58° incontro culturale mitteleuropeo tenuto a Gorizia il 23 novembre 2023
Gorizia cuore d’Europa

Abstract: In his speech at the 58th ICM conference held in Gorizia on 23 November 2023, Hans Kitzmüller illustrated considerations and opinions on the historical character of Gorizia and its territory divided by a border for the first time only since 1947. In particular the exhibition focused on the originality and uniqueness that have characterized a cultural identity deriving from the centuries-old coexistence of Germans, Slovenians and Italians since the Middle Ages in the same region. This aspect determined by geography reveals itself in the light of the tragedies that nationalism caused in the first half of the twentieth century as an area of great interest to be rediscovered and valorised in a European sense. The exhibition also touched on topics relating to the multi-ethnic and multilingual population's awareness of this centuries-old coexistence in the past. From this point of view, the title of the conference 'Gorizia heart of Europe' is to be understood in its meaning as an authentic center of Europe as a physical and historical geographical meeting point of its three identity components: the Germanic, the Slavic and the Latin.