L’Italia vista dalla Jugoslavia (1945-1954)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate how Italy and Italians were depicted in post WWII Yugoslavia. It’s shown how the corpus of national stereotypes developed in the Nineteenth century was used later on. The research points out that the Yugoslav elite confronted the border crisis it had with Italy through a dual strategy. On one hand the official statements and the press mirrored the official ideology and described facts in political terms, as if it was a skirmish between communism and an imperialistic regime. By the other side the research shows that in 1951-1953, as a toll to support the Yugoslav diplomatic action for the “internationalization” of Trieste, a specific bland of propaganda was developed, which borrowed from old anti venetian stereotypes and updated them according to the new political and international situation.