ABSTRACT
The Kingdom of Italy emerged victorious from the Great War and gained a new Eastern border, under the terms of a secret Pact, signed in London on 26 April 1915 with the Entente powers (Great Britain, France and Russia), and later confirmed by the recently established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes with the Treaty of Rapallo (12 November 1920). This border cut deeply into Slavic lands, with Italy annexing more than a quarter of Slovenian ethnic territory and all of Istria with its mixed Croat, Italian, and Slovene population. The new Italian administration adopted a policy aimed at suppressing South Slav nationalism even before the rise to power of Fascism. On 13 July 1920, the Narodni Dom (the Nation’s Home) in Trieste, which housed Slovenian cultural and political organizations, was burned by Fascist squads led by Francesco Giunta, the local leader of the newly created totalitarian party. The study and residence of Slovenian lawyer Josip Vilfan and the archives of the Edinost Association, a political body founded in 1874, of which Vilfan was President, were destroyed. In September 1921, Josip Vilfan and the editor of the Edinost newspaper, Edvard Slavik, were beaten up by Fascist squads.
