Scarica The Journey of Caterina Edwards: Discovering Her Mother's Past in Istria e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! FINDING ROSA AND THE ISTRIA QUESTION PLOT When her mother, Rosa, begins to show signs of Alzheimer’s, Caterina Edwards embarks on a complex journey—all at once geographical, intellectual, and emotional—that turns out to be a journey in search of the past and of home. As Rosa loses her memory and her sense of herself, Edwards travels to Istria, now part of Croatia, to get at the truth of her mother’s past. There she discovers the suppressed history of Istria—the ethnic cleansing of her mother’s people—and uncovers Rosa’s personal losses—her family’s exile, her father’s mysterious death, and the roots of her own sense of never belonging. Caught in that ever-growing “sandwich generation” of women caring for both their own children and ailing, aging parents, Edwards balances the demands of raising teenage daughters with the pressures of dealing with her deteriorating mother. During the four years that Edwards cares for her mother, she must also deal with her mother’s confusion, hostility, paranoia, and fear, as well as her own physical and emotional exhaustion. Through this journey, Edwards braves an area of darkness with and for her mother and finally comes to know who her mother was. THE AUTHOR Caterina Edwards LoVerso (born 1948) is a Canadian writer and teacher. Edwards was born in Earls Barton, England. Her mother was born in Lussino, Istria, and her father is from a Welsh and English family. Edwards eventually moved to Calgary and later attended the University of Alberta in Edmonton where she earned a B.A. in English. She then went on to complete a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. After attending the University of Alberta, Caterina Edwards married an American student of Sicilian origin, who later settled in Edmonton to start a family. Shortly after this time, Edwards' published short stories in literary journals, and anthologies, which has continued to this day. Edwards was the first Italian-Canadian woman writer in western Canada. In 1982 The Lion's Mouth was the first Canadian novel to combine ethnicity with feminism. In 1986, Terra Straniera was the first play about Italian immigrants in the Canadian Prairies. This play was later published as Homeground (1990), which was Edward's second book. This story was about a woman writer, who moved to the Canadian Prairies, and had the freedom to experiment with different genres in short stories, novellas, novels, a play and essays. For many years Caterina Edwards has taught English and creative writing at institutions in Edmonton such as Grant MacEwan Community College, the University of Alberta and Athabasca University. She combines two of her major interests into her teachings, which include her own writing and encouraging other writers. The conflicts that relate to Edwards' life are similar to the conflicts reflected in the characters of her books. ISTRIA QUESTION After World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, there was a strong local movement toward Istrian independence but in the end Istria was partitioned to Italy in the Treaty of Rapallo (1920). Istria's political and economic importance declined under Italian rule, and after the fascist takeover of Italy in 1922 the Italian government began a campaign of forced Italianization. In 1926, use of Slavic languages was banned, to the extent that Slavic family names were ordered to be changed to suit the fascist authorities. The organization TIGR, founded in 1927 by young Slovene liberal nationalists from Gorizia region and Trieste and regarded as the first armed antifascist resistance group in Europe soon penetrated into Slovene and Croatian-speaking parts of Istria. In World War II, Istria became a battleground of competing ethnic and political groups. Istrian nationalist groups which were pro-fascist and pro-Allied and Yugoslav-supported pro-communist groups fought with each other and the Italian army. After the German withdrawal in 1945, Yugoslav partisans gained the upper hand and began a violent purge of real or suspected opponents in an "orgy of revenge". The Yugoslav occupation of Istria and Venezia Giulia was a military operation of World War II that led to the military occupation of Istria and Venezia Giulia by Yugoslavia, which lasted from August 18th 1944 to May 1st 1945. The territorial changes made at the end of the conflict led to the cession of almost the entire Venezia Giulia region from Italy to Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Free Territory of Trieste (1947-1954). In 1944 Josip Broz, known as Tito, leader of the Yugoslav communist partisans, while the Yugoslavian territory was being liberated moved towards Venezia Giulia (Karst, Istria and Quarnaro, part of the Adriatic Coastal Zone of Operations at the time, under Italian sovereignty but directly controlled by a military administration imposed by Nazi Germany), the northern front of the war, aiming to conquer these regions, recognised as Italian after the First World War but with a strong Slavic minority. The consequences immediately following the Second World War were the flight to Italy of a large part of the indigenous population of Italian ethnicity (which went down in history as the 'Julian-Dalmatian exodus'), the territorial loss to Italy of almost the entirety of the Gorizia and Trieste Karst and the Istrian peninsula, as well as the Quarnaro (Liburnian coast and islands), and an unknown number of Italians killed in the foibe or shot. On May 1st 1945, Tito entered Trieste, one day ahead of the Allied troops from New Zealand. Forty days passed with the city under Yugoslav control, characterised by strong Slavic nationalist demonstrations, organised by the invaders, a determined hunt for fascists or presumed fascists, usually targeted against the ethnic Italian population, with numerous trials and executions, until an agreement was reached between Tito and the allied troops (June 9th, approval of the so-called "Morgan Line") for the evacuation of the Yugoslavs from occupied Venezia Giulia and the transfer of power to the Anglo-American administration: Gorizia and Trieste passed to the Anglo-Americans on
