Alessandra Kersevan

Last updated
Alessandra Kersevan
Born (1950-12-18) 18 December 1950 (age 73)
Alma mater University of Trieste
Scientific career
Fields Contemporary history
Institutions Udine, Italy

Alessandra Kersevan (born 18 December 1950) is a historian, author and editor living and working in Udine. [1] She researches Italian modern history, including the Italian resistance movement and Italian war crimes. She is the editor of a group called Resistenza storica at Kappa Vu edizioni, an Italian publisher. Her research have caused a huge hate campaign against her from the political right environment, both institutional and extra-parliamentary.

Contents

Research

Her research (confirmed by the documents found in British archives by the British historian Effie Pedaliu and by the Italian historians Costantino Di Sante [2] and Davide Conti [3] ) pointed out that the memory of the existence of the Italian concentration camps and Italian war crimes in general has been repressed due to the Cold War. [4] In the collective memory of the Italian public and media this has led to historical revisionism, in particular concerning post-war foibe massacres. [5] Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia requested extradition of 1,200 Italian war criminals who however never saw anything like the Nuremberg trial, because the British government, with the beginning of Cold War, saw in Pietro Badoglio a guarantee of an anti-communist post-war Italy. [4] [6]

In the 1950s, two Italian film-makers were jailed [7] for depicting the Italian invasion of Greece. Kersevan attributes this to historic revisionism. [8] She compares historic revisionism in Italy to the situation in France where she notes historic mythology is deconstructed. She gives the French people's understanding of the Vichy period as an example[ clarification needed ].

In 2003, Italian media reported that Silvio Berlusconi had said, "Benito Mussolini only used to send people on vacation". [9] This gave weight and illustrated the thesis made by Kersevan.

The 2012 diplomatic protest by the Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Slovenia

In February 2012, Italian state TV talk show host Bruno Vespa televised a photograph from July 1942 depicting Italian troops killing civilian hostages in the Slovenian village of Dane [10] and claimed that it showed the opposite. Killings like these, ordered by Italian general Mario Roatta, were widespread during the Fascist occupation of Slovenia. [11] Kersevan, who was a guest on the show, objected, but Vespa did not apologise, and Maurizio Gasparri, a former Italian Minister of Communications - and once militant of the far right party Movimento Sociale Italiano - compared Kersevan to the KGB. [12] A protest by the Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Slovenia followed. [13] [14]

Published works

Editorial and co-editor contributions

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rab concentration camp</span> Concentration camp run by Italy during WWII

The Rab concentration camp was one of several Italian concentration camps. It was established during World War II, in July 1942, on the Italian-annexed island of Rab.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian war crimes</span> War crimes committed by Italy

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foiba</span> Type of deep natural sinkhole

A foibajama in South Slavic languages scientific and colloquial vocabulary — is a type of deep natural sinkhole, doline, or sink, and is a collapsed portion of bedrock above a void. Sinks may be a sheer vertical opening into a cave or a shallow depression of many hectares. They are common in the Karst (Carso) region shared by Italy and Slovenia, as well as in a karst of Dinaric Alps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and, Croatia. The foibe massacres, a war crime that took place during and after World War II, take their name from the foibe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Istrian–Dalmatian exodus</span> Post-World War II exodus of ethnic Italians from Yugoslavia

The Istrian–Dalmatian exodus was the post-World War II exodus and departure of local ethnic Italians as well as ethnic Slovenes and Croats from Yugoslavia. The emigrants, who had lived in the now Yugoslav territories of the Julian March, Kvarner and Dalmatia, largely went to Italy, but some joined the Italian diaspora in the Americas, Australia and South Africa. These regions were ethnically mixed, with long-established historic Croatian, Italian, and Slovene communities. After World War I, the Kingdom of Italy annexed Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March and parts of Dalmatia including the city of Zadar. At the end of World War II, under the Allies' Treaty of Peace with Italy, the former Italian territories in Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March and Dalmatia were assigned to now Communist-helmed Federal Yugoslavia, except for the Province of Trieste. The former territories absorbed into Yugoslavia are part of present-day Croatia and Slovenia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gonars concentration camp</span> Concentration camp run by Italy during WWII

