. The school’s history, activities
(Capo d’Istria, Caput Histriae etc), derives from the Mid- and social pulse are discussed here as a case-study
dle Ages and was the official name of the city throughout
its history, especially during the rule of the Venetian Re- with the help of archival material from the Kop-
public (1279–1797), and during the short French and later er Regional Archive and existing studies. We fo-
Austrian rule in the 19th century. The Slovene denomina-
tion, Koper, was also present in the later centuries, yet of- cus on the early post-war years, the period of the studiauniversitatis
ficially in use only during the Austrian rule and later after temporary buffer-state between Italy and Slove-
WWII. Currently, the city officially has both names, how- nia, the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT) (1947–
ever, due to space limitations we only use the Slovene one
here, with all due respect for the city’s bilingual identity. 1954), and especially on the period immediately