Remembering the City of Life. The literary memory of the occupation of Fiume (1919-2015)

In September 1919 a group of volunteers headed by the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio occupied the town of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) to claim its annexation to Italy. During the occupation, that lasted till December 1920, Fiume became a unique political and artistic labyrinth, attracting all sorts of political activists, as well as many Italian and foreign avant-garde artists. Extensive scholarly attention has been devoted to the political-historical significance of Fiume and to the role of D’Annunzio’s aestheticism in the occupation, yet surprisingly little research has been carried to the large body of literary writings dedicated to the occupation. The aim of this project is to analyze the literary representations of the Fiume occupation from 1919 till the present day, and to relate the literary dimension of accounts on Fiume to broader transformations of the cultural and political memory of Fiume. By an in-depth analysis of a selected corpus of 50 items across different genres and periods (from the years of the occupation till the 21st century), the project will contribute substantially to a greater awareness of the historical significance of the occupation of Fiume, a significance that has hithertho been underestimated if not almost entirely ignored in avant-garde and modernism studies.