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Abstract
The heritage of World War II left an indelible mark on the relations between Italy and Yugoslavia. During the détente period, however, these two countries were able to overcome many historical resentments and established a fruitful co-operation in Cold War Europe. This article questions the engagement on state, regional and municipal levels and analyses the role of twin cities in this multilayered process. With the help of primary sources, we learn how the heritage of World War II played an important role in building new forms of post-war co-operation. In fact, post-war twinning is often the result of shared anti-fascist activities from the war years. However, this is not confined to communist municipalities or 'red' regions in Italy on one side, and socialist Yugoslavia on the other, but is a more fluid and flexible practice which involves historical ties, geographical positions, personal capacities and economic needs.

Politics of Memory in Slovenia and in the Northern Adriatic between national practices and international entanglements This essay analyzes the politics of memory in Slovenia and in the Italo-Slovene borderlands from the 1990s until the present. It does so by questioning the transformation of the memorial landscape in Slovenia and it illustrates how the calls for a national reconciliation brought to the revision of historical narratives in the public space. However, using a decentered and comparative perspective, it demonstrates that this phenomenon is not peculiar to Slovenia as a post-socialist country, but it represents a common European feature. The case of the Italo-Slovene borderland shows that if politics of memory in post-Cold War Slovenia are as they are, is not only because of the country's socialist past, but they are framed in close international interaction with mnemonic narratives in neighboring Italy.

In recent times many scholars have used comparative approaches and transnational examinations to show how national frameworks of memory are not self-sufficient and impermeable. In this article, by presenting the case of Slovenia and Italy, I will argue that politics of memory in post-socialist societies are not per se unique or different from those in parts of what is generally considered Western Europe. Moreover, if post-Cold War politics of memory in Slovenia are as they are, it is not only because of the country's socialist past. Furthermore, thanks to a transnational focus on the borderland, which is today shared by Slovenia and Italy, I will argue that the redefinition of collective identities and the reinterpretation of history after 1991 are not solely a post-Yugoslav or Eastern European peculiarity but rather a European phenomenon. ; Questo lavoro è il frutto di una ricerca finanziata dal programma di ricerca e innovazione di Horizon 2020 della Commissione europea Marie Skłodowska-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.

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.

Published: 10 December 2018 ; 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.

This essay focuses on the memorial landscape and on the on-going reinterpretations of the traumatic events of World War II in Slovenia and in its western borderland. The area is part of the European Union and nowadays shared by Slovenia, Croatia and Italy. In the 20th Century it often functioned as a powerful symbolic boundary, one in which several key axes of European and global symbolic geography intersect: the West and the East, German, Latin and Slav Worlds, Europe and the Balkans, fascism and anti-fascism, liberal democracy, capitalism and communism. With the aim to overcome dichotomic ideological and ethnic/national explanations, grassroots memory cultures are analyzed. This shows us first, that politics of memory are not a merely imposition of the state in a unilateral top-down direction, and secondly, how state-sponsored initiatives have to negotiate in a border context. Here, Slovenia and the nowadays Italo-Slovene borderland is thus used as a tool to investigate global processes of remembering. ; This work was supported by the Research Executive Agency [655609]

This article is part of the special section titled From the Iron Curtain to the Schengen Area, guest edited by Wolfgang Mueller and Libora Oates-Indruchová. 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.

"Für eine neue Rolle, die Mitwirkung am Welthandel, wurde Triest am Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts von der Habsburgermonarchie als Standort ausgewählt. Im Laufe von zwei Jahrhunderten entwickelte sich die Stadt zu einem wichtigen Handelszentrum. Diese Rolle wünscht sich auch das heutige Triest, das wieder ein wichtiger Referenzpunkt an der Adria für den mitteleuropäischen Raum werden möchte." (Autorenreferat)