Borut Klabjan | Science and Research Centre Koper (original) (raw)
Papers by Borut Klabjan
Second World War monuments continue to evoke the Yugoslav past in the contemporary landscape, alt... more Second World War monuments continue to evoke the Yugoslav past in the contemporary landscape, although controversies have been raised in public debates. This chapter analzses changes in Slovenia’s cultural landscape from the 1990s onwards, in order to show different attitudes towards the Yugoslav heritage, and argue that the redefinition of collective identities and the reinterpretation of history are not solely a post-Yugoslav or Eastern European peculiarity but rather a European phenomenon. Similar processes of reinterpreting the past are no less frequent elsewhere, especially in the neighbouring regions that formed a kind of ‘military frontier’ for the West during the Cold War. Therefore, special emphasis is dedicated to historical revisionism in the Italo-Slovene borderland, in which the politics of history are particularly evident. Moreover, this chapter argues that the attitude towards the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in this transnational region should be v...
This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic. I... more This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic. It presents the main foci of the four articles included in this issue, case studies that demonstrate the need for a more complex and multi-faceted analysis of the past, which transcends exclusively national visions.
Questo lavoro e il frutto di una ricerca finanziata dal programma di ricerca e innovazione di Hor... more Questo lavoro e il frutto di una ricerca finanziata dal programma di ricerca e innovazione di Horizon 2020 della Commissione europea Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions dal titolo Adriatic Perspectives: Memory and Identity on a Transnational European Periphery, n. 655609 e, parzialmente, da un progetto di ricerca finanziato dall’Agenzia delle ricerche della Repubblica di Slovenia (ARRS) dal titolo Welfare States Adriatici, n. J6-1800.
Der Grenzraum als Erinnerungsort
his essay analyses Habsburg sites of memory in what is now Italian Trieste/Trst/Triest with the a... more his essay analyses Habsburg sites of memory in what is now Italian Trieste/Trst/Triest with the aim of reconstructing the diferent practices associated with the transnational image of the Empire in diferent time frames. On the basis of archival material, newspapers and adapting Nora's methods to this contested border town, the analysis is concentrated on the popular memory over the long term, from the end of the nineteenth century until the present. Imperial statues and symbols were constructed to testify the belonging of Trieste to the Habsburg Empire. Most of them were removed ater the Great War, however , when the city was annexed to Italy. Some were destroyed while others were restored over the following decades. Especially ater the Second World War discussions started regarding their relocation, causing harsh debates and evoking a variety of ailiations and loyalties in a single urban space. he relocation of these statues draws attention to the city's Habsburg, Central European, and supposed cosmopolitan past and testiies to Trieste's nostalgia for the 'golden age' of the Habsburgs. At the same time, however, they relect the overlapping and multiple loyalties which still shake local memories and are encoded in the urban landscape up to the present.
Borderlands of Memory. Adriatic and Central European Perspectives. Peter Lang. Oxford, 2019
Acta Histriae, 2018
This article analyzes forms of political violence in the area of the former Austrian Littoral in ... more This article analyzes forms of political violence in the area of the former Austrian Littoral in the first years after the Great War. This period was characterized by extreme political instability, economic insecurity and violence. The question of how different societies managed to interact despite volatile and hostile political conditions is of enormous importance to the history of the region. Based on archival research the essay will investigate questions related to ruptures and continuity of violence before and after 1918, forms of military and paramilitary violence and the role of the new Italian authorities in the management of violence until the beginning of the Fascist regime.
Acta Histriae, 2013
This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic in... more This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic in the journal Acta Histriae. It presents the main foci of the four articles included in this issue, case studies that demonstrate the need for a more complex and multi-faceted analysis of the past, which transcends exclusively national visions.
