My Karst and My City and Other Essays

267 Pages·2020·4.267 MB·English

by  Scipio Slataper, Elena Coda (editor)

MY KARST
AND MY CITY
AND OTHER ESSAYS
THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY
General Editors
Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella,
University of California at Los Angeles
Associate Editor
Gianluca Rizzo, Colby College
Honorary Chairs
Ambassador Gianfranco Facco Bonetti
Dr. Berardo Paradiso
Honorable Anthony J. Scirica
Advisory Board
Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Francesco Bruni, Università di Venezia
Franca D’Agostini, Università di Milano
Giorgio Ficara, Università di Torino
Hermann Haller, City University of New York
Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University
Nicoletta Pireddu, Georgetown University
Gilberto Pizzamiglio, Università di Venezia
Margaret Rosenthal, University of Southern California
John Scott, University of Western Australia
Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago
Agincourt Ltd. Board of Trustees
Stefano Albertini
Luigi Ballerini
Giuseppe Brusa
Vivian Cardia
Maria Teresa Cometto
Lorenzo Mannelli
Eugenio Nardelli
Berardo Paradiso
Silvana Riggio
Gianluca Rizzo
Anthony Julian Tamburri
THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY
MY KARST
AND MY CITY
AND OTHER ESSAYS
SCIPIO SLATAPER
Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Elena Coda
TRANSLATED BY NICHOLAS BENSON AND ELENA CODA
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2020
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-4875-0822-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-3779-1 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-4875-3778-4 (PDF)
The Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: My Karst and My City and other essays / Scipio Slataper; edited, with an
introduction and notes, by Elena Coda; translated by Nicholas Benson and Elena Coda.
Other titles: Essays. Selections. English.
Names: Slataper, Scipio, 1888–1915, author. | Coda, Elena, editor, translator. |
Benson, Nicholas, 1966–, translator.
Series: Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian library.
Description: Series statement: The Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian library |
Includes index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200280716 | Canadiana (ebook)
20200280775 | ISBN 9781487508227 (cloth) | ISBN 9781487537791 (EPUB) |
ISBN 9781487537784 (PDF)
Classification: LCC PQ4841.L4 A2 2020 | DDC 858/.91209 – dc23
This volume is published under the aegis of Agincourt Press Ltd. and with the
financial assistance of Dr. Berardo Paradiso and Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimó of
New York University.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing
program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of
the Government of Ontario.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
“This Little Corner of Europe”:
Slataper’s Reflections on and around Trieste’s
Cultural and National Identity ix
elena coda
A Note on the Translations lxxxv
nicholas benson and elena coda
1 My Karst and My City 3
I 5
II 32
I II 53
2 From Political Writings: Letters on Trieste 79
Trieste Has No Cultural Traditions 81
The Life of the Spirit 87
3 From Literary and Critical Writings 95
To Young Italian Intellectuals 97
Futurism 102
Crepuscular Confusion 106
vi Contents
4 From Ibsen 113
5 From Political Writings 123
Irredentism Today 125
The National and Political Future of Trieste 140
National Rights Are Affirmed with War 158
6 From Letters to Three Women Friends 163
To Elody (Florence, 6 June 1912) 165
To Gigetta (Florence, 8 February 1912) 167
To Gigetta (23 November 1915) 170
Index 173
Acknowledgments
This translation would have not been possible without the collaboration
of Nicholas Benson, my co-translator. His commitment to this project
and his skills as a translator have been essential to seeing this project
come to fruition. Throughout this long process he has been an enthu-
siastic, patient, and insightful collaborator. An earlier version of the
first segment of Il mio Carso, translated by Nicholas Benson, appeared
in the New England Review, volume 32, no. 3 (2011). Nicholas Benson
would like to thank Stephen Donadio, Rick Jackson, Tzvi Rivlin, and
Domenic Stansberry for their support and advice at that early stage of
the translation.
Un grazie di cuore to Luigi Ballerini, general editor of the Lorenzo
Da Ponte Italian Library, for having believed in this project and for his
encouragement and friendship throughout the years.
I am very grateful to the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University
for the research and travel grants made available to me to spend time in
the libraries and archives in Trieste.
Many friends and colleagues on both sides of the ocean have helped
me throughout this process. A special thank you goes to Jennifer Wil-
liam, currently head of the School of Languages and Cultures, for her
constant support, friendship, and sense of humour. Maren Linett was
very generous with her time, and I appreciated her comments on a first
draft of my introduction. Rebekah Klein-Pejšová gave me useful insights
on the section of the introduction that deals with Slataper’s political writ-
ings. In Trieste, I am particularly grateful to Riccardo Cepach, director
of the Museo Sveviano, for always making me feel welcome in his city
and to Fulvio Senardi for inviting me to participate in a symposium on
Slataper, and for keeping me up to date with the latest research on Slata-
per and turn-of-the-century Trieste. I would also like to thank the staff
of the Biblioteca Civica Attilio Ortis for their kindness and helpfulness
viii Acknowledgments
