DINARSKA ALI JADRANSKA RASA? ITALIJANSKI ZNANSTVENI RASIZEM, SEVERNI JADRAN IN BALKAN.

By analysing anthropological scientific articles and monographic publications as well as correspondence and other ego-documents, this article poses the question of how Italian racial theorists, especially racial anthropologists, but also geographers, psychologists and demographers, mainly those who came from the North-Eastern Adriatic region, racially defined the Slavs. Several Italian racial anthropologists, at least partially if not entirely, dedicated their research to the North-Adriatic region or the Balkans. Their interest in these regions was strengthened even before the First World War, especially with those authors who were born in the Austrian Littoral or worked at the Institute of Anthropology in Padua. During the fascist period, Francesco Battaglia (1896-1958) devoted most of his research to such subjects. He was a professor at the University of Padua and head of the anthropological institute there, later he also taught comparative demography of races at the University of Trieste. Battaglia's articulations were generally not dependent on violent rhetoric and, in a striking contrast to the then fascist press, did not directly refer to the Slovenes / Yugoslavs as an "inferior race". However, this does not mean that he made inappropriate politicallymotivated statements that were unfavourable towards the Yugoslavs. Battaglia, contrary to other racial anthropologists in Yugoslavia, did not interpret Adriatic racial elements, in particular, the Dinaric race which was supposedly predominant in Yugoslavia, as indigenous, but imputed it to the (North) Italian space with his complex argumentations. He defined the allegedly racial-specific elements Slavic peoples had, however, as foreign, irrelevant to the region, and of non-Aryan descent. An even more unfavourable position towards the Southern Slavs was stated in "La difesa della razza" - the leading Italian magazine on scientific ("Nordicist") racism. Especially during WWII, it emphasized that after the WWI in the Balkans, several state formations grew from nations that were not compatible racially or culturally - only Italy was able to discipline the area with its racial politics. Thus, it produced a direct biological excuse to propagate Italian expansionism. Similar arguments for the Italian dominance in the Balkans were put forth by the magazine "Geopolitica", published between 1939 and 1942 in Milan at the enthusiastic support of the Italian Minister of education, Giuseppe Bottaia and the scientific initiative of the geographers Giorgio Roletta and Ernesto Massi from the University of Trieste. Another influential representative of "Italian racial psychology", Mario Canella, defined some subsets of Slavs as biologically inferior, while the leading Italian demographer and eugenicist Corrado Gini developed an ambivalent attitude towards them The article also poses the question of how the Slovene scientific environment reacted to Italian scientific racism. Focusing on Slovene racial anthropologists, one could imply that Italian racial theory, with its emphasis on the "Mediterranean race", did not impose as much fear at the beginning as the Nazi racial theory did. Nevertheless, the birth of the magazine "La difesa" attracted some critical attention among Slovene authors. Some of them also disputed the Italian pronatalism in fear that it was directed specifically towards them. However, this did not stop them to collaborate with Italian researchers, especially the demographer Corrado Gini. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Con l'aiuto dell'analisi degli articoli scientifici antropologici, le pubblicazioni monografiche e gli ego documenti, il seguente articolo affronta la questione su come i teorici razziali italiani, specialmente quelli della regione del nord Adriatico, definirono dal punto di vista raziale gli Slavi e come reagirono gli esperti del campo scientifico sloveno al razzismo scientifico italiano. Un numero relativamente alto di antropologi razziali italiani ha completamente ovvero almeno parzialmente dedicato le loro ricerche alla regione del nord Adriatico o ai Balcani. Solitamente il loro linguaggio non si basava su una retorica austera e a differenza dai quotidiani fascisti non si riferivano agli Sloveni/ Jugoslavi come a una "razza inferiore". Nonostante ciò presentavano affermazioni politicamente motivate con le quali incoraggiavano l'espansione italiana sull'area balcanica e in questo modo almeno indirettamente discriminarono i Jugoslavi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

S pomočjo analize antropoloških znanstvenih člankov, monografskih publikacij in ego dokumentov prispevek naslavlja vprašanje, kako so italijanski rasni teoretiki, posebno tisti iz Severno-Jadranske regije, rasno definirali Slovane in kako se je slovenski znanstveni prostor odzval na italijanski znanstveni rasizem. Relativno številni italijanski rasni antropologi so povsem ali vsaj delno svoje raziskovanje posvetili Severno-Jadranski regiji ali Balkanu. Njihove artikulacije se običajno niso opirale na grobo retoriko in v nasprotju s fašističnim dnevnim tiskom, o Slovencih/Jugoslovanih niso pisali kot o "manjvredni rasi". Kljub temu pa so vendarle podajali politično-motivirane izjave, s katerimi so zagovarjali italijansko ekspanzijo na balkanski prostor in so tako vsaj posredno diskriminirali Jugoslovane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]