In her lecture ”Going East, Going West. Cultural relations and solidarity ties between Italy and Yugoslavia during the Cold War”, Italian historian Francesca Rolandi showed how the continuous improvement of relations and the development of cooperation between the two countries had a positive effect not only on the image of Yugoslavia in Italy, but also on the image of Italy, and thus of the West in Yugoslavia.
Relations between Italy and Yugoslavia during and after the Second World War were marked by military, territorial and ideological conflicts. The process of rapprochement between the two countries, known as the Adriatic détente, which started at the beginning of the 1960, grew over time into an example of mutual aid and cooperation that overcame political and ideological differences.
Francesca Rolandi specifically referred to two, by their nature, different aspects of the bilateral relations between the two countries. The first was the influence of Italian pop culture in Yugoslavia, which acted as a filter for Western trends, and which was accepted throughout Yugoslavia. The second referred to the solidarity ties that were especially strengthened in cases of natural disasters, supported by the central or regional governments of both countries. A special feature of that relationship was its reciprocity: both countries received and sent humanitarian and professional aid to each other, which was an exception during the Cold War era.
Finally, Rolandi discussed the period after 1989 and the research from that period, which was marked by a narrative that again emphasized what separated the two countries, such as the crimes of the Second World War, hostility, the expulsion of the Italian population from the territory of the former Yugoslavia and the ideological differences during the Cold War. However, that trend in research is gradually changing, and Rolandi in conclusion underlined that it would be useful for historians to observe Yugoslavia outside the categories of “East” and “West”.
The lecture took place on 23 October, 2024 as part of the cycle Regional tea party “Yugoslavia”, organized by the Academic Network for Cooperation in Southeast Europe in collaboration with the Institute of Social Sciences.
