The foibe massacres (; ; ), or simply the foibe, refers to ethnic cleansing, mass killings and deportations during and immediately after World War II, mainly committed by Yugoslav Partisans and OZNA in the then-Italian territories of Julian March (Karst Region and Istria), Kvarner and Dalmatia, primarily against local Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), indiscriminately targeting both fascist and anti-fascist forces, as well as civilians. As a preventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of the communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, the new Yugoslav authorities also targeted Italian, German, Croat and Slovene anti-communists, falsely accused of collaboration with Axis.
Most historians state that these attacks were state terrorismIl tempo e la storia: Le Foibe, Rai tv, Raoul Pupo and ethnic cleansing against local Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), including anti-fascist militias and civilians.Società di Studi Fiumani-Roma, Hrvatski Institut za Povijest-Zagreb Le vittime di nazionalità italiana a Fiume e dintorni (1939–1947) , Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali – Direzione Generale per gli Archivi, Roma 2002. , p. 190. "Therefore, the largest number of Italians from Rijeka and the former Kvarner province died immediately after the end of the Second World War, were tried before military courts and accused of war crimes" Others claim that this was not ethnic cleansing, and that instead it needs to be understood in the context of the collapse of power structures of oppression: that of the fascist state in 1943, and the Nazi-fascist one of the Adriatic coast in 1945. Italian and German reports mention members of local fascist militias as the primary victims in 1943. Among documented victims from Trieste in 1945, 80% were members of fascist and collaborationist forces, 97% were males, while of the 3% female victims at least half were Slovene. Victims also included unarmed and uninvolved civilians, killed in a preventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of Titoism, killed along with native anti-fascist autonomists — including the leadership of Italian anti-fascist partisan organizations, opposed to Yugoslav annexation, and leaders of Fiume's Autonomist Party, Mario Blasich and Nevio Skull, who supported local independence from both Italy and Yugoslavia – resulting in the purge in the city of Fiume, where at least 650 were killed during and after the war by Yugoslav units, tried for war crimes before military courts.
The estimated number of foibe victims is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands, according to some sources 11,000 or 20,000. Many foibe victim lists are deficient, with repeated names, victims of fascist or German forces, victims killed in combat, or who were still alive or died in completely different circumstances. Italians and Germans also used foibe to dispose of victims. Italian historian Raoul Pupo estimates 3,000 to 4,000 total victims, across all areas of former Yugoslavia and Italy from 1943 to 1945, noting that estimates of 10,000 to 12,000 must also include those killed or missing in combat, and states victim numbers of 20,000 to 30,000 are "pure propaganda". Historians note that it is difficult to determine the ethnicity of victims, since fascist authorities forcibly Italianized people's names, however of documented victims from Italian-majority Trieste, at least 23% were either Slavs or had at least one Slavic parent.
The foibe massacres were followed by the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus, which was the post-World War II exodus and departure of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) from the Yugoslav territory of Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March, lost by Italy after the Treaty of Paris (1947), as well as Dalmatia, towards Italy, and in smaller numbers, towards the Americas, Australia and South Africa. According to various sources, the exodus is estimated to have amounted to between 230,000 and 350,000 Italians. A joint Italian-Slovene commission noted that the majority of the exodus happened in the early 1950s, more than five years after the massacres, when it was clear these parts would become permanently Yugoslav, and that the exodus had multiple causes, including war-caused economic hardship and general repressive policies in the immediate postwar years.
Historians put the events in the context of broader postwar violence in Europe, including in Italy, where the Italian resistance and others killed an estimated 12,000 to 26,000 Italians, usually in extrajudicial executions, the great majority in Northern Italy, just in April and May 1945, while some 12 to 14.5 million ethnic Germans were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe, with a death toll of 500,000; , p. 278 The German Historical Museum puts the figure at 600,000, maintaining that the figure of 2 million deaths in the previous government studies cannot be supported.Die Flucht der deutschen Bevölkerung 1944/45, dhm.de; accessed 6 December 2014. to 2.5 million. the foreword to the book was written by German President and the German interior minister , Secretary of State in Germany's Bureau for Inner Affairs, outlines the stance of the respective governmental institutions in on 29 November 2006, "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus den Gebieten jenseits von Oder und Neiße", bpb.de; accessed 6 December 2014.
Origin and meaning of the term
The term refers to some victims who were thrown alive into the (from Italian: ), deep natural sinkholes characteristic of the Karst Region. The name was derived from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called . The term includes by extension killings and "burials" in other subterranean formations, such as the Basovizza "foiba", which is a mine shaft.
In a wider or symbolic sense, some authors used the term to apply to all disappearances or killings of Italian and Slavic people in the territories occupied by Yugoslav forces. Others included deaths resulting from the forced deportation of Italians, or those who died while trying to flee from these contested lands.
