EVENTS èStoria, Exploring History and Current Affairs in Gorizia

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

The thirteenth edition of the festival èStoria, closed on May 28, has brought Gorizia’s culture festival far beyond the borders of the region, to enter the Italian cultural calendar.

The city is located in the Isonzo region, once a controversial strategic place of elegance between Mittel-Europe and Italy, and the forger of some of the best Jewish intellectuals of old Europe, but later wounded by the border, the Iron Curtain. Currently an area of experimental cross-border growth and collaboration between East and West, Gorizia has confirmed to be the right meeting point for all those who see the knowledge of History as a fundamental resource.

In this edition the festival, with its numerous appointments, placed it focus on the interpretation of great conflicts, and this year especially, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Six Days War, brought to Gorizia Ahron Bregman (former Israeli Defense Forces Artillery Officer and parliamentary assistant to the Knesset, teacher at the Department of Military Studies at King’s College in London and author) and Simon Dunstan (writer and director specializing in weapon technology, especially in the field of Armored Fighting Vehicles) with Fabio Romano, to analyze the events of May 1967.

During the days of the festival many have been the chances to understand more deeply many of the issues that are becoming increasingly needed to understand a complex society, such as the deep effect left by the First World War, and nationalisms and populisms that for more than a century have been threatening the future of Europe, but also the opportunities of economic growth through investment in culture, or the history of those fascinating and upsetting events that lead countries to preserve or lose their cultural assets.

Among the many interesting round tables, the one devoted to art have had a huge success: Italian art heritage is victim of thefts, blackmails and illegal market. The diaspora of Italian art is a fascinating subject, where admiration for our masterpieces is accompanied by mercantile greed and daring adventurers, and Alessandro Marzo Magno, together with journalist Fabio Isman, introduced by Igor Devetak, have explained how this theme represents the meeting point between the storms faced by Europe and its current hope of revival through a proper cultural policy. Marzo Magno is author of “Il genio del gusto. Come il mangiare italiano ha conquistato il mondo” and “Missione grande bellezza. Gli eroi e le eroine che salvarono i capolavori italiani saccheggiati da Napoleone e da Hitler”, both published by Garzanti.