50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF PRIMORSKA INTO SLOVENIA
Speech by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Milan Kucan

Nova Gorica, 14 September 1997



Today is a great day for us. Primorska is celebrating, and with it all Slovenia celebrates. We are commemorating that great day when Slovene Primorska won the right to return to the mother country. The peace treaty signed on 15 September 1947 between the Allies and associated countries with Italy returned to Slovenia almost a third of the territory taken away by the unjust Treaty of Rapallo. This was a long-awaited and exceptionally important day in the life and history of Slovenes and Slovenia. A day which had, and will long continue to have, a decisive influence on the life of the Slovene people and their state, despite the painful fact that a large number of Slovenes still remained cut off from their homeland. Only with the return of Primorska from the source of the Soa to the Dragonja did Slovenia gain the territorial integrity that enables it to live the life of a modern state. Without Primorska there is no Slovenia.

This action, so important for us, was not the fulfilment as a matter of course of the desire for a unified Slovenia that stretched back more than a century, and neither, therefore, its logical conclusion. The realisation of this dream demanded action. Resistance was necessary. It was necessary to fight. The border with Italy - the only border of a Western country to be changed after the war - was not changed because the anti-fascist allies wanted to correct the wrong done to Slovenes by the earlier decision. It was changed because of the anti-fascist and national liberation struggle of the Primorskan Slovenes. This struggle, part of the Partisan resistance struggle of the Slovenes, developed into a recognised military power which was also important for the struggle of the Allies. Its contribution to the Allies’ eventual victory cannot be overlooked. Through effective popular resistance, in particular the Primorskan uprising, the people of the Slovene coastal region proved the invalidity of the Rapallo border even during the war.

The special strength of the Primorskan resistance derived from the instinctive resistance of the Primorskans to the unprecedented de-nationalising violence of fascist Italy, which did not even spare the Italian democrats. The anti-fascism of the Primorskans had a long history, beginning with the burning down of the National House in Trieste. Many of the acts of resistance of the Primorskans had already been paid for in blood. Let us remind ourselves of the sentences and executions of those convicted at the 1st and 2nd Trieste Trials, of Basovizza, of the shameful deception and death of metropolitan and archbishop Sedej, of the poisoning of poet Lojze Bratuž, of TIGR, of the gallant resistance of many Slovene priests who felt a close bond to their own people, of the fighting and underground resistance of an organised core of these priests in the Council of Priests of St. Paul, of the burnt villages and hostages, of torture, of Rab and the other terrible concentration camps. These tragic experiences of fascism are the origin of the Primorskans’ heightened sense of threat to their national identity, because of which they saw national and personal liberation as their first and only priority. All other political and ideological interests secondary to the life of the nation were subordinated to this. Thus the Primorskans joined without hesitation the resistance of the Slovene nation’s Liberation Front. Not for reasons of name or political hue, but because of the real resistance and actions it stood for. Resistance was their only choice. The political hue of authority during this decisive conflict was of secondary importance to everyone.

The thousands of Primorskan men and women, who as Slovenes were forced to flee the fascist violence of Mussolini’s Italy and escape into Slovenia and beyond, to the most distant parts of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and overseas, were among the initiators, organisers and most devoted fighters of the Resistance. Former soldiers of the Italian Army, the Primorskans volunteered en masse for the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia. They became the human and military core of the legendary overseas brigades which in a series of operations in the closing stages of the War effectively aided the liberation of Istria, Trieste and the Slovene coastal area. A central and honourable place in this struggle is held by the 9th Corps, which after the capitulation of Italy combined all the Primorskan Partisan units, and some of the Gorenjskan Partisan units, each of them named after a Slovene poet or hero of the Resistance, into a well organised and effective army which also contained in its ranks the Italian anti-fascists. The 9th Corps defended the freedom of Slovene Primorska during its most difficult years. The Allies relied on it in their operations in Italy. Together with the Yugoslav Fourth Army, another army which could not have existed without Slovenes and Primorskans, it was the factor which later decided the fate of the Primorskans.

The vital goal of the Primorskans was national liberation. They saw union with the Slovene homeland as a guarantee of this wish, and the anti-fascist struggle against the occupying forces as the only means by which they could make it come true. The people of Primorska are the proof that a nation which fights for its existence and dignity cannot be overcome. It might be destroyed but its homeland cannot be taken away. Thus the true hero of the liberation and incorporation into Slovenia was, and remains, the Primorskan people. That people which is a part of the Slovene nation and its struggle for existence and freedom.

