Gorizia (Gorica in Slovenian, Gurize in standard Friulian and
Guriza in the local variant, Görz in German, Gorisia in bisiacco) is
an Italian town of 34 034 inhabitants in the special statute region
of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
The city forms an urban area
integrated also administratively with the Slovenian municipalities
of Nova Gorica and San Pietro-Vertoiba. The territory of the
Slovenian city of Nova Gorica, also located along the Isonzo river,
was an integral part of the municipality of Gorizia until 1947, when
Istria and a large part of Venezia Giulia were ceded to Yugoslavia
following the Treaty of Paris. Due to its position and its history,
Gorizia is one of the points of conjunction between the Romance,
Slavic and Germanic cultures. Like the rest of the Gorizia area, the
city falls both within the boundaries of historic Friuli and in
those of Venezia Giulia.
Gorizia is located on the extreme eastern outskirts
of the Friulian plain on the border between Italy and Slovenia.
Located on the slopes of the Karst, a rocky limestone plateau
belonging to the Dinaric Alps, at the confluence of the valleys of
the Isonzo and Vipacco rivers, natural communication routes between
East and West already in ancient times.
Gorizia is bathed by
the Isonzo river, a watercourse that flows for 2⁄3 in the Slovenian
Gorizia and for 1⁄3 in the province of Gorizia. The Isonzo enters
Italian territory right near Gorizia. Its maximum flow was recorded
in 1924 in Salcano (a fraction of Gorizia), when it reached 2 500 m³
/ s. In particular, the Vipava River flows into the Isonzo in
Savogna d'Isonzo, an Italian municipality located south of the city.
Along the Isonzo river, opposite Gorizia over the border between
Italy and Slovenia, is the Slovenian city of Nova Gorica, whose
territory was an integral part of the municipality of Gorizia until
1947, when Istria was largely of Venezia Giulia were ceded to
Yugoslavia following the Treaty of Paris, which was the consequence
of the defeat of Italy in the Second World War.
The city
overlooks the Isonzo plain, the name of the portion of the Po Valley
next to the Isonzo river, and is surrounded by the Collio hills,
which are known for the cultivation of vines and for the production
of quality wines. In the Collio, wines are produced, to which the
DOC "Collio Goriziano" is assigned, which are also known
internationally. In the Collio cherries are produced and, after
decades of neglect, the cultivation of the olive tree has been
rediscovered.
Gorizia is sheltered to the north by
the mountains and therefore is not affected by the cold northern
winds: despite this, being almost at the mouth of the pre-alpine and
karst passes, it is subject to the bora, a katabatic wind from east
/ north-east which blows with particular intensity. This wind, which
is generally dry, can sometimes bring heavy snow. The bora that
blows on Gorizia, since it comes from the valley of the Vipava
river, meets the obstacle of the hills east of its inhabited center
before the city, which considerably mitigates its fury.
The
climate of Gorizia, relatively temperate, is however influenced by
the fresh and humid winds coming from the south-west, which
penetrate the Isonzo plain, the lowland towards which the city
opens. In summer, thunderstorms and hailstorms are quite frequent:
the sirocco is not uncommon, which is usually followed by abundant
rainfall. Based on the thirty-year reference average 1971-2000, the
average temperature of the coldest month, January, is +3.3 ° C,
while that of the hottest month, July, is +23.0 ° C.
Ancient age
More or less in the area where the city of
Gorizia is currently located in Roman times, two vicissitudes stood
since the 1st century BC, Castrum Silicanum, from which the modern
Salcano was derived, and Pons Aesontii or (Pons Sontii),
corresponding to the modern locality of Mainizza, as indicated on
the Tabula Peuntingeriana.
Here stood a mansio of the via
Gemina at the point where this Roman road, which connected Aquileia
to Aemona (modern Ljubljana), crossed the Isonzo river. It is
possible that Noreia, the capital of the ancient Noric region, was
located in the area in the 15th century BC.
Medieval age
The name of Gorizia appears for the first time in the year 1001 in
the aforementioned imperial donation that Otto III of Saxony had
drawn up in Ravenna, through which the Saxon ruler ceded the castle
of Salcano and the villa called Goriza to Giovanni IV of Ravenna ,
patriarch of Aquileia, and Guariento, count of Friuli.
The
locality of Goriza is mentioned later, in 1015, in another document,
with these words: Medietatem unius villae que sclavonica lingua
vocatur Goriza (it. "The half of the village which in the Slavic
language is called Goriza"). The Eppenstein family ruled Gorizia
until 1090. From that date, the city was governed first by the
Mosburgs, then by the Lurngau, a family originally from Val Pusteria
related to the Palatine counts of Bavaria.