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foibe massacres</span> Mass killings against Italians and pro-Italian Slavs

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The Porzûs massacre was an intra-partisan massacre of the Italian resistance during late World War II, on 7 February 1945. It saw the killings of 17 partisans belonging to the Brigate Osoppo, a strongly Catholic formation, by communist partisans of the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica. Four members of Brigate Osoppo were killed when a group of them was ambushed, while the survivors were taken prisoner and summarily executed in the following days. The event is still the object of study and controversy in Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli</span> Italian politician (1892–1987)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe</span> National Day in Italy

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Giovanni Oliva is an Italian historian and politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World War II in the Slovene Lands</span> History of Slovenia, 1941 to 1945

World War II in the Slovene Lands started in April 1941 and lasted until May 1945. The Slovene Lands were in a unique situation during World War II in Europe. In addition to being trisected, a fate which also befell Greece, Drava Banovina was the only region that experienced a further step—absorption and annexation into neighboring Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Hungary. The Slovene-settled territory was divided largely between Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, with smaller territories occupied and annexed by Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Podhum massacre</span> 1942 mass murder of Croat civilians

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References

  1. 1 2 Paolo Rumiz, Moni Ovadia (2008-04-13). "Lager d'Italia - Il coraggio che non abbiamo" (PDF). La Repubblica. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-13. Retrieved 2012-03-12.
  2. Di Sante, Costantino (2005) Italiani senza onore: I crimini in Jugoslavia e i processi negati (1941-1951), Ombre Corte, Milano. (Archived by WebCite®)
  3. Conti, Davide (2011). "Criminali di guerra Italiani". Odradek Edizioni. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  4. 1 2 Effie G. H. Pedaliu (2004) Britain and the 'Hand-over' of Italian War Criminals to Yugoslavia, 1945-48. Journal of Contemporary History. Vol. 39, No. 4, Special Issue: Collective Memory, pp. 503-529 (JStor.org preview)
  5. "Article". Senza Soste. 2010-02-10. Retrieved 2012-03-09.
  6. Rory, Carroll (2003) Italy's bloody secret. (Archived by WebCite®), The Guardian , London, UK, June 25
  7. Rory, Carroll. Italy's bloody secret. The Guardian. (Archived by WebCite®), The Guardian, London, UK, June 25, 2003
  8. Alessandra Kersevan (2008) Foibe - Revisionismo di stato e amnesie della repubblica. Kappavu, Udine.
  9. Survivors of war camp lament Italy's amnesia, 2003, International Herald Tribune
  10. "Italian state TV has been manipulating with the photo of Slovene hostages (Slovene: RAI manipuliral s fotografijo slovenskih talcev". RTV Slovenia. 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2012-03-09.
  11. James H. Burgwyn: "General Roatta's war against the partisans in Yugoslavia: 1942", Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Volume 9, Number 3, September 2004, pp. 314-329(16), link by IngentaConnect
  12. Smargiassi, Michele (23 March 2012). "Non dire falsa testimonianza" [You shall not give false testimony]. La Repubblica (in Italian). Rome . Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  13. "Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Slovenia protests against the falsification of historical facts". RTV Slovenia. 2012-02-15. Retrieved 2012-03-09.
  14. Talk show "Il giorno del ricordo - Porta a Porta", emitted by the Italian state-owned TV station RAI, official website
  15. Alberto Bobbio (2004-02-08). "Pulizia etnica all\'italiana". Famiglia Cristiana. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved 2012-03-12. (Archived by WebCite®)
  16. "Foibe - Revisionismo di stato e amnesie della repubblica". Kappa Vu. Archived from the original on 2012-04-19. Retrieved 2012-03-09.