The struggle of the Primorskan Slovenes and the decision of the District National Liberal Council for Primorska served as the basis of the decision on 16 September 1943 by the Supreme Council of the Liberation Front on the ‘incorporation of Slovene Primorska to a free and united Slovenia in a free and democratic Yugoslavia’. This resolution was confirmed on 3 October 1943 in Koevje by the Council of Delegates of the Slovene Nation. Slovene Primorska thus became part of the Slovene national territory under the conditions existing at that time. It has remained so to this day. It will remain so as long as we Slovenes, as a community, are able to respect our national interests. All the known and unknown heroes of the resistance to fascism, both before and during the War, who made this possible, deserve our respectful tribute and esteem, as well as the recognition of the state.

The international fate of Slovene Primorska was decided by the Paris Peace Conference. At this conference Slovenia, as a nationally acknowledged constituent part of a Federal Yugoslavia was classed among the victors in the ranks of the United Nations. For the Slovene position at this crucial conference this was exceptionally important since it was the last opportunity to correct at least in part the territorial injustices which the politics of the great nations had inflicted on the small Slovene nation after the First World War. The victorious Slovene nation could no longer be arbitrarily divided. Great banners on almost every house in Primorska at that time declared ‘We don’t want what is not ours, and we don’t give what is ours away’. This slogan, very democratic for the time, expressed the whole nation’s self-confidence, self-respect and pride which was based on the contribution of the Slovenes to the joint victory of the Allies.

On the basis of the National Liberation Struggle and the Peace Treaty, Slovenia achieved, through the London Memorandum, access to the sea and assurances of the protection of the Slovene minority, a bilateral agreement on the border and other bilateral relations issues signed in Osimo, and finally the Rome treaty on the resolution of issues relating to the property of those who had opted to leave the territory of Yugoslavia. This established the legal basis for our cooperation and co-existence with Italy. It is only possible to talk today about Primorska in Slovenia and Slovenia as a country on the legal and political basis of the National Liberation Struggle. The National Liberation Struggle of the Slovene nation therefore remained the clearest moral legitimacy of our nation in the eyes of history and the world right up until the achievement of national independence in 1991, since which time the two achievements have stood side by side.

Behind this historic day that we commemorate today stands a bitter life - the humiliations, hopes, and victorious rebellion of one of the most noble and sorely-tested generations of Slovenes. This generation lived at a time when the dream of having the right to be free and respected in one’s own human and national dignity was an unreachable star in the heavenly firmament of a distant future. But the Primorskans reached for it. The edrmaci and the members of TIGR, the movements concealed from the fascist authorities, their dignity and courage in the face of the guns and in the concentration camps, their Partisan units and fighters from overseas patiently, steadfastly, bravely and effectively preserved a Slovene spirit which had been condemned to death. They created a united movement which was able to make a stand, even an armed stand, against genocidal violence.

For the future of Slovenia, for its international position, it is not the simple incorporation of Primorska that is important. The circumstances of this incorporation are also important. Primorska was not returned with the help of Hitler’s Germany, as the collaborators hoped after the capitulation of Italy, for which reason they tried to broaden the territorial militia from ‘the Ljubljana region’ into Primorska. It was returned mainly thanks to the resistance of the Primorskans themselves.

The way in which Primorska contributed to its own liberation is still important today for Slovenes and the Republic of Slovenia. It will clearly still be important tomorrow. It reminds us that in the life of a nation there are things common to all of us. The inability to recognise a common interest in the differences which must be respected prevents us from being able to live freely, tolerantly and creatively. It uses up our strength and renders us incapable of fulfilling our obligations to our people and the hopes they entrusted to us at the birth of our independent state.

Today we commemorate the decisions and actions, so important for Slovenia, of that generation of Primorskans and Slovenes. We have gathered here in Gorica in part because of the desire that from their ideals, resistance, suffering and hard work, from the persistent, well-planned, well-organised national movement and Partisan struggle, from the concord and mutual support of the people of that time, we can draw the strength and incentive for our own responsibility. For the responsibility which the current generation bears for the present and for the future. A responsibility which includes creative co-existence with our neighbours.

Slovenes and Italians have never in history had a proper opportunity to be good neighbours. Neither side has yet learnt in peacetime to live with the other, rather than merely alongside the other. Now is the right moment for this. This is a time for pan-European reconciliation. It is also a time for us to look beyond the past, which represents the greatest hindrance to our relations. Let us follow the example of the cooperation of the resistance movements of our two nations during the time of the Nazi occupation. Such an important act of spirit and politics will not be possible if we stubbornly insist on recognising only our own version of the truth, rather than discovering and understanding the way the other side sees the truth about this same period. Even though it is unpleasant and aggravating, which is the reason we try to push it from our memories. But it is only fair, especially to the younger generations, that we do remember it. Not because we do not want to forgive, or are unable to, but because forgetting is not the same as forgiving. If part of our memory is missing, including the memory of aggression, military violence, defeat and the consequences of violence, the memory of the sequence and connectedness of events, it is impossible to build solid trust.