With them the
population of the city grew, consisting mostly of Friulians
(artisans and merchants), Germans (employed in the public
administration) and Slovenes (farmers), with the latter settled
mainly in the peripheral areas and in the neighboring rural centers.
The bellicosity of the counts of Gorizia, together with a precise
marriage policy.
This allowed the county, in its period of maximum splendor
(corresponding to the second half of the 13th and the first decades
of the 14th century) to extend over much of north-eastern Italy (so
much so that it also included the cities of Treviso for a short
period and Padua in Veneto), on the western part of today's
Slovenia, on the so-called "inner" Istria (the county of Pazin) and
on some areas of modern Austrian territory (Tyrol and Carinthia).
The counts had established their habitual residence in the Austrian
city of Lienz, while Merano was the main state mint.
During
the reign of Henry II (1304-1323), the town of Gorizia, which by now
had acquired typically urban connotations, obtained the title of
city. In the first decades of the following century, the absorption
of the patriarchal principality of Aquileia by the Republic of
Venice led the counts of Gorizia to adopt a balanced policy between
the House of Habsburg and the Venetian republic. The political step
towards the Republic of Venice was forced by the fall of the
patriarchate of Aquileia. Gorizia in fact asked the Venetian doge
for the feudal investiture (1424) for the comital territories
previously granted to the Count by the Patriarch.
With this
act Gorizia found himself in the ambiguous position of vassals of
the Republic of Venice, the successor state of the Patriarchate, as
regards some Friulian fiefs beyond the Isonzo, and vassals of the
Habsburg Emperor as regards the territories historically
constituting the ancient county . In 1455 the districts not included
in the defensive walls of the southern area (the so-called Lower
Town), which were partly inhabited by Slovenians, were incorporated
in Gorizia through the extension of city privileges.
Membership of Austria
At the end of the 15th century, the last
count of Gorizia, Leonardo of Gorizia, died in the city of Lienz
without descendants, leaving the county to Maximilian I of Habsburg.
The act, considered invalid by the Venetians who claimed the
annexation of the county of Gorizia to the Republic of Venice for
ancient rights of vassalage, was the casus belli that prompted the
Venetians to denounce the violation of these ancient treaties.
Any Venetian attempt to take over the city, even by force, was
in vain. Only between April 1508 and August 1509 the army of the
Republic of Venice, then at war also against Louis XII of France,
managed to occupy the lower part of the city, but not the castle of
Gorizia. A few months later, following the Venetian defeat in the
battle of Agnadello (14 May 1509) by French arms, the occupation
force of the Republic of Venice was forced to abandon Gorizia.
Since then Gorizia was part of the hereditary lands of the House
of Habsburg, first as the capital of the homonymous county and later
as the capital of the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca. The
latter, from the mid-nineteenth century, became part of the Austrian
Littoral, an administrative region of the Austrian Empire born in
1849 from the suppression of the previous Kingdom of Illyria. The
title of Count of Gorizia passed to the sovereigns of Austria until
1918, except for a brief interruption: the French occupation, which
took place from 1809 to 1813 with the inclusion of the city in the
Illyrian Provinces, governorate created by Napoleon in the of the
First French Empire.
As a consequence of the third Italian
war of independence, which led to the annexation of Veneto to the
Kingdom of Italy, the Austrian imperial administration, for the
whole second half of the nineteenth century, increased the
interference on the political management of the territory to
mitigate the influence of the Italian ethnic group, fearing the
irredentist currents. During the meeting of the Council of Ministers
on November 12, 1866, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria outlined a
wide-ranging project aimed at the Germanization or Slavization of
the areas of the empire with an Italian presence:
"His
Majesty has expressed the precise order that action be taken
decisively against the influence of the Italian elements still
present in some regions of the Crown and, appropriately occupying
the posts of public, judicial, masters employees as well as with the
influence of the press , work in South Tyrol, Dalmatia and on the
coast for the Germanization and Slavization of these territories
according to the circumstances, with energy and without any regard.
His Majesty reminds the central offices of the strong duty to
proceed in this way with what has been established. "
(Franz
Joseph I of Austria, Council of the Crown of 12 November 1866)
The policy of collaboration with the local Slavs, inaugurated by
the Tsaratino Ghiglianovich and the Raguseo Giovanni Avoscani, then
allowed the Italians to conquer the municipal administration of
Ragusa in 1899. In 1909, however, the Italian language was banned in
all public buildings and Italians they were ousted by the municipal
administrations. These interference, together with other actions to
favor the Slavic ethnic group considered by the empire most loyal to
the crown, exasperated the situation, feeding the most extremist and
revolutionary currents.