East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 2017
This article discusses local cultures of remembrance of Yugoslav partisans fallen during World Wa... more This article discusses local cultures of remembrance of Yugoslav partisans fallen during World War II in Trieste, now part of Italy, and investigates the role of memory activists in managing vernacular memory over time. The author analyses the interplay between memory and the production of space, something which has been neglected in other studies of memory formation. On the basis of local newspaper articles, archival material, and oral interviews, the essay examines the ideological imprint on the local cultural landscape, contributing to a more complex understanding of memory engagement. The focus is on grassroots initiatives rather than state-sponsored heritage projects. This article argues that memory initiatives are not solely the outcome of national narratives and top-down ideological impositions. It shows that official narratives have to negotiate with vernacular forms of memory engagement in the production of a local mnemonic landscape.
Nationalities Papers, 2018
This article discusses the transformation of the urban space after World War I in the former Habs... more This article discusses the transformation of the urban space after World War I in the former Habsburg port city of Trieste. It reveals the key role played by the newly annexed northeastern Adriatic borderland in the national symbolism of postwar Italy, and it indicates how slogans and notions of Italian nationalism, irredentism, and fascism intertwined and became embodied in the local cultural landscape. The analysis is mostly concentrated on the era between the two world wars, but the aim
of the article is to interpret the interwar years as part of longer term historical developments in the region rather than a break in its history. Looking at how monuments, buildings, and spatial planning in general functioned as ideological and national marking, and how this helped to shape the nation in a multi-ethnic town, this article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of changes as well as continuities in the modern history of south-central Europe. It argues that even if the cityscape had undergone drastic changes in its aesthetics after World War I, its ideological language was rooted in prewar nationalism and continued to support the local urban palimpsest in the Cold War.
This article analyzes the symbolic role and the meaning of the monument of Giuseppe Verdi in Trie... more This article analyzes the symbolic role and the meaning of the monument of Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste. The paper is in Slovene language with abstracts in Italian and English.
Über den Wandel zu einer postnationalen Erinnerungskultur in Europa, 2012
Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2014
Free eprint: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/kfhQDvzf2cXjh8BcVCVh/full
Austrian History Yearbook, 2013
The essay deals with the Czech community in the port-city of nowadays Italian Trieste in the peri... more The essay deals with the Czech community in the port-city of nowadays Italian Trieste in the period of the passage from Habsburg to Italian rule. It takes the Czech case on the shores of the Adriatic as a paradigmatic example to discuss the relationship between citizenship and nationality in the late Habsburg Empire and in the nationalist and later-on fascist Kingdom of Italy.
Austrian History Yearbook, 2011
This essay aims to shed light on the ways in which several empires, states, and nationalist movem... more This essay aims to shed light on the ways in which several empires, states, and nationalist movements competed for political power in the Adriatic space. In particular, it analyzes the ways in which international, national, and local narratives converged in the critical political and economic space of the Adriatic Sea both before and after World War I to justify territorial appropriation. The possibility of geopolitical changes triggered by the Great War whetted the territorial appetites of the new nation-states that had established themselves on the ruins of multinational empires in 1918. At the same time, the same possibilities spurred Italian irredentist aspirations, as Italy directed its imperial policy increasingly toward the East. Hence, the phrase “Scramble for Africa,” which prompted the title of this article, can also be applied to the Adriatic space in the same period.
Second World War monuments continue to evoke the Yugoslav past in the contemporary landscape, alt... more Second World War monuments continue to evoke the Yugoslav past in the contemporary landscape, although controversies have been raised in public debates. This chapter analzses changes in Slovenia’s cultural landscape from the 1990s onwards, in order to show different attitudes towards the Yugoslav heritage, and argue that the redefinition of collective identities and the reinterpretation of history are not solely a post-Yugoslav or Eastern European peculiarity but rather a European phenomenon. Similar processes of reinterpreting the past are no less frequent elsewhere, especially in the neighbouring regions that formed a kind of ‘military frontier’ for the West during the Cold War. Therefore, special emphasis is dedicated to historical revisionism in the Italo-Slovene borderland, in which the politics of history are particularly evident. Moreover, this chapter argues that the attitude towards the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in this transnational region should be v...
