The
Italian name "foiba" derives from
Friulan "foibe", which in turn derives from the
Latinfŏvea (meaning "pit" or "
chasm").[1][2] The oldest document on which it is reported is an official report in 1770, written by the Italian naturalist
Alberto Fortis,[3] who wrote a series of books on the
Dalmatian karst.
Description
They are chasms excavated by
watererosion, have the shape of an inverted
funnel, and can be up to 200 metres (660 ft) deep. Such formations number in the hundreds in
Istria. In
karst areas, a
sinkhole, sink, or doline is a closed depression draining underground. It can be cylindrical, conical, bowl-shaped or dish-shaped. The diameter ranges from a few to many hundreds of metres. The name "doline" comes from dolina, the
Slovenian word for this very common feature. The term "foiba" may also refer to a deep wide chasm of a river at the place where it goes underground.[4]
The Yugoslav partisans intended to kill whoever could oppose or compromise the future annexation of Italian territories: as a preventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of
Tito communism[8] (Italian, Slovenian and Croatian
anti-communists, collaborators and
radical nationalists), the Yugoslav partisans exterminated the native
anti-fascist autonomists — including the leadership of Italian anti-fascist partisan organizations and the leaders of Fiume's Autonomist Party, like
Mario Blasich and
Nevio Skull, who supported local independence from both Italy and Yugoslavia —
for example in the city of Fiume, where at least 650 were killed after the entry of the Yugoslav units, without any due trial.[16][17]
In literature
Foiba is also the name of the well-known sinkhole that opens near the castle of Montecuccoli, in
Pisino, and of the stream that flows into it. The place plays a central role in
Jules Verne's novel Mathias Sandorf.[18]
^«....Già nello scatenarsi della prima ondata di cieca violenza in quelle terre, nell'autunno del 1943, si intrecciarono giustizialismo sommario e tumultuoso, parossismo nazionalista, rivalse sociali e un disegno di sradicamento della presenza italiana da quella che era, e cessò di essere, la Venezia Giulia. Vi fu dunque un moto di odio e di furia sanguinaria, e un disegno annessionistico slavo, che prevalse innanzitutto nel Trattato di pace del 1947, e che assunse i sinistri contorni di una "pulizia etnica". Quel che si può dire di certo è che si consumò - nel modo più evidente con la disumana ferocia delle foibe - una delle barbarie del secolo scorso.» from the official website of The Presidency of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano,
official speech for the celebration of "Giorno del Ricordo" Quirinal, Rome, 10 February 2007.