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Josip Ferfolja (27 September 1880 – 11 December 1958) was a Slovene lawyer and Social democratic politician, and human rights activist from the Province of Gorizia. Although he was an Italian citizen for most of his life, he considered himself foremost a Slovenian.
He was born in the village of Doberdò del Lago (Slovene : Doberdob) in what was then the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca (now part of the Italian Province of Gorizia). He attended high school in Gorizia, an important Slovene educational centre at the time; Ferfolja's school friends included historian Bogumil Vošnjak, economist Milko Brezigar, poet Alojz Gradnik, writer Ivan Pregelj, literary historian Avgust Žigon, and the prelate Luigi Fogar.
In 1901, he moved to Prague, where he studied law at the Charles University. There, he joined a group of Slovene students that had become influenced by the thought of Tomáš Masaryk, professor of philosophy, and later president of Czechoslovakia. The group, which included figures like Dragotin Lončar, Anton Dermota, Anton Kristan, and Ivan Žmavc, advocated a moderate reformist politics, based on a realistic analysis of social relations; their views were in many ways similar to the Fabian Society in contemporary Britain.
After graduation in 1906, he worked as a lawyer in Gorizia and Tolmin, before settling in Trieste in 1913. In 1907, he joined the Yugoslav Social