We have said it before: democratic Slovenia regrets and rejects as legally and morally intolerable all the extra-judicial executions of defeated collaborators and members of aggressor armies and their civilian collaborators at the end of the War and immediately following it. Slovenia likewise condemns the similar actions done by Slovenes. It cannot and does not want to approve of such retaliation and treatment of the dead. The events that took place at the end of the War, events that are worthy of regret and which must be legally and morally rejected, events to which history still needs to give a realistic dimension, can never be understood and addressed without considering the difficult and tragic past of the Slovene peoples in this territory since at least the First World War. Above all it cannot be separated from the attack by fascist Italy on 6 April 1941 and the occupation and violent annexation of Slovene territory. Let me make this perfectly clear: in the same way that the Rapallo border was the origin and cause of the as yet unmeasured suffering and uncounted losses endured by the Slovene population of Primorska between the Wars, Italy’s aggression in 1941 became the first cause and origin of the terrors which that War brought to Slovenes, and the primary cause of all the tragic events which befell the Italians in this area at the end of the war. We cannot accept the assertion which in this connection is persistently reiterated along the Slovene-Italian border, that at the end of the war there was some kind of "ethnic cleansing" and that there was an ideological settling of the score by the Slovene communists with their enemies. This was still a settling of the score with the supporters of the Fascist aggression of an occupying force. And this cannot be forgotten.

Everyone has to wrestle with his own conscience about the wrongs he has done to others. Forgetting does not make it possible to build the trust which is the condition for a common, peaceful and creative life in the future. This is what both Slovenia and Italy desire and need. In a world of peace, respect for human dignity and the right to a free life, this is their responsibility to their people and their commitment to cooperation and forging of links with Europe. Part of this responsibility involves the respect and special protection of minorities. They are a fact of history and are entrusted to our care - not simply through reciprocity, but because of our own commitment to the principles of democracy. The support given to Slovenia by democratic Italy in its efforts to be included in European and Euro-Atlantic integrations, and the good relations and open borders between the two countries, are an expression of this will and its confirmation.

Let us reflect on the past in order to make the way easier in the future. For the sake of the future we are obliged to carry with us the memory of those tragic times when brother lifted his hand against brother and neighbour against neighbour. For the sake of inner peace, for the sake of the future, and for the sake of our own dignity we are obliged to give every grave its name and to respect each and every tear. Let us forgive, let us sympathise, and let us remember the woes brought by war and political and ideological divisions. Charles de Gaulle wrote in his War Memoirs that ‘Time heals everything. One day the tears will dry, the rage will abate, the graves will blend with the earth. But France will remain.’ Slovenia will also remain. Slovenia and Primorska will remain. Slovenia, whose neighbour is democratic Italy.

Today we are commemorating our great men and women and their actions. Not because we are obsessed with the past, with old considerations and dilemmas, but because it binds us to the future. The great deeds of our predecessors, and our respect for them, cannot appease the hopes and needs of the young generations. But they will give them self-confidence and support when it is their turn to respond to the call of life, the call of the nation, the call of the homeland, to take on their responsibility. Without the models of the past there can be no models of the future. For the young generations who successfully take on the responsibility of public affairs, we hope that their time will be full of opportunity. No-one should feel superfluous or pushed aside, left to his own problems without protection and without a future. Let us together open up a space for the creative cooperation of all generations, for a mutual operation of the enthusiasm and fresh ideas of the young and the experience and prudence of those who are older. We Slovenes are a nation of all generations and all beliefs. Cooperation will give us new strength and the self-confidence to open ourselves as a state to the common plans of a uniting Europe and participate in its formation and realisation. There are not many of us but even today’s commemoration teaches us that the true strength of the Slovene nation, of all the people of our country, is immeasurable whenever we are able to set ourselves to a common goal. This is how it was under fascism, this is how it was during the Second World War and the national liberation struggle, this is how it was during the process of winning independence for the Slovene state. This is how it should be when we want, while preserving our human and national right to be different, to join as an equal member the organised society of European nations and countries which create the civilisation of the third millennium.

This is a good but extremely demanding choice for the future. It is not ideal but it is realistic. For us as for other European nations. But we must respond to its challenges in our own way. We must not squander our European opportunity by chasing after the ideals or responses which others have found for themselves according to their own image. Creating our own opportunities, prosperity and social justice for our people, and above all the preservation of our identity, is our responsibility alone. It is left entirely to our capabilities and is therefore also our right. In this, however, we need, just as others do, understanding, support and cooperation. This is a realistic hope for our new generations.

Ladies and gentlemen, today we are celebrating. But in us there is no triumphalism. This anniversary extends to our neighbours across the border the open hand of cooperation and co-existence, and a common journey into the future. A journey which we make in the expectation that our neighbours will likewise offer us an open hand.

Today we remember the generations who gave us so much more than they received from their predecessors. This is also our duty. Let us try to give the future more than we have received from the past. Now we have the opportunity.