Page 135 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

cause he did not meet the medical requirements would also go beyond the scope of this paper,
due to an eye injury. From Koper he travelled so it is necessary to highlight a few key aspects
to Venice where he visited Giovanni Giuriati, a that empirically provide reasons for a better un-
lawyer and president of the Trento - Trieste or- derstanding of the coexistence of symbolism
ganisation because he wanted to join the Ital- with public rituals. Pierre Nora, one of the lead-
ian army as a volunteer. Nazario Sauro had often ing researchers on places of collective memory,
sailed along the eastern Adriatic coast before the stressed the social function of collective memory
war and wanted to join the Italian armed forces for national identity. He made it clear that col-
as an informer and scout. When Italy declared lective memory creates its own specific dynam-
war in May 1915, he was enlisted in the Italian ics, and that memory is not only a fundamental
Royal Navy to fight against the Austrian fleet in element of any community but a clear reflection
Istria and Dalmatia. He took part in some na- of it (Nora 1989). In his work entitled Il culto del
val military operations and was captured by Aus- littorio, G. Gentile examines in depth the na- 135
tro-Hungarian forces on 31 July 1916 while try- tional myth of Greater Italy, which obsessively
ing to escape from the submarine Pulino, which linked its perception of itself as a European su-
ran aground on the island of Galiola, between perpower to the glory of its ancient history. The
the island of Unije and the Istrian peninsula. latter is clearly visible in the urban interventions
As a citizen of Austria-Hungary, he was convict- in Koper in the second half of the 1930s with the
ed of desertion and executed on 10 August 1916 tendency to preserve the town’s historical con-
(Ponis 2016). His conviction by a military court tinuity from the period of the Venetian Repub-
and subsequent execution had a strong public lic. Collective memory links individual experi-
resonance, which was later manifested at the na- ence with public experience, whereby individual
tional level, especially during annual commemo- history is side-lined and public history acquires
rations. In the interwar period, the myth of Naz- its own autonomous narrative, giving way to the
ario Sauro was shaped through metaphors in the political exploitation of memory, which is cer-
public sphere (naming of schools, streets, pub- tainly a fundamental element of mass nation-
lications, etc.), culminating in the erection of a alisation (Mosse 1975). The collective memo-
monument in Koper in 1935. The construction ry is thus formed on the basis of public rituals,
of the monument to Nazario Sauro clearly shows organisations, and cultural and religious acts,
the politics of remembrance imposed by various which are centred on the element of belonging. the historical background to the erection of the monument to nazario sauro in koper ...
actors at national and local levels. The construction of powerful symbols in fascist
Koper, which would serve as tools of social be-
Methodological Approach longing and national cohesion, culminated in
In this article, I try to shed some light on the the erection of the monument to Nazario Sauro.
background and the reasons that led to the erec- The article sheds light on the events and circum-
tion of the monument to Nazario Sauro in Ko- stances that led to the erection of the monument
per. The research was based on various archival to Nazario Sauro in Koper, which were largely
sources and preserved photographic material. In pushed into the background due to the ideologi-
particular, I would like to highlight the influ- cally tinged public media at the time.
ence of fascist ideology and architecture in shap-
ing the urban image of Koper at the time. The From irrendentism to the Subsequent
latter is mainly presented chronologically on the ‘Fascisation’ of the Cultural Landscape
basis of preserved archival material and the sub- The ethno-national conflict in the Austrian Lit-
ject is not dealt with more broadly. The aspects toral, especially in Trieste and Istria, escalated
of forming a place of collective memory through steadily in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
the erection of a monument to Nazario Sauro The irredentist movement, which aspired to the