“My soul is in Trieste”, wrote James Joyce. And the city of classic charm and romantic atmosphere has been the protagonist of some of the most historically important stages in Italy.
On the occasion of the centenary of the Trieste branch of the Bank of Italy the deputy general manager of the Banca Luigi Federico Signorini during the conference “The difficult passage of Trieste to the Kingdom of Italy. Money, credit, production” an r put forward yesterdayreflection on the political and economic idea of nation, which informed European culture and impressed powerful impulses on the history of Europe, throughout the nineteenth century and for the first part of the twentieth century. “The Great War was the culmination of the nineteenth-century yearning for the principle of nationality. The idea that every nation had a right to a state, an idea formed in a unique fusion of political liberalism and cultural romanticism, had powerful effects; it had been, in the nineteenth century, the thrust that animated the Italian Risorgimento and German patriotism; in addition to the unification of Italy and Germany, he had created, often literally thanks to the blood of his proponents, national states in Greece, Serbia, Romania; it weakened, despite the constitutional transformations that were gradually adopted to meet the aspirations of its various nationalities, the most multinational of European empires, the Habsburg one, until it brought about its collapse at the beginning of the new century. The idea that language, territory and state should of course coincide was powerful but relatively new. The modern concept of international legal order is usually traced back to the Peace of Westphalia; in it, however, there was at the beginning almost nothing that referred to nationality. Not that the idea itself was missing, what was missing was the link between nation and sovereignty.” Signorini said.
It was the First World War that restored the deepest principle of nationality: “A great multinational empire dissolved; new states arose; many populations, such as Trieste, were reunited with "their" national state. But in spite of President Wilson's goodwill and his urging to cooperation between nations, the war that was supposed to end all wars, that was supposed to affirm the principle of nationality in its best sense, in fact prepared the ground for the next one, continued Signorini.
“Trained by this second experience, the peoples of Europe chose a different path sixty years ago. With all the contrasts and discussions that have taken place over time, with all the difficulties, with all our mistakes and those of others, with all the sudden changes in public mood that we have been, are and will be witnesses of, this path has proved to be able to insure peace, freedom and prosperity in a much more lasting way" argued the general manager of the Bank of Italy, recalling once again that "the nation, in its linguistic, cultural, historical aspects, can be cultivated and honored, among us Europeans, even regardless of state borders ”.
But after the historical digression, Signorini went back to talking about the city of Trieste: “The economic life of Italian Trieste was tiring. For example the arrivals in the port of Trieste, which had been 4 million tons of
gross tonnage in 1913, decreased to less than 1,6 million in 1920, to recover slightly to little
more than 1,7 million in 1921 and 1922. In reality, it is only with the fall of the curtain of
iron, with the opening up of the European commercial space behind it, which Trieste has begun
to rediscover the vigor of the past".
“The current difficulties of the European process, the frictions that have often manifested themselves in the last few
years, must not make us forget that we are dealing with a long-term historical movement.
The trends that drive it, moral and material, are impressive, and if they can appear
sometimes overwhelmed by the debates of the moment, they remain at work. It's in the interest
of Italy that they do not lose force“, concluded the deputy general manager. And that's what many are hoping for, beyond today's disbandments.