This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic. I... more This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic. It presents the main foci of the four articles included in this issue, case studies that demonstrate the need for a more complex and multi-faceted analysis of the past, which transcends exclusively national visions.
Questo lavoro e il frutto di una ricerca finanziata dal programma di ricerca e innovazione di Hor... more Questo lavoro e il frutto di una ricerca finanziata dal programma di ricerca e innovazione di Horizon 2020 della Commissione europea Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions dal titolo Adriatic Perspectives: Memory and Identity on a Transnational European Periphery, n. 655609 e, parzialmente, da un progetto di ricerca finanziato dall’Agenzia delle ricerche della Repubblica di Slovenia (ARRS) dal titolo Welfare States Adriatici, n. J6-1800.
Der Grenzraum als Erinnerungsort
his essay analyses Habsburg sites of memory in what is now Italian Trieste/Trst/Triest with the a... more his essay analyses Habsburg sites of memory in what is now Italian Trieste/Trst/Triest with the aim of reconstructing the diferent practices associated with the transnational image of the Empire in diferent time frames. On the basis of archival material, newspapers and adapting Nora's methods to this contested border town, the analysis is concentrated on the popular memory over the long term, from the end of the nineteenth century until the present. Imperial statues and symbols were constructed to testify the belonging of Trieste to the Habsburg Empire. Most of them were removed ater the Great War, however , when the city was annexed to Italy. Some were destroyed while others were restored over the following decades. Especially ater the Second World War discussions started regarding their relocation, causing harsh debates and evoking a variety of ailiations and loyalties in a single urban space. he relocation of these statues draws attention to the city's Habsburg, Central European, and supposed cosmopolitan past and testiies to Trieste's nostalgia for the 'golden age' of the Habsburgs. At the same time, however, they relect the overlapping and multiple loyalties which still shake local memories and are encoded in the urban landscape up to the present.
Borderlands of Memory. Adriatic and Central European Perspectives. Peter Lang. Oxford, 2019
Acta Histriae, 2018
This article analyzes forms of political violence in the area of the former Austrian Littoral in ... more This article analyzes forms of political violence in the area of the former Austrian Littoral in the first years after the Great War. This period was characterized by extreme political instability, economic insecurity and violence. The question of how different societies managed to interact despite volatile and hostile political conditions is of enormous importance to the history of the region. Based on archival research the essay will investigate questions related to ruptures and continuity of violence before and after 1918, forms of military and paramilitary violence and the role of the new Italian authorities in the management of violence until the beginning of the Fascist regime.
Acta Histriae, 2013
This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic in... more This article introduces a two-number special issue on World War I in the northeastern Adriatic in the journal Acta Histriae. It presents the main foci of the four articles included in this issue, case studies that demonstrate the need for a more complex and multi-faceted analysis of the past, which transcends exclusively national visions.
East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 2017
This article discusses local cultures of remembrance of Yugoslav partisans fallen during World Wa... more This article discusses local cultures of remembrance of Yugoslav partisans fallen during World War II in Trieste, now part of Italy, and investigates the role of memory activists in managing vernacular memory over time. The author analyses the interplay between memory and the production of space, something which has been neglected in other studies of memory formation. On the basis of local newspaper articles, archival material, and oral interviews, the essay examines the ideological imprint on the local cultural landscape, contributing to a more complex understanding of memory engagement. The focus is on grassroots initiatives rather than state-sponsored heritage projects. This article argues that memory initiatives are not solely the outcome of national narratives and top-down ideological impositions. It shows that official narratives have to negotiate with vernacular forms of memory engagement in the production of a local mnemonic landscape.
