"Zajednica Talijana Zadar." It's written beside the doorbell of the Italian Community of Zara.
But in Croatian?
"It was all done by the City."
But why is there no sign?
"We put one up - in Italian. But someone smashed it the very night of the inauguration," sighs Rina Villani, head of the Italian Community of Zara. She adds that the City of Zara quickly offered compensation for the damage. But soon afterwards, the sign was just as quickly removed by order of the authorities: it disrupted the harmony of Palazzo Fozza. Even though it was made of transparent Plexiglas? It was disruptive. But what about all the storefront signs along the same street - "Plemica Borelli Uliza?" Still disruptive.
Some may say: Slavic nationalism doesn't enter into it. Wasn't the Italian Community at fault, for translating the street name into Italian as "Via Conte Borelli?" [translator's note: the Borelli family were Zaratine nobles with origins in Bologna, who transferred to Zara approx. 300 years ago]
Professor Gastone Coen, former schoolmate of Enzo Bettiza [translator's note: Bettiza was a famous Italian politician and writer, forced into exile at the end of WWII despite being fiercely antifascist, and at the time adhering to communism] at Spalato, smiles wryly: "Count Borelli, despite his Bolognese origins, was a Croatian patriot."
"Croat" Borelli has been accorded the honour of keeping his Italian surname, while the great Italian scholar Alessandro Paravia, fierce proponent of the ideals of the Risorgimento, who ended his career as a professor at Torino, has been Croatized as "Alesandra Paravije."
This is Zara, today. Every trace of its past has been carefully erased.
Certainly, the windows of the Benetton Store have cleared the path, at least a little, for a few bars and, particularly, clothing boutiques carrying Italian names. Business is business - and tourists must be catered to. Otherwise: no recognition, zero.
Luigi Federzioni, destined to become President of the Senate and of the Italian Academy, wrote a century ago that, "Venezia never gave birth, in its long and fruitful maternity, to a daughter more resembling herself, nor one more worthy, nor more devoted. Zara is adorable. Zara should be at the forefront of the thoughts of every Italian: for its labyrinth of picturesque alleys teeming with cheerful throngs, for its refined and passionate Venetian-ness."
But in Croatian?
"It was all done by the City."
But why is there no sign?
"We put one up - in Italian. But someone smashed it the very night of the inauguration," sighs Rina Villani, head of the Italian Community of Zara. She adds that the City of Zara quickly offered compensation for the damage. But soon afterwards, the sign was just as quickly removed by order of the authorities: it disrupted the harmony of Palazzo Fozza. Even though it was made of transparent Plexiglas? It was disruptive. But what about all the storefront signs along the same street - "Plemica Borelli Uliza?" Still disruptive.
Some may say: Slavic nationalism doesn't enter into it. Wasn't the Italian Community at fault, for translating the street name into Italian as "Via Conte Borelli?" [translator's note: the Borelli family were Zaratine nobles with origins in Bologna, who transferred to Zara approx. 300 years ago]
Professor Gastone Coen, former schoolmate of Enzo Bettiza [translator's note: Bettiza was a famous Italian politician and writer, forced into exile at the end of WWII despite being fiercely antifascist, and at the time adhering to communism] at Spalato, smiles wryly: "Count Borelli, despite his Bolognese origins, was a Croatian patriot."
"Croat" Borelli has been accorded the honour of keeping his Italian surname, while the great Italian scholar Alessandro Paravia, fierce proponent of the ideals of the Risorgimento, who ended his career as a professor at Torino, has been Croatized as "Alesandra Paravije."
This is Zara, today. Every trace of its past has been carefully erased.
Certainly, the windows of the Benetton Store have cleared the path, at least a little, for a few bars and, particularly, clothing boutiques carrying Italian names. Business is business - and tourists must be catered to. Otherwise: no recognition, zero.
Luigi Federzioni, destined to become President of the Senate and of the Italian Academy, wrote a century ago that, "Venezia never gave birth, in its long and fruitful maternity, to a daughter more resembling herself, nor one more worthy, nor more devoted. Zara is adorable. Zara should be at the forefront of the thoughts of every Italian: for its labyrinth of picturesque alleys teeming with cheerful throngs, for its refined and passionate Venetian-ness."
Accordingly, legend has it that the day the "Serenissima" fell - the 12th of May, 1797 - at the final session of the High Council, Francesco Pesaro shouted at the Doge, Ludovico Manin: "Pick up your Corno [translator's note: horn-shaped crown, symbol of the Doge's power] and move to Zara!"
And when in Zara they were forced to lower the flags of St. Mark, the following 6th of July, Lorenzo Licini narrates that "so stained by tears were the banners" that it seemed "as if they'd been soaked in water."
Is it at all surprising, then, that, as recounted by Oddone Talpo in "For Italy," so many citizens of Zara were protagonists of the events of the Risorgimento? That Austrian police reports of the period are full of the names of Italian patriots? That there were Dalmatians among the followers of Garibaldi who ran to the defense of the Roman Republic, who fought in the battles of Curtatone and Calatafimi, who fought in defense of the Venetian Republic of Daniele Manin? That one of the two daily newspapers in Zara in mid-century was named "The Risorgimento?"