World War I
The First World War
for Gorizia began in the summer of 1914, due to its belonging to the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, while the Kingdom of Italy entered the war
in May 1915. The first Gorizia victim of the conflict is considered
the Countess Lucy Christalnigg, who was killed by mistake at a
checkpoint of the kaiserlich-königliche Landwehr in Serpenitza while
traveling from Klagenfurt to Gorizia on behalf of the Red Cross in
August 1914.
During the First World War, paying a
considerable tribute in terms of human lives, including the
so-called Gialli del Calvario (so called for the color of the
insignia), the Italian troops entered Gorizia for the first time in
August 1916.
In the battle of Gorizia (9-10 August 1916) 1
759 officers and about 50 000 soldiers on the Italian side lost
their lives; on the Austrian side, 862 officers and about 40,000
soldiers died, therefore a very high number of deaths. In this
climate, the well-known popular song O Gorizia tu sei maledetta was
composed, written by an anonymous military man and then became part
of the anarchist and anti-militarist tradition. Anyone caught
singing this song was accused of defeatism and shot. The original
version was transcribed by Cesare Bermani.
The taking of
Gorizia was also praised by contemporaries, as evidenced by the poem
La Sagra di Santa Gorizia by Vittorio Locchi, published for the
first time in 1918, which had numerous reprints.
Taken back
by the Austrians following the victory of Caporetto (October 1917),
the city was definitively occupied by the Italian Royal Army only
after the war ended, on 7 November 1918. Within the General
Commissariat of Venezia Giulia, the Italians initially preferred not
to upset a multi-centennial and efficient administrative fabric. The
County simply changed its name, immediately after the official union
with the Kingdom of Italy (10 September 1919), in the province of
Gorizia.
The transition to Italy
The fate of the province
of Gorizia, created in 1919, was marked by the results of the
political elections of 1921, where four Slovenian deputies and an
Italian Communist deputy were elected, which stirred up the
nationalist forces, which began to push for a normalization of the
local Julian administration, so that it was brought back to the
general model of the state. The newborn province of Gorizia was then
suppressed in 1923. This suppression was therefore caused by
administrative and political reasons.
With the advent of the
fascist regime, when democratic freedoms had been eliminated and the
government's fist was sufficiently firm, Gorizia was initially
assigned to the province of Friuli (1923), but already in 1927, with
the reorganization of the provincial districts, it became the
capital of the new province of Gorizia, with slightly different
borders compared to those of 1923: in particular, compared to the
latter, the neighboring municipalities of Lucinico, Piedimonte del
Calvario, Salcano, San Pietro di Gorizia and Sant'Andrea di Gorizia
were aggregated and , in 1928, the neighboring municipality of
Vertoiba.
Between 1927 and 1947 the province of Gorizia was
therefore extended over a significantly wider territory than the
current one, since it also included the upper and middle valley of
the Isonzo river, with its tributaries, up to Gradisca,
corresponding only in part to the old province of Gorizia suppressed
in 1923.
The jurisdiction of the new province of 1927 still
included the entire eastern Friuli, but this time it was deprived of
the Bisiacaria and Grado, united to the province of Trieste, and the
district of Cervignano, which remained in the Province of Friuli.
The reconstruction work was carried out mainly during the Fascist
period. New roads were opened and a modest industrial area was
developed. A new cemetery was built, between Sant'Andrea and Merna,
and the first functioning structures of the Gorizia airport, still
today dedicated to Amedeo Duca d'Aosta, the hero of Amba Alagi.
A health citadel was built to the south-east of the city center,
including the hospital where, in the sixties, the doctor Franco
Basaglia, founder of the modern concept of mental health, reformer
of the psychiatric discipline in Italy and inspirer of the so-called
Law Basaglia (n. 180/1978) who introduced an important legal
revision of psychiatric hospitals in Italy and promoted significant
transformations in the treatments in the area.
As far as
inter-ethnic relations are concerned, since the mid-twenties the
fascist regime had begun to apply the Italianization policy of the
Slovenes present in the territory to Gorizia, as in the rest of
Venezia Giulia. First the Italianization of toponyms was started;
then, from 1927, surnames were also introduced and, in 1929, the
banning of teaching in Slovenian from all public schools in the city
of all levels.
In the city, the Slovenian language was still
used for some years in diocesan religious institutes, thanks to the
protection and personal prestige of the archbishop of Gorizia
Francesco Borgia Sedej, an advocate of inter-ethnic dialogue and the
highest point of reference for the Catholics of Gorizia. In 1931,
immediately after Sedej's resignation and death, Slovenian was
expelled, as a vehicular language, even from diocesan schools.