and Dr. Claudia Colecchia at the Fototeca e Biblioteca dei Civici Musei
di Storia ed Arte for providing the photo for the cover of this volume.
I am indebted to the anonymous readers for their careful comments
and feedback and to Mark Thompson at University of Toronto Press and
Terry Teskey, copyeditor, for their advice and assistance throughout the
publication process. A special thanks also to Susan Clawson for her help
with the final proofreading and indexing.
Finally, I would like to thank my family in Italy and in Austria for their
love and support. I wish to dedicate this book to my husband Ben Law-
ton, my best friend and companion in many adventures still to come.
Without him none of this would have been possible.
Introduction
“This Little Corner of Europe”:
Slataper’s Reflections on and around
Trieste’s Cultural and National Identity
elena coda
When in 1909 Scipio Slataper, a young university student, published
in the Florentine journal La Voce his Lettere triestine (Letters on Trieste, in
this volume), in which he analysed and criticized the cultural and politi-
cal situation of his native city, he was still completely unknown both in
Trieste and in Italy. Who was this young man questioning the traditional
Italian perception of Trieste as a wealthy Italian città irredenta, literally, an
“unredeemed city” that longed to be reunited with its motherland but
was still under the yoke of Austrian domination? How could he accuse
the Triestines of lacking any cultural tradition, and of being so obsessed
with their Italian identity that they ignored the Croatian and Slovenian
population in their midst? And how dared he criticize the bourgeois,
business-oriented mentality of the city, when it was that very mentality
that allowed the city to grow and prosper, and to become one of the
wealthiest cities in fin de siècle Europe?
And yet, the twenty-year-old Slataper who dared to reflect publicly on
his city in the pages of La Voce was the product of the complex and con-
flictual essence of Austrian Trieste, and his letters offer a window into the
irresolvable political, cultural, and social tensions present in this border
city at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Fin de siècle Trieste
In order to understand the importance of Slataper’s Letters and the
mixed reactions that they received, we must first understand the com-
plex and often contradictory features of the city at that time. In 1909
when Slataper started his collaboration with the Florentine journal,
Trieste was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, having submit-
ted to the Habsburgs in 1382 for fear of being seized by the expanding
Republic of Venice. Situated on the north-eastern Adriatic coast, on the
x Introduction
western edge of the Austrian Empire, Trieste remained for centuries an
insignificant fishing town.1 Its destiny changed drastically when Emperor
Charles VI saw the hidden commercial and financial potential of this
coastal town and granted it the status of free port in 1719.2 This sig-
nificant fiscal privilege was followed in subsequent years by remarkable
investments in Trieste’s infrastructure, which permitted the construction
of a bigger harbour, new roads, and railroad lines that connected the city
to its Austrian hinterland. Moreover, in order to attract investors, experi-
enced merchants, and labourers to the city, Charles VI issued a series of
patents that permitted individuals from “any nation, social standing or
religion” to settle in the city of Trieste to do business without any restric-
tions (Mainati 142).3
Furthermore, the government was willing to forgive debts that the
relocated merchants had incurred in other countries and give them a
clean slate from which to start their business (Mainati 163). Additional
edicts specifically aimed at encouraging wealthy Austrian Jews to relo-
cate to Trieste and to invest their capital there soon followed. The There-
sian Diplomas of 1771 ensured the exceptional status of Triestine Jewry
when compared to other Jewish communities within the Dual Monarchy.
In Trieste, Jews did not have to wear any distinguishing sign, they could
own real estate outside the ghetto, and they were allowed to worship in
public and to engage in any kind of work or business. Moreover, they
did not have to pay extra taxes for toleration or for travelling to other
cities.4 In sum, they could participate tout court in the financial and cul-
tural growth of the city. Of pivotal importance for the development of
a multi-religious and multi-ethnic Trieste was the Edict of Tolerance of
1781, which allowed the settlement of Protestants and Eastern Ortho-
dox Christians in the city. As a direct result of these policies and finan-
cial investments, the city grew into a powerful commercial and financial
1 Luzzatto Fegiz noted that “at the beginning of the eighteenth-century Trieste counted
about 600 houses and a population of 5700 unities” (15), all living inside the walls of
the medieval town. All translations from Italian are mine unless otherwise noted.
2 Joseph Cary defines a free port as “a port free of the usual protectionist devices (dock
restrictions and custom duties; wharfage, portage, and storage charges) by means of
which a modern port normally assures itself of order, upkeep and profit. The aim of a
free port policy is, through the offer of optimal trade conditions, to attract an unusu-
ally large volume of business, which will outweigh the loss of conventional revenues”
(96).
3 The text of the original patents is reprinted in Mainati’s Croniche, a valuable early-
nineteenth-century volume on Trieste’s early history.
4 On the impact of the patents and the development of the Jewish community in Trieste
see Dubin 40–62.