Fascist Italianization of Littoral Slovenes and Resistance
See also: Treaty of Rapallo (1920), Julian March, and TIGR
Especially after Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922, the violent Fascist Italianization of Slovene minority in Italy (1920-1947) and Littoral Slovenes in the areas that were given to Italy in exchange for joining Great Britain in the World War I were under no international restraint.
No undertaking about the rights of minorities in either the Treaty of Rapallo or the Treaty of Rome was given by Fascist Italy in Istria and Trieste's surroundings. Non-Italian (Croatian, Slovene, German and French) toponyms were systematically Italianized. During the period of occupation between years 1918 and 1920, all Slovene cultural associations (Sokol, "reading rooms" etc.) had been forbidden Fascist Italy brought Italian teachers from South Italy to Italianize ethnic Slovene and Croatian children, while the Slovene and Croatian teachers, poets, writers, artists and clergy were exiled to Sardinia and elsewhere to South Italy. Acts of Fascist violence were not hampered by the authorities, such as the burning down of the Narodni dom (Community House of the ethnic Slovenes) in Trieste, carried out at night by Fascists with the connivance of the police on 13 July 1920.
In 1926, claiming that it was restoring surnames to their original Italian form, the Italian government announced the Italianization of German, Slovene and Croatian surnames, giving this program open legislative form, furtherly Italianizing all the minorities. There was no exception for first names. Some Slovenes and Croatians have under these circumstances "willingly" accepted Italianization in order to stop being a second-class citizens without upward social mobility.
In order to fight violent process of Italianization in the area, the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR was formed in 1927. Acts of anti-Fascist guerrilla continued throughout the late 1920s and 1930s.
By the mid 1930s, around 70.000 Slovenes had fled the region, mostly to Yugoslavia and South America.
Read more about this topic: History Of Slovenia
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