In Italy the term has, for some authors and scholars, taken on a symbolic meaning; for them it refers in a broader sense to all the disappearances or killings of Italian people in the territories occupied by Yugoslav forces. According to author :
The terror spread by these disappearances and killings eventually caused the majority of the Italians of Istria, Fiume, and Zara to flee to other parts of Italy or the Free Territory of Trieste. Raoul Pupo wrote:
Background
From Roman era to early history
Roman Dalmatia was fully Latinized by 476 AD when the Western Roman Empire disappeared.Theodor Mommsen in his book "The Provinces of the Roman Empire" In the Early Middle Ages, the territory of the Byzantine province of Dalmatia reached in the North up to the river Sava, and was part of the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum. In the middle of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century, the Slavic migrations to the Balkans began, which caused the Romance-speaking population, descendants of Romans and Illyrians (speaking Dalmatian), to flee to the coast and islands. The hinterland, semi-depopulated by the Barbarian Invasions, Slavic tribes settled. The Dalmatian cities retained their Romance culture and language in cities such as Zadar, Split, and Dubrovnik. Their own Vulgar Latin, developed into Dalmatian, a now extinct Romance language. These coastal cities (politically part of the Byzantine Empire) maintained political, cultural and economic links with Italy, through the Adriatic Sea. On the other side communications with the mainland were difficult because of the Dinaric Alps. Due to the sharp orography of Dalmatia, even communications between the different Dalmatian cities, occurred mainly through the sea. This helped Dalmatian cities to develop a unique Romance culture, despite the mostly Slavicized mainland.
Historian Theodor Mommsen wrote that Istria (included in the Regio X Venetia et Histria of Roman Italy since Augustus) was fully romanized in the 5th century AD.Theodore Mommsen. The Provinces of the Roman Empire.Chapter I. Between 500 and 700 AD, Slavs settled in Southeastern Europe (Eastern Adriatic), and their number ever increased, and with the Ottoman invasion Slavs were pushed from the south and east. This led to Italic people becoming ever more confined to urban areas, while some areas of the countryside were populated by Slavs, with exceptions in western and southern Istria which remained fully Romance-speaking.
By the 11th century, most of the interior mountainous areas of northern and eastern Istria (Liburnia) were inhabited by South Slavs, while the Romance population continued to prevail in the south and west of the peninsula. Linguistically, the Romance inhabitants of Istria were most probably divided into two main linguistic groups: in the north-west, the speakers of a Rhaeto-Romance language similar to Ladin and Friulian prevailed, whereas in the south the natives most probably spoke a variant of Dalmatian. One modern claim suggests the original language of the romanized Istrians survived the invasions, this being Istriot, which was spoken by some near Pula.
Via conquests, the Republic of Venice, between the 9th century and 1797, extended its dominion to coastal parts of Istria and Dalmatia.Alvise Zorzi, La Repubblica del Leone. Storia di Venezia, Milano, Bompiani, 2001, ISBN 978-88-452-9136-4., pp. 53–55 (in italian) Thus Venice invaded and attacked Zadar multiple times, especially devastating the city in 1202 when Venice used the crusaders, on their Fourth Crusade, to lay siege, then ransack, demolish and rob the city, the population fleeing into countryside. Pope Innocent III excommunicated the Venetians and crusaders for attacking a Catholic city. The Venetians used the same Crusade to attack the Dubrovnik Republic, and force it to pay tribute, then continued to sack Christian Orthodox Constantinople where they looted, terrorized, and vandalized the city, killing 2.000 civilians, raping nuns and destroying Christian Churches, with Venice receiving a big portion of the plundered treasures.
The coastal areas and cities of Istria came under Venetian Influence in the 9th century. In 1145, the cities of Pula, Koper and Izola rose against the Republic of Venice but were defeated, and were since further controlled by Venice. On 15 February 1267, Poreč was formally incorporated with the Venetian state.John Mason Neale, Notes Ecclesiological & Picturesque on Dalmatia, Croatia, Istria, Styria, with a visit to Montenegro, pg. 76, J.T. Hayes – London (1861) Other coastal towns followed shortly thereafter. The Republic of Venice gradually dominated the whole coastal area of western Istria and the area to Plomin on the eastern part of the peninsula. Dalmatia was first and finally sold to the Republic of Venice in 1409 but Venetian Dalmatia was not fully consolidated from 1420.
From the Middle Ages onwards, numbers of Slavic people near and on the Adriatic coast were ever increasing, due to their expanding population and due to pressure from the Ottomans pushing them from the south and east. This led to Italic people becoming ever more confined to urban areas, while the countryside was populated by Slavs, with certain isolated exceptions. In particular, the population was divided into urban-coastal communities (mainly Romance speakers) and rural communities (mainly Slavic speakers), with small minorities of Morlachs and Istro-Romanians."Italian islands in a Slavic sea". Arrigo Petacco, Konrad Eisenbichler, A tragedy revealed, p. 9.