In 1947, Gorizia was suddenly divided between Italy and Slovenia. In 2025, two cities will reunite to become the first “European Capital of Culture” of the transnational variety
Nova Gorica is a modern but beautiful city in Slovenia, with a population of about 30. But just a few steps further you can cross, without the need for a passport, across the invisible border of Italy, right into the medieval town of Gorizia.
Once Nova Gorica and Gorizia were one; as two cities they were created – and separated – in 1947, after World War II, when the Treaty of Paris created new European borders, limiting travel between Italy and the former Yugoslavia. A commission of the allied forces decided that Gorizia should belong to Italy, while the less developed part of the city should join the Republic of Slovenia, within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The new city would be called Nova Gorica and from that moment Nova Gorica and Gorizia existed as two separate cities in two states.
But when Slovenia joined the EU in 2004, the border between them dissolved, allowing cross-border cultural exchange for the first time in generations. And in 2025, Gorizia – Nova Gorica will reunite as the first European Capital of Culture of the transnational type, within the GO!2025 project.
As a result of this estimate, about two to five million visitors are expected to visit the two cities in 2025, compared to about 250.000 people who visit each year. This is a large figure for a destination with few tourists, even though Gorizia was qualified as the “Nice of Austria” from 1867 to 1918, when it was part of Austria-Hungary. A busy calendar of cultural events, including musical performances and art exhibitions, was compiled in honor of the award.
Same but different
Although they share the same dough, the two cities are very different from each other. Medieval Gorizia is a cobblestoned town full of buzzing cafes. The castle is characterized by a museum where exhibitions are organized with state-of-the-art installations that portray life in the castle throughout the centuries. In contrast, Nova Gorica – designed to show the world that Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia was capable of high-scale urban development – is modernist, and its relative innovations – concrete architecture laid in a line – are the only telltale sign that you’ve crossed a border.
“European Capital of Culture” is an award that the EU gives to two cities every year. Cities apply for it almost a decade ago, to prove the qualities. As the first transnational, the joint application was tempting. The idea of a “borderless” capital, serving as an experiment on how states can connect and cooperate better, use multiple languages and political systems, sounded ideal for the time. Administratively, Gorizia and Nova Gorica are two cities, but in practice almost everyone who lives in them speaks both Slovenian and Italian, and the residents live and work on whichever side of the border they want.
Tomaž Gržeta, for example, is a Slovenian journalist born in Nova Gorica, but living in Gorizia, because he likes the world of music there. The transition from one to another city, he says, is unnoticeable since after 2004, when all crossing points between them were removed. The border qualifies as Piazza Transalpina in front of the main train station – technically in Slovenia – where tourists line up to be photographed with one foot in Slovenia and the other in Italy. It is precisely in this part that the most expensive interventions for the GO!2025 program were made. The square was transformed into a space for cultural performances and museums that include both underground art galleries and amphitheaters that rise like wings on either side of the border.
The complicated history of the invisible border
The invisible border between Gorizia and Nova Gorica means that its history was compiled, after passing through different political “hands” – owned by the Hansburgs, Napoleon, Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, that of Italy, Yugoslavia and now Italy and Slovenia.
Evelin Bizjak, a local cicerone, gave an example of this when she was standing in front of the Slovenian museum “Muzej na Meji”.
“We live in a house near Solkan”, she said, referring to the world’s longest stone bridge, built in 1905 and spanning the Soça River. “My grandmother was born in Austria-Hungary. Father in the Kingdom of Italy. I was born in Yugoslavia. If I had children, they would be born in Slovenia.”
When the new border was defined at the Paris Peace Conference, the Allied forces drew a straight line with a pencil and ruler on the map and presented it to the soldiers. Fields and sometimes houses were waiting for me. A photograph from that time even shows a cow with one half of its body standing in Italy and the other in Slovenia. A few steps away from where this photo was taken, in the direction of Gorizia is Lasciapassare, an Italian museum. A hop, step, and flick in the opposite direction is Muzej na Mej, its Slovenian sister. Both were built according to the customs of the countries to which they belonged.
Museums reflect the ways life was along the border. Yugoslavs could cross it with a special booklet that functioned as a daily travel permit for a maximum distance of 30 kilometers. It contained coupons to buy goods that were not available in Yugoslavia. Coffee, laundry detergent, bananas and chocolates were the products most sought after by Yugoslavs, while Italians crossed the border for meat and homemade brandy. Everything that was bought that was not included in the coupons had to be smuggled. And this was not an unusual practice.
“When the border was defined, families had two months to decide whether they wanted to be Yugoslav or Italian,” says Alex Tammer, quoted in Lasciapassare. “Everyone here has family members on the other side.”
Those who chose to become Yugoslavs became the first residents of Nova Gorica, which was designed by the modernist architect Edvard Ravnikar.
And now, many years after all this, Gorizia and Nova Gorica are cities that have the Adriatic only 30 kilometers from the southern side and the Alps 40 kilometers from the north. It was here that two cultures and nations coexisted almost eternally in harmony. It’s the perfect place to see how borderlessness can easily work in practice, and GO!2025 offers an ideal chance to explore and celebrate one of Europe’s most thoroughly transnational countries. (BBC)