Nationalities Papers, 2018
This article discusses the transformation of the urban space after World War I in the former Habs... more This article discusses the transformation of the urban space after World War I in the former Habsburg port city of Trieste. It reveals the key role played by the newly annexed northeastern Adriatic borderland in the national symbolism of postwar Italy, and it indicates how slogans and notions of Italian nationalism, irredentism, and fascism intertwined and became embodied in the local cultural landscape. The analysis is mostly concentrated on the era between the two world wars, but the aim
of the article is to interpret the interwar years as part of longer term historical developments in the region rather than a break in its history. Looking at how monuments, buildings, and spatial planning in general functioned as ideological and national marking, and how this helped to shape the nation in a multi-ethnic town, this article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of changes as well as continuities in the modern history of south-central Europe. It argues that even if the cityscape had undergone drastic changes in its aesthetics after World War I, its ideological language was rooted in prewar nationalism and continued to support the local urban palimpsest in the Cold War.
This article analyzes the symbolic role and the meaning of the monument of Giuseppe Verdi in Trie... more This article analyzes the symbolic role and the meaning of the monument of Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste. The paper is in Slovene language with abstracts in Italian and English.
Über den Wandel zu einer postnationalen Erinnerungskultur in Europa, 2012
Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2014
Free eprint: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/kfhQDvzf2cXjh8BcVCVh/full
Austrian History Yearbook, 2013
The essay deals with the Czech community in the port-city of nowadays Italian Trieste in the peri... more The essay deals with the Czech community in the port-city of nowadays Italian Trieste in the period of the passage from Habsburg to Italian rule. It takes the Czech case on the shores of the Adriatic as a paradigmatic example to discuss the relationship between citizenship and nationality in the late Habsburg Empire and in the nationalist and later-on fascist Kingdom of Italy.
Austrian History Yearbook, 2011
This essay aims to shed light on the ways in which several empires, states, and nationalist movem... more This essay aims to shed light on the ways in which several empires, states, and nationalist movements competed for political power in the Adriatic space. In particular, it analyzes the ways in which international, national, and local narratives converged in the critical political and economic space of the Adriatic Sea both before and after World War I to justify territorial appropriation. The possibility of geopolitical changes triggered by the Great War whetted the territorial appetites of the new nation-states that had established themselves on the ruins of multinational empires in 1918. At the same time, the same possibilities spurred Italian irredentist aspirations, as Italy directed its imperial policy increasingly toward the East. Hence, the phrase “Scramble for Africa,” which prompted the title of this article, can also be applied to the Adriatic space in the same period.
Borderlands of Memory. Acriatic and Central European Perspectives, 2019
his essay analyses Habsburg sites of memory in what is now Italian Trieste/Trst/Triest with the a... more his essay analyses Habsburg sites of memory in what is now Italian Trieste/Trst/Triest with the aim of reconstructing the diferent practices associated with the transnational image of the Empire in diferent time frames. On the basis of archival material, newspapers and adapting Nora's methods to this contested border town, the analysis is concentrated on the popular memory over the long term, from the end of the nineteenth century until the present. Imperial statues and symbols were constructed to testify the belonging of Trieste to the Habsburg Empire. Most of them were removed ater the Great War, however , when the city was annexed to Italy. Some were destroyed while others were restored over the following decades. Especially ater the Second World War discussions started regarding their relocation, causing harsh debates and evoking a variety of ailiations and loyalties in a single urban space. he relocation of these statues draws attention to the city's Habsburg, Central European, and supposed cosmopolitan past and testiies to Trieste's nostalgia for the 'golden age' of the Habsburgs. At the same time, however, they relect the overlapping and multiple loyalties which still shake local memories and are encoded in the urban landscape up to the present.
Borderlands of memory. Adriatic and Central European Perspectives. Peter Lang, Oxford, 2019., 2019
Introductory notes on the volume Borderlands of Memory. Adriatic and Central European Perspectives
Borderlands of Memory. Adriatic and Central European Perspectives., 2019
Publicity flyer for the volume Klabjan B. (ed.), Borderlands of Memory. Adriatic and Central Euro... more Publicity flyer for the volume Klabjan B. (ed.), Borderlands of Memory. Adriatic and Central European Perspectives. Peter Lang: Oxford, 2019.