The Basovizza monument: Constructing memory and identity

The Foiba di Basovizza monument in northeast Italy commemorates victims of mass killings instigated by communist partisans at the end of World War II. These killings are known as “foibe” in the Italian literature. This word has come to signify the “ethnic cleansing” of Italians by Yugoslavians, despite evidence indicating that the majority of victims of these killings were from Slovenia and Croatia and that the killings were politically motivated. The Foiba di Basovizza was designated a national monument in Italy in 2007 and the narrative of “ethnic cleansing” it presents has been accepted throughout Italy as a legitimate version of history. Nationalistic comments made by European Parliament president Antonio Tajani at the monument’s annual commemoration on 10 February 2019, however, sparked international outcry and revealed that the site is still a vortex for longstanding discursive battles over territorial rights and victimhood contests. This paper argues that the Basovizza monument outmaneuvers questions of historical and scientific accuracy by constructing an exclusive notion of Italian identity that galvanizes nationalism and fuels fear of foreign infiltration. My analysis is a case study that investigates how productions of public memory can be used politically to influence the formation of national, ethnic, and cultural identity.