World War II
This vexatious policy, accompanied by violence
and oppression (including the assassination of the Slovenian
composer Lojze Bratuž in a fraction of Gorizia), had serious
repercussions in the already deteriorated relations between
nationalities and aroused the ire of Slovenian anti-fascist
organizations such as the TIGR. Starting from 1941, with the
invasion of Yugoslavia during the Second World War, the fascist
authorities proceeded to internment in concentration camps (Arbe
concentration camp, Gonars concentration camp, Visco, Poggio Terza
Armata), of a a certain number of "foreigners" (or "alloglots")
residing both in the city and in its province, many of whom never
returned, decimated by disease and starvation.
During the
Second World War, immediately after the Badoglio proclamation of 8
September 1943 and the consequent Italian surrender, the Gorizia
area was the scene of clashes between the two former Italian and
German allies, who took their name from the capital city, the battle
of Gorizia (September 1-26, 1943). For a short period (1943-1945) it
was placed under the German military administration and included in
the Austrian Littoral, a governorate which in turn was placed under
the direct control of Friedrich Rainer, Gauleiter of Carinthia.
With the military occupation of the city by the partisans of the
9th Slovenian Corps, in Gorizia in May 1945 after World War II
ended, the purges began, which reached their peak between 2 and 20
May, against the opponents, or possible opponents to the regime
(especially Italians, but also Slovenians). There were 332 missing
in the Gorizia area, of which 182 civilians and 150 soldiers, a
figure of 665 people at the end of the historical examination. Most
of the deportees were killed in various parts of Yugoslavia, in
particular in Ljubljana, or transported to the interior of
Yugoslavia.
At the end of the conflict, with the Treaty of
Paris, the municipality had to give about three fifths of its
territory to Yugoslavia, with 15% of the resident population.
However, the historic center and most of the urban area of the
city remained in Italian territory.
The second post-war
period and the recovery
However, part of the periphery located to
the north and east remained in Yugoslav territory (the hamlets of
Salcano, San Pietro di Gorizia and Vertoiba), as well as a large
part of its province. The border crossed a semi-central area of
the city, leaving in the Slovenian part, in addition to the
aforementioned hamlets, many buildings and structures of public
utility.
Among the latter, the Gorizia Montesanto railway station which
was located on the Transalpina railway line connecting the "Austrian
Nice", as Gorizia was called, to Central Europe. The square in front
of the station, divided between the two nations, has since 2004 been
made open to visitors on both sides after the demolition of the
Gorizia Wall which occurred with the entry of Slovenia into the
European Union. At the center of it there is now a mosaic and a
commemorative metal plate that marks the layout of the border
between the two states.
In the part of the city in Slovenian
territory Nova Gorica was built in the fifties, by the will of the
Yugoslav political leadership, as the territories of the province of
Gorizia annexed to Yugoslavia, closed the border with the West
considered enemy, were left without an administrative center and
economic towards which they could gravitate.
Compared to
Berlin, cut in two by the border protected by towers armed with
machine guns, Gorizia represented, in the second half of the forties
and in the fifties, a clandestine crossing for many Yugoslav
citizens and nations belonging to the Warsaw Pact, which then
integrated perfectly in the economic and social fabric of the city.
After Tito's break with the Soviet bloc countries in 1948,
Gorizia, despite experiencing several moments of tension (in 1953
Tito threatened to take Gorizia and Trieste with arms, gathering
hundreds of thousands of veterans in Okroglica, less than 10 km from
the city), saw relations gradually normalize, above all thanks to
the agreements of Udine, with which the "pass" was introduced which
simplified the procedures for crossing the border.
During the
sixties Gorizia started a good neighborly relationship with Nova
Gorica, which arose in the decade immediately following the
definition of the border in 1947: in fact, cultural and sporting
encounters have often brought the two cities into contact and
united. The presence of a Slovenian community in Gorizia necessarily
catalyzed the collaboration. The Osimo agreements, definitively
sanctioning the border status quo, contributed a lot to the
definitive reconciliation with Yugoslavia and then with the
subsequent Republic of Slovenia.
The new millennium
On 21
December 2007, Slovenia entered the Schengen treaty in effect and
the cities of Gorizia and Nova Gorica are today without interposed
borders. The ever stronger bond that unites them has allowed the two
cities to start a process of forming a single development pole.
In this regard, projects of mutual interest and a series of
bilateral or multilateral meetings have recently been finalized that
involve not only the two municipalities, but also other neighboring
centers. Periodic meetings are also organized between the municipal
councils of Gorizia, Nova Gorica and San Pietro-Vertoiba to develop
common strategies and create new synergies for the economic
development of the region. Gorizia in recent years has been
experiencing a slow but constant rebirth at both an infrastructural
and social level.