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A Sea of Difference, a History of Gaps: Migrations between Italy and Albania, 1939–1992

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2018

Pamela Ballinger
Pamela Ballinger*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines extended debates after World War II over the repatriation of Italian civilians from Albania, part of the Italian fascist empire from 1939 until 1943. Italy's decolonization, when it is studied at all, usually figures as rapid and non-traumatic, and an inevitable byproduct of Italy's defeat in the war. The tendency to gloss over the complexities of decolonization proves particularly marked in the Albanian case, given the brevity of Italy's formal rule over that country and the overwhelming historiographical focus on the Italian military experience there. In recovering the complex history of Italian and Albanian relations within which negotiations over repatriation occurred, this article demonstrates the prolonged process of imperial repatriation and its consequences for the individuals involved. In some cases, Italian citizens, and their families, only “returned” home to Italy in the 1990s. The repatriation of these “remainders” of empire concerned not only the Italian and Albanian states but also local committees (notably the Circolo Garibaldi) and international organizations, including the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the International Committee of the Red Cross. In recuperating this history, the analysis rejects seeming truisms about the forgotten or repressed memory of Italian colonialism. Drawing upon critical theories of “gaps,” the article addresses the methodological challenges in writing such a history.

Keywords

migrationrepatriationrefugeesdecolonizationhumanitarianismfascismgapsItalyAlbaniaAdriatic
Type
Trans-Figured
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 90 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2017 

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References

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22 Ibid., 240. Kadare's novel fictionalized very real efforts, carried out as the result of bilateral accords, to recover and return Italian and German war dead buried in Albania.

23 Roselli, Alessandro, Italy and Albania: Financial Relations in the Fascist Period (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 33–42 Google Scholar. Italian territorial ambitions towards Albania predated fascism. The Italian military occupied parts of Albania during World War I and administered a protectorate over the area between 1917 and 1920.

24 For various details of these activities in the 1930s, turn to the documentation of the Archivio Storico Società Dante Alighieri (AS SDA, Rome), Serie Comitati Esteri, 1891–2002, Tirana 592A (1929–1937). On Italian-language libraries: AS SDA SCE Tirana 592 A 1929–1937, “Seconda Riunione del Consiglio Direttivo,” 20 July 1933. On the plans to create a kiosk featuring Italian books and newspapers, consult AS SDA SCE Tirana 592 A (1929–1937), L. Sottili to R. Legazione d'Italia in Albania, 2 Sept. 1933. For the titles of books sent to such libraries, see AS SDA SCE Tirana 592C, “Appunto per l'Ufficio Libri,” 18 Dec. 1941. By the 1940s, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was providing direct subsidies to the Dante for office furniture, teacher salaries, and concerts. AS SDA SCE, Tirana 592, sf. 7, “Dante in Albania,” 10 Jan. 1944; “Appunto per il Comm. Solari,” 7 Nov. 1944. For the Dante Alighieri's broader history, refer to Pisa, Beatrice, Nazione e politica nella società “Dante Alighieri” (Rome: Bonacci, 1995)Google Scholar; and Salvetti, Patrizia, Immagine nazione ed emigrazione nella società “Dante Alighieri” (Rome: Bonacci, 1995)Google Scholar.

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28 Rodogno, Davide, Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War, Belton, Adrian, trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 46–51 Google Scholar, 59, 60. For particulars on the institutional, political, and economic structures created in Italian Albania, go to Fischer, Albania at War, 39–59, 61–88.

29 Malia Hom, “Empires of Tourism,” 283.

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31 Ciano, Galeazzo, Ciano's Diary, 1939–1943, Muggeridge, Malcolm, ed. (London: W. Heinemann Ltd., 1950), 254Google Scholar.

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33 Serra, Albania, 17–18. These halcyon perceptions contrast with those of local Albanians, who experienced shortages and skyrocketing prices as the result of the customs union created between Italy and Albania and the imposition of strict monetary controls. See Fischer, Albania at War, 93–95.

34 AS SDA SCE 592 C Tirana 1941–42, “Programma della attività per l'anno 1943-XXI,” and also “Schema di Statuto per la Federazione e per i Comitati della ‘Dante Alighieri’ dell'Albania”; see also AS SDA SCE 592 D Tirana (1943).

35 In his study Italiani d'Albania, for example, Bonapace draws upon numerous interviews with Italianesi. The Centro Documentazione Memorie Coloniali di Modena recently conducted a survey of private sources, listed in Pulini, Ruggeri, and Zanasi, Modena-Tirana, 113–17.

36 Villari notes the difficulty in actually viewing the documents of the SSAA; “A Failed Experiment,” 158–59.

37 For a typical account of those sent to Germany, see the diary of Silvio Forzieri, interned in Hannover from October 1943 to May 1945: Massimo Borgogni, ed., Diario di guerra e prigonia del Sergente Maggiore Silvio Forzieri, 1941–1945 (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2003). Bonapace gives a rough figure of ninety thousand Italian military men imprisoned and/or deported by the Germans (with some four thousand executed in early October 1943); another forty-five thousand or so evaded capture, some by joining the partisans. Bonapace, Italiani d'Albania, 65.

38 On Bruschi's experience, refer to the work by his daughter, Bruschi, Maria Rita, Dal Po all'Albania, 1943–1949: Un medico mantovano tra guerra e prigionia (Verona: Script edizioni, 2013)Google Scholar.

39 On the Perugia and Firenze fighters, see Azzi, Viscardo, I Disobbedienti della 9a Armata: Albania 1943–1945 (Milan: Ugo Mursia, 2010)Google Scholar.

40 Serra, Albania, 73. While Serra's memoir gives few details regarding his background, it raises intriguing questions about the mobilization of Arbëreshë in the Italian project in Albania.

41 Ibid., 74.

42 Central State Archives (AQSH), Tirana, Leterkembimi i qytetareve italianë në Shqipëri, dosja 39–41/4, viti 1945. Most of the letters were sent from relatives in Italy to soldiers in Albania. Many of the writers describe the precarious conditions of life in Italy (including rations, shortages, and the black market) and express frustration that their loved one has not been repatriated. One letter complains, “Why didn't they repatriate civilians instead of military personnel? At least these [soldiers] are given food to eat by the government and their families receive a subsidy. And you other poor creatures, how do you make it without work or means?”; dosja 41, viti 1945, letter to Calderazzi Sabino, 20 June 1945.

43 Benanti, La guerra più lunga, 166–67.

44 Regarding the role of the Dante as a “refuge for soldiers,” see AS SDA SCE Tirana 592 E, sf. 8, declaration of 10 Oct. 1947. For British military estimates, see Rossi, Elena Aga and Giusti, Maria Teresa, Una guerra a parte: I militari italiani nei Balcani, 1940–1945 (Bologna: Mulino, 2011), 357Google Scholar.

45 Rossi and Giusti, Una guerra a parte, 358.

46 Benanti, La guerra più lunga, 199–203; Stallone, Settimio, Prove di diplomazia adriatica: Italia e Albania 1944–1949 (Turin: Giappichelli, 2006), 144–46Google Scholar. See also ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 10, “Nota Verbale,” 22 Mar. 1946; and also AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3, “Nota Verbale,” 11 Mar. 1946. These expropriations took place as the Italian authorities sought unsuccessfully to keep their requests for repatriation separate from Albanian demands for restitution of properties seized during the Italian occupation. Italian officials insisted that Italy and Albania had never officially been at war and thus Albania could not legally request war reparations (as also occurred with Libya). See Stallone, Settimio, “Gli accordi del 14 marzo per il rimpatrio degli italiani dall'Albania,” Clio: Rivista trimestrale di studi storici 39, 4 (2003): 687–701 Google Scholar.

47 Settimio Stallone, “Gli accordi del 14 marzo per il rimpatrio degli italiani dall'Albania,” 697–98.

48 Woodbridge, George, UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Volume I (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 479Google Scholar.

49 UNRRA Archives (UNNRA, New York), S-0527, box 848, cable no. 01787.

50 UNRRA, S-1010, box 8, file 7, UNNRA-Albania-Bureau of Finance and Admin-Personnel-Repatriation of DPS-Gerson, Frank. J., 31 Oct. 1945–19 Dec. 1946, D. R. Oakley-Hill to J. Halsall, “Italian Passengers and Their Furniture,” 21 Feb. 1946.

51 On repatriations carried out on the Marvia in April 1946, see AQSH, fondi 490, dosja 204, P. C. Floud to the Prime Ministry, “Repatriation of Italians,” 26 Apr. 1946. For repatriations in July 1946, refer to Archivio Storico Diplomatico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri (ASDMAE, Rome) Affari Politici (AP) 1946–50 Albania b. 3, “Relazione sull'arrivo a Brindisi, il 11 luglio 1946, di n. 30 connazionali provenienti dall'Albania.” For subsequent movements on the Marvia in September 1946, see UNRRA S-1010-0008 UNRRA Albania Mission PAG 4/3.0.0.1: 8 UNRRA Albania—Bureau of Finance and Administration—Personnel Repatriation of Displaced Persons, Frank Gerson. For repatriations on the Don Chisciotte, see ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3, “Repatriation of Italians from Albania,” 15 Nov. 1946. For the transfer of Italians by UNRRA on Yugoslav boats, ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3, “Appunto,” 2 Sept. 1946.

52 UNRRA S-0520-0244 PAG 4/1.3.1.1.2.0.1 Subject Files, “Albanian Misc.,” note of 10 Jan. 1944, “CAWA/527 Appreciation and Plan UNRRA Mission Albania.” As plans were being drawn up for the mission in 1944, UNRRA staff noted the precarious condition of many Italians and the possibility that the Hoxha regime might deport them. UNRRA S-0527-0002 PAG 4/30-0-3-4 UNRRA Subject Files, 1944–1949 Displaced Persons, Policy 1944, “Current Displaced Persons Intelligence: Quotations with Sources,” 15 Dec. 1944. UNRRA also assisted Greeks and Chamerians (ethnic Albanian Muslims from Greek Epirus) in Albania. See UNRRA S-0520-0197 Albania: Repatriation from, Myer Cohen, “Displaced Persons in Albania,” 20 Apr. 1946.

53 The 1945 mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Albania, which focused on the question of prisoners of war in the country, noted that a number of specialists detained according to the terms of the Hoxha-Palermo Accord had no real possibility to return to Italy. They lived with their families on miserable pay (60 Albanian francs per day). Red Cross officials Schirmer and Cuénod deemed twenty-eight Italian military doctors and nineteen nurses forced to work in Albanian hospitals “the only [Italian] prisoners of war” still in Albania. Archives du Comité International de la Croix-Rouge (ACICR, Geneva) B G 003 76-1 Mission de R. Schirmer and G. Cuénod en Albanie du 18 novembre au 22 décembre 1945, “Prisonniers Allemands et Italiens en Albanie visitée le 18.11.45 au 22.12.45 par le Dr. Schirmer e Mr. G. Cuénod de la Mission spéciale en Albanie.”

54 Stallone, Settimio, “La difficile missione del console Ugo Turcato in Albania (29 luglio 1945–21 gennaio 1946),” Clio: Rivista trimestrale di studi storici 34, 1 (1998): 143–71Google Scholar.

55 Rossi and Giusti, Una guerra a parte, 394–95.

56 AS SDA SCE Tirana 592, sf. 7, “L'attività scolastica italiana in Albania negli anni scolastici 43/44 e 44/45.” Various documents of the Circolo Garibaldi actually use the name Circolo Democratico Popolare Italiano “Giuseppe Garibaldi.” See, for instance, AQSH, Circolo Garibaldi (CG), dosja 95, viti 95, “Celebrazione liberazione Italia del Nord,” 27 Apr. 1945. One document states that the Gruppo Democratico Popolare Italiano originated in the days following the liberation of Tirana, when Enrico Danek, Gioacchino Magnoni, and Ugo Merola contacted the command of the Gramsci Battalion. “The men of the Gruppo Democratico Popolare immediately had a notable part to play in the functioning of the Circolo Garibaldi.” AQSH, CG, dosja 52, viti 1945, “Verbale,” 3 Aug. 1945. AQSH, CG, dosja 14, viti 1944, contains lists of contributions made by Italian companies to both the Comitato Antifascista Italiano and the Circolo Garibaldi in December 1944. Seventy-four companies donated money, revealing the wide range of Italian commercial interests still present in Albania at that time.

57 AQSH, CG, dosja 1, viti 1944, Seduta del 9 Dec. 1944.

58 AQSH, CG, dosja 2, viti 1944, Gregorio Pirro, 14 Dec. 1944.

59 On the establishment of a canteen for those in need, see AQSH, CG, dosja 15, viti 1944, “Oggetto: Conv. Mensa,” 30 Dec. 1944. AQSH, CG, dosja 45, viti 1944, contains several documents outlining the creation of a kitchen for transiting soldiers and civilians. On aid to an Italian woman married to an Albanian man, see AQSH, CG, dosja 16, viti 1944, letter of 27 Dec. 1944.

60 See the letter from the “Comitato Assistenza fra Italiani in Scutari,” 9 Dec. 1944, contained in AQSH, CG, dosja 3, viti 1944.

61 Bruschi, Dal Po all'Albania, 40.

62 AQSH, CG, dosja 14, viti 1944 (lists of contributions). Also AQSH, CG, dosja 28, viti 1944, 29 Oct. 1944, refers to the “help provided on the generous initiative of a woman, well known to many of you, and the generosity of contributors” in providing recreational possibilities for Italian comrades who had returned from the partisan campaign. One letter of thanks from Circolo President Gregorio Pirrò (dated January 1945) referenced clothing donated by the Bulgarian Vice Consul. On this, see AQSH, CG, dosja 65, viti 1945, Pirro to Bellei-Ditta Siderurgica, 5 Jan. 1945.

63 On this, see various documents in ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3: letter of Gennaro Imondi, 3 Apr. 1946; letter of Eliseo Canavese, 8 Aug. 1946; letter of Gioacchino Magnoni to Ugo Turcato, 5 Aug. 1946; letter of Ugo Turcato to MAE, “Fondi assistenza a disposizione della Missione Italiana in Albania,” 16 Aug. 1946.

64 ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3, Magnoni to Turcato, 5 Aug. 1946.

65 ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 2, “Memorandum per l'U.N.R.R.A.,” 23 Feb. 1946. As Italians repatriated in 1946, the Italian government sought to identify those who had collaborated with the Albanians to the detriment of fellow Italians. See, for example, ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3, Telespresso, “Italiani accusatori di connazionali,” 5 Jan. 1946; also letter of Piceci and Scalo, 1 Oct. 1946.

66 AQSH, CG, dosja 1, viti 1944, Seduta 9 Dec. 1944.

67 AQSH, CG, dosja 164, viti 1945.

68 See the letter of 5 January 1946 and the request for mercy for four imprisoned Italians, in AQSH, CG, dosja 81, viti 1945.

69 AQSH, CG, dosja 66, viti 1945, letter of 1 Oct. 1945.

70 AQSH, CG, dosja 67, viti 1945, letters of 15 Feb. 1945, 12 Apr. 1945, and 11 May 1945. See also AQSH, CG, dosja 116, viti 1946, “Disaccordi fra Italiani.”

71 AQSH, CG, dosja 105, viti 1946, letter of 14 Sept. 1945; a similar appeal was made on 19 Sept. 1945.

72 AQSH, CG, dosja 93, viti 1945, letters of 1 Oct. 1945 and 10 Dec. 1945.

73 AQSH, CG, dosja 58, viti 1944, letter of Magnoni, 12 Nov. 1945.

74 One official Italian document estimated that by March 1949 six hundred “arbitrarily detained” Italians remained in Albania. See Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS), Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri (PCM) 1944–47 b. 3402 (2.7/14628), letter of 23 Mar. 1949. On medical personnel, see ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 3, “Appunti: Sanitari italiani trattenuti in Albania,” 4 Sept. 1946; ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 42, letter of Giuseppe De Marchis, 8 Nov. 1949; ACICR BG 017 05.005 Italiens en Albanie 26.03.1945-14.07.1949, letter of 4 Feb. 1948 from Pierre Colombo.

75 Bruschi, Dal Po all'Albania, 41–49. Others leaving that same year included former Italian police officer Sordello Ruggero and his wife, who departed with 274 fellow Italians on the ship Stadium. ASDMAE AP 1946–50 Albania b. 42, letter of Sordello Ruggero, 6 Dec. 1949.

76 ASDMAE AP 1950–57 Albania b. 517, “Promemoria sulla Situazione in Albania,” June 1951. The second letter is in the same file: Legazione d'Italia in Tirana, “Relazione sugli avvenimenti maturatisi in Albania durante l'anno 1951.”

77 ACICR B AG 210 007-002, “Italiens en Albanie. Article paru dans le ‘Corriere della Sera’ le 12 août 1955 parlant de 3400 Italiens encore détenus.” For the 1961 requests, turn to ACICR B AG 233 103-003, “Cas des ressortissants italiens ayant épousé des personnes de nationalité albanaise et désirant faire venir leur famille en Italie,” letter of P. Jequier, 8 Dec. 1961.

78 Bonapace, Italiani d'Albania, 106–10. Other Italian visitors to Albania in the 1970s and 1980s included members of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Partito Comunista d'Italia. Pulini, Ruggeri, and Zanasi, Modena-Tirana, 80–83.

79 Perlmutter, “The Politics of Proximity”; Caiazza, Antonio, In alto mare: Viaggio nell'Albania dal comunismo al futuro (Turin: Instar Libri, 2008), 207–10Google Scholar.

80 Ibid., 207. See also the discussion of Italian women with Albanian husbands and children and the consequences of the patrilineal bias built into Italian citizenship, in Bonapace, Italiani d'Albania, 32–33, 93–96, 132–33.

81 Caiazza, In alto mare, 208. On the risks in socialist Albania of speaking Italian in public and the burden for children who bore “the ignominious mark of ‘Italian,’” refer to Bonapace, Italiani d'Albania, 96.

82 Stewart, Kathleen, A Place on the Side of the Road (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 107Google Scholar.

83 Ibid., 130.

84 Bruschi, Dal Po all'Albania, 51–60.

85 Franco Tagliarini, personal communication, 31 Jan. 2012, Rome.

86 Caminati, “Return of History,” 607, 606.

87 Pinkus, Karen, “Empty Spaces: Decolonization in Italy,” in Palumbo, Patrizia, ed., A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 300Google Scholar.

88 On diffidence towards foreign refugees and other migrants, refer to Ballinger, Pamela, “Beyond the Italies? Italy as a Mobile Subject,” in Ben-Ghiat, Ruth and Hom, Stephanie Malia, eds., Italian Mobilities (New Brunswick: Routledge University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

89 Mai, “Cultural Construction,” 91.