Certainly, however, despite the 54 bombings ("Zara was the Dresden of the Adriatic," wrote Betizza) carried out by the Allies during the Second World War - possibly based on deliberately false intelligence passed to the Americans by Tito's partisans with the aim of wiping out the last stubbornly Italian stronghold of the Dalmatian coast - a few of the jewels that once made Zara a beautifully serene neighbourhood, with its 72 streets and 15 piazzas, are still here.
Beautiful, like the elegant Venetian Paravia Lodge. Or the Church of San Donato. The Church of San Simeone. The Cathedral of Sant'Anastasia. The Terraferma Gate designed by Sammicheli, dominated by a magnificent lion which survived the chisels of Slavic nationalists. The Piazza of the Five Wells. The walls.
But their original names have all been changed. Their identity has been deliberately erased. It seems as if the threat uttered by Vladimir Nazor - president of the Croatian liberation committee - during a 1944 meeting has been carried out: "Italy made Zara great and beautiful not out of love, but for calculated political ends. We will sweep from our land the stones of the destroyed enemy tower, and toss them into the deep sea of oblivion. In place of destroyed Zara there will rise a new Zadar, which will be our revenge in the Adriatic."
The name of Calle Larga, the ancient avenue of Jadera [translator's note: the ancient name of Zara as recorded by the Romans] built at the order of Augustus Caesar, has been "corrected:" Kalelarga.
To find Italian names in Zara you have to go to the old cemetery, watched over by the Madrinato Dalmatico [translator's note: literally "Dalmatian Godmotherate," a non-profit organization founded in 1979 by Dalmatian exiles that maintains the formerly neglected old cemetery of Zara]. As Ottavio Missoni, longtime mayor of the Community of Zara in Exile, writes: "Zara today exists only in the heart and desperate love of its citizens dispersed throughout the world."
What sense is there in erasing a piece of one's own past and then tailoring it to one's own liking? How many cities would love to be able to boast of a Venetian heritage? What future can there be for a country that "resets" its own memory, to the point of recruiting pleasant, polite young ladies as tour guides who show tourists around the Incoronate, but who don't even know the names by which these islands were once known?
And when in Zara they were forced to lower the flags of St. Mark, the following 6th of July, Lorenzo Licini narrates that "so stained by tears were the banners" that it seemed "as if they'd been soaked in water."
Is it at all surprising, then, that, as recounted by Oddone Talpo in "For Italy," so many citizens of Zara were protagonists of the events of the Risorgimento? That Austrian police reports of the period are full of the names of Italian patriots? That there were Dalmatians among the followers of Garibaldi who ran to the defense of the Roman Republic, who fought in the battles of Curtatone and Calatafimi, who fought in defense of the Venetian Republic of Daniele Manin? That one of the two daily newspapers in Zara in mid-century was named "The Risorgimento?"
Certainly, however, despite the 54 bombings ("Zara was the Dresden of the Adriatic," wrote Betizza) carried out by the Allies during the Second World War - possibly based on deliberately false intelligence passed to the Americans by Tito's partisans with the aim of wiping out the last stubbornly Italian stronghold of the Dalmatian coast - a few of the jewels that once made Zara a beautifully serene neighbourhood, with its 72 streets and 15 piazzas, are still here.
Beautiful, like the elegant Venetian Paravia Lodge. Or the Church of San Donato. The Church of San Simeone. The Cathedral of Sant'Anastasia. The Terraferma Gate designed by Sammicheli, dominated by a magnificent lion which survived the chisels of Slavic nationalists. The Piazza of the Five Wells. The walls.
But their original names have all been changed. Their identity has been deliberately erased. It seems as if the threat uttered by Vladimir Nazor - president of the Croatian liberation committee - during a 1944 meeting has been carried out: "Italy made Zara great and beautiful not out of love, but for calculated political ends. We will sweep from our land the stones of the destroyed enemy tower, and toss them into the deep sea of oblivion. In place of destroyed Zara there will rise a new Zadar, which will be our revenge in the Adriatic."
The name of Calle Larga, the ancient avenue of Jadera [translator's note: the ancient name of Zara as recorded by the Romans] built at the order of Augustus Caesar, has been "corrected:" Kalelarga.
To find Italian names in Zara you have to go to the old cemetery, watched over by the Madrinato Dalmatico [translator's note: literally "Dalmatian Godmotherate," a non-profit organization founded in 1979 by Dalmatian exiles that maintains the formerly neglected old cemetery of Zara]. As Ottavio Missoni, longtime mayor of the Community of Zara in Exile, writes: "Zara today exists only in the heart and desperate love of its citizens dispersed throughout the world."
What sense is there in erasing a piece of one's own past and then tailoring it to one's own liking? How many cities would love to be able to boast of a Venetian heritage? What future can there be for a country that "resets" its own memory, to the point of recruiting pleasant, polite young ladies as tour guides who show tourists around the Incoronate, but who don't even know the names by which these islands were once known?
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