I dedicated my time at the BSR to the initial research for my postdoctoral project on extra- parliamentary political groups in Dalmatia between 1918 and 1947 entitled Political misfits in the Adriatic, 1918–1947. I am primarily interested in the ways in which unions, Italian irredentist groups and Jewish refugee organizations understood and negotiated their position during the turbulent decades of the first half of the twentieth century when Dalmatia was at the core of tensions between the Italian and Yugoslav kingdoms and a topic of international politics. Before arriving at the BSR, I was aware that this topic would require a new reading of Dalmatia in Italian politics at that time and Italian irredentism. For this reason, my research in Rome focused on understanding the place of Dalmatia in the Italian imperial and colonial system of that period. To that end, I conducted research in the Central State Archives, the Archive of the Senate and the Archive of the Società Dante Alighieri, among others. In addition, I consulted various publications and newspapers in the National Central Library.
Historicizing ‘Italian Dalmatia’ requires cultural, political and social interpretations. Despite the numerous scholarly publications on this topic (from the 1910s to the current day), an inclusive and comprehensive interpretation of the place of Dalmatia in the political imagination of the expanding Italian state in the twentieth century has not yet been offered. Scholars still often categorize this province as a part of inherent Italian national, historical and cultural claims in the Eastern Adriatic. However, deeper research into the propagandist, irredentist texts produced, beginning in the 1910s, reveals that Dalmatia served as a training ground for colonial claims within and beyond Europe. In comparison with, for example, Trentino, Istria and Trieste, the narratives on Dalmatia highlight its strategic and economic importance, an aspect that scholars have yet to explore.
In the future, I aim to investigate the economic and cultural explorations of Dalmatia in this period and the ways in which this focus of Italian politics shaped political organization. This research will culminate in two articles: the first will historicize and compare the economic and cultural significance of Dalmatia in publications in Italian in the period immediately after the First World War; the second will highlight the importance of Dalmatia for Italian domestic politics between 1916 and 1922.
In closing, I wish to emphasize that my research experience and life in Rome would not have been the same without the supporting, caring and genuinely interested community of the BSR. I am very thankful for this experience and look forward to continued collaborations with my BSR colleagues.
