Florence – 9 March 2023

In the tribute to Sergio Sablich it was said “all about us”…

The Day of Remembrance as a constant commitment to remember, soothe but also build. This is what the Association of Italian Rijeka in the World-LCFE aims to organize, which this year has intended to organize a series of events to tell the story of the Second World War on the north-eastern shore of the Adriatic – Exodus and Foibe – but also to leave a deep furrow in people’s knowledge and conscience.

Starting with young people and dedicating a day to the memory of Sergio Sablich, son of Rijeka exiles first in Bolzano and then in Florence, an example of excellent Fiumania in the world. Maybe Sergio would have defined it differently, through his strong passions for music, cinema, beauty, even that of the Kvarner sea where for years with his parents and sister Marina he spent long summers of experiences and identity baths.

The day took place in two parts: in the morning the conference on the Day of Remembrance, in the afternoon-evening, the concert of Liszt’s music entrusted to a virtuoso such as the pianist Giovanni Bellucci who performed in the Sala del Buonumore of the Cherubini Conservatory, packed with the public (which we tell about in another article published here, ed.).

It was important to meet about fifty Tuscan school children at the National Library of the Oblates, starting a day organized in collaboration with the Municipality of Florence, the Cherubini Conservatory and the Lyceum Club.

Speakers of the morning: Franco Papetti, President of AFIM, Andor Brakus, Vice President, Diego Zandel, Councillor for Culture, Enea Dessardo representing the Community of Italians of Rijeka and, special guest, Marina Sablich who spoke about identity and the rediscovery of important ties with the city of birth of her parents.

In delving into the history of our lands, Franco Papetti wanted to probe the preparation of the children who know, thanks to the Law of Remembrance, what Exodus and Foibe are or at least it was explained to them in class by the teachers, more difficult to answer where Rijeka is and what the city is called today. While history enters the school with notions finally admitted, the present escapes. This is why Papetti’s excursion concerned historical data – the emptying of the city in the forties, the refugee camps, the consignment of silence, the redemption of the people of Rijeka – but also the management of a present made up of encounters and new awareness to save the memory of a cosmopolitan city that needs everyone’s help to recompose its difficult life in modern times. complex but wonderful reality.

The tools are entrusted to men of good will who intend to collaborate in building new possibilities. Also through the study and knowledge of literature in the awareness that authors often arrive first at the goal, to discover those themes that explain choices, unfold suffering but also suggest moments of right catharsis. Diego Zandel spoke about it, focusing on the works and authors who have told of exile, of tragic events in the history of the twentieth century “here and everywhere” and emphasizing the fundamental contribution of writers such as Morovich, Santarcangeli, Vegliani, Milani, Schiavato, Tomizza and many others. Works published and quickly disappeared from the book scene or never landed in Italy because the dichotomy between “gone and stayed” has been a difficult obstacle to overcome for a long time, even in publishing. But today it is essential to set new goals, to make the past known but to focus on a bubbly daily life of proposals and novelties and on a shared future at least in the analysis and re-proposal of authors in which everyone can identify. A challenge for the future, to save the present from the confusion of homologation or the boulder of oblivion.

For Enea Dessardo, a young representative of the Community, it is a time to reflect on the roots, the identity that is not always granite but perhaps for this reason deserves to be analyzed in depth, a new awareness of one’s role. Enea also plays a role in the UN youth where he represents Croatia. A flight forward that means not confusing State with Homeland but in a new, modern concept that only young people can create to improve their relationship with today’s world, aware of the historical-human matter on which they move their steps. Here testimonies such as that of Andor Brakus rendered through the history of his family exiled in Turin but also through messages in poetry become fundamental. He goes to dig into his soul and that of a scattered people to indicate a hope that is sometimes strong, sometimes only hinted at, which smacks of pain but also of that redemption that is precisely in the events of individuals – and there are many in the various fields of economic-social, political and cultural life – who have made it. Below you can download an article from the Voice of the People on Dessardo’s experience

For Marina, Sergio was a brother, an example, a man to remember. After sharing with the public in the years after her untimely death in 2005, Marina had tried to let the pain of loss flow into a return of pain to the private. This “call” of the people of Rijeka was unexpected, as they put the figure of their brother back at the center of a renewed interest, a man to be taken as an example, to be shown to others: analyzing his figure and his work scattered among institutes, organizations and foundations, so that the world knows what his contribution to music was, what books he wrote, How many articles published, reviews, criticisms that today’s journalism has perhaps lost sight of, how many passions, how much “fihumanity” in the way he approached the other in the different languages he spoke fluently. A transversality, a cosmopolitanism written in his genes? It is to be discovered to make it clear that belonging to a city, physical or soul, also includes this sharing and the handing over of the baton to the curiosity of the present but also to the future baggage.

They listened in silence to the young people present while the speakers wondered whether or not they were interested in the topic to place, at the end, some questions so direct, intelligent, pertinent that they turned a meeting into a special occasion. “Will these young people – Papetti wondered – remember this event?” Certainly, if they were to pass through Rijeka, they will realize that it is Rijeka, with its tragic history but also of great civilization, it is a circle that will have been closed, happily.

Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin