WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS PLACE?
by MIHA KOSOVEL
Every knowledge of the home place and space is detailed. The locals like to deal with the knowledge of the intricacies, the sfumatur. We discover the old names of the areas, the hidden riverbeds of streams that we can still see in the landscape of the city, but have long been covered with asphalt. We discover the little stories that shaped the space, and the fates of people who defied the tragic wheel of history. Such detailed knowledge and micro-histories are important for breaking up a war-torn space such as cross-border Goriška, as they represent a kind of self-defense against the great alienating national narratives that have encroached on the space and destroyed it. In this aspect, the work of Anja Medved and Nadja Velušček, who have been researching the private histories and memories of the inhabitants of both sides of the border, their experience of the bloody twentieth century, their interconnections, pain and joys for decades, is of utmost importance. Through this mosaic process, the inhabitants regain their belonging to the space, and the complexity of historical events is countered by the simplicity of grand collective narratives. With smallness, it is possible to fight against big stories, because the closer we get, the histories of countries are replaced by stories about people and their personal experiences of historical moments. In their last film, Don’t Forget Me, which premiered at the beginning of May, follows the experience of the Second World War in the Goriška region through the eyes of children and through them we can mirror the experience of the war of all children, including those who are experiencing the horrors of war today.
If the twentieth century was a period of schism, in recent decades we have witnessed an attempt at synthesis. How can we think – beyond all microhistories and micro-identities – of the common path of the Gorizia conurbation, so as not to fall into hegemonic nationalist discourses or banal simplifications? What do you call this urban unit that exists as a geographical fact and the prospect of the future?
From the Italian perspective, these are Gorizia and Nova Gorica, two towns, one next to the other, which grow into a common thicket, but which, strictly from the point of view of the name, share only a few letters. On the Italian side, there was no major tendency to translate the name into Nuova Gorizia, and the few attempts made over the years were met with misunderstanding on the one hand, and disapproval, even protests, on the other.
On the Slovenian side, however, things get a bit more complicated. Not only the locals, but everyone in Slovenia calls the city on the Slovenian side Gorica, and those across call it “old” Gorica. This designation, which is very annoying to the Slovenian minority in Italy (according to them, it is the real Gorica and the other, non-real one, which has only given itself the name Nova “Gorica”), is very much in line with the use of the name Gorica from the very beginning. No one ever says that they are going from Ljubljana to Nova Gorica, but to Gorizia, and the fans are chanting “Gorica!” and their club is called N.D. Gorica. Companies are also called that: we had Vozila Gorica, Kurivo Gorica, Cestno podnik Gorica, or coins such as Gostol, Avrigo, which became Nomago and we could go on. This is not because, as one tourist guide once put it, “because the locals do not know the name of their city”, but precisely because they intuitively understand that the history of Gorica is also the history of Nova Gorica. That the loss of Gorica after the Second World War would have been a very severe blow to the Slovenian reality and that the Slovenian seal of the city had to be somehow saved, but no longer by war, but by peaceful, constructive actions. That we can think about it today, also under the auspices of the joint project GO! Borderless, we can thank this ingenious, although extremely unusual and undoubtedly not self-evident decision to build a “new” Gorizia.
But the confusion doesn’t end there. The intuitive knowledge described above does not quite translate into a meaningful topology, nor does it really translate into an inclusive identity. If, on the Italian side, things are clearly distinguished from small to large, from the particular to the common, and Sant’Andrea/Štandrež and Lucinico/Lucinis are part of the “frazione” of the city of Gorizia, a city that further unites with others into the landscape and landscapes into the region, it cannot go that way on our side, because few people hate the Slovenian more than the hierarchy. There are no regions or provinces in Slovenia – there are only municipalities: some larger, others smaller, some with the title “urban”, others without. But legally, they are mostly equal and equidistant from the state apparatus. Thus, the town of Šempeter, once part of the municipality of Nova Gorica, where its city hospital is located, became independent into its municipality and today sees no need for cooperation with Nova Gorica – to the extent that it is not even included in the European Capital of Culture project.
There are tensions within the municipality as well. Places that form a single urban area with Nova Gorica – Solkan, Rožna Dolina, Kromberk, Ajševica, … – have the status of independent places. Since they are older than Nova Gorica, it is an honour for them to become an integral part of it. This is understandable, but it would nevertheless be necessary, while acknowledging their specific identity, to include them in its whole. Years ago, Nova Gorica was in danger of losing its status as a city municipality, as the town has only about 16,000 inhabitants on paper – although together with the surrounding towns and neighboring Gorizia it forms an urban area with almost 70,000 inhabitants.
They say you have to know how to be a loser, but also a winner. We too should learn to be small – but at the same time know how to be big. We need to learn to recognise and accept the wider urban whole, without forgetting our local and local identities. The answer to the question of what to call this cross-border urban unit would be as follows: it is called Gorizia in Slovenian, Gorizia in Italian, Gurize in Friulian and Görz in German. But this city has no center or periphery, and it’s hard to capture it in a postcard. It is like a mosaic made up of many independent parts that form a single picture. Every story, every language, every angle and place of observation contributes to its wholeness.