41/2 - Qualestoria. Rivista di storia contemporanea. Anno XLI, N.ro 2, dicembre 2013

The relations between Yugoslavia and Italy after the World War II passed through numerous phases and changes. The Treaty of peace of Paris (1947) and the Memorandum of understanding of London (1954) did not solve all issues between the two states. On the contrary, they left open a set of problems which waited to be solved in the coming period. The present essay describes the different phases of relations between Yugoslavia and Italy which led to the Treaty of Osimo in 1974, from yugoslavian point of view.

After World War II, political and diplomatic relations between Italy and Yugoslavia were characterized by misunderstandings, polemics and hostility, due mainly (though not exclusively) to the Trieste question, which was a long standing territorial dispute that divided the two Adriatic countries for decades. The article, which is based mainly on primary sources (such as Tito’s Archive in Belgrade and Aldo Moro’s Archive in Rome) as well as on relevant literature, argues that Italian-Yugoslav rapprochement, which led to the settlement of the Trieste question in 1975, became possible only due to the crucial domestic changes, which occurred in Italian politics during the Sixties. As the article also argues, it was Aldo Moro, a Christian-Democrat leader, several times Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister between 1963 and 1976, who played the crucial role in getting Italy and Yugoslavia closer. According to Moro, it was necessary to present the agreement with Yugoslavia not as an Italian renounce to zone B, because it was not possible to relinquish something that had not belonged to the country since the end of the War and the Peace Treaty, but to present it as a fi nal acquisition of benefi ts both territorial (zone A with Trieste which the Peace Treaty of 1947 had left outside of the national borders) as well as political and economic, through revival of friendship between Italy and Yugoslavia.

After 1954, Trieste’s de facto return to Italy coincided with the defi nitive partition of the Adriatic border. As a consequence, recurrent political tensions that marked the years between the London Memorandum and the Osimo Treaties were generally neglected and understudied. This article represents a fi rst attempt to fi ll this gap in historical studies and prove that, until 1975, the issue of the ex-zone B remained a «Cold War hotbed» for the Italian government. In exploring the «complex relation» between Rome and Trieste through the lenses of the associative response to the Adriatic detente, this article tells a story of misunderstandings, confl icts, and antagonisms. It investigates the role played by local as well as national patriotic and émigrés associations in upholding the «italianità» of the ex-zone B and ultimately suggests that the neo-irredentist network, while opposing the new logic of international politics, restlessly advocated the defense of the «legitimate» interests of the nation.

The present essay focuses on the long-term complicated events which characterized the Yugoslav- Italian relations, paying special attention to the Eastern borders. Starting point of this process was the diffi cult signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, followed by the many contradictions and uncertainties of Mussolini’s policy towards the neighbour state, which was characterized by the unappeased Italian territorial ambitions in the Balkans and culminated in the Italian occupation of Yugoslavia during World War II. The aftermath of the war was marked on the other hand by the political protagonism of Communist Yugoslavia, which could take part both in the peace talks and in the defi nition of the new borders from a position of strength. The Treaty of Peace signed in Paris sanctioned the loss of quite all the Julian March territory, while leaving at the same time the whole issue unregulated by creating the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT), which was to remain a dead letter. The Memorandum of Understanding signed in London led to the division of the FTT between the two neighbour states. The new international position of Tito together with the new Yugoslav-Italian relations, the Italian internal political affairs and the new world order led to a progressive détente and to the fi nal signing of the Treaty of Osimo, which marked the end of a long period characterized by diffi culties and tragic clashes.

The essay retraces the public debate about the 1975 Osimo Treaty. The pact settled the dispute with Yugoslavia over the Italian eastern boundary. It was portrayed by the Italian center-left government as a great diplomatic achievement and as the fi nal act of the Italian-Yugoslavian appeasement (reconciliation) negotiations through a successful management of Aldo Moro’s «Ostpolitik », fostered by the Democrazia cristiana (DC) party. The treaty provoked however not only harsh tensions within broad sectors of Trieste’s citizenry but also disunity within the local DC party itself. The study examines the stances taken in the Italian parliamentary sessions and in the national press. Furthermore, it focuses on the Trieste’s political debate. Referring to this latter setting, the local community witnessed the emergence of a varied and widespread opposition against certain political, national, economic and environmental provisions of the treaty. The re-emergence of unrelieved political quarrels and myths – including both municipal and national issues – testifi ed the inability of the DC party in convincing a large part of the local public opinion to accept the guidelines for normalization of the city within the wider national strategy of normalization in the Adriatic area. Thus, the Osimo Treaty marked the end of the predominance of the DC in the local political scenery: the party was quickly supplanted by the Lista per Trieste movement.