Fear, the Fantastic, and the Political in the Italian Memory of the Istrian Exodus

This research considers the memory of the Istrian exodus both within the framework of the culture of fear that characterizes the contemporary period, and in terms of the changes that took place during the 1990s to the ideological context of the memory of World War II. The relationship between the exodus and fear is examined using a selection of Italian historiographical, anthropological and psychoanalytical literature, oral testimonies, as well as literary and cinematographic treatments of the topic in which the Istrian oral tradition, legends and folklore are seen as the natural background of both exodus and fear. This analysis connects the use of fantastic elements and references to oral tradition to anti-Slavic racism on the eastern Italian border, which cultivated a fear of the unknown and the demonized Other. Special attention is devoted to the motif of a dead animal thrown into the pit alongside the Partisan victims, which can be interpreted as one element of the mythical conception of ritual killing. Finally, this chapter examines the narrative treatment of the memory of exodus, which is marked by fear, and the persistence of this stance in contemporary Italian political discourse, before posing the question of how this mythological machine might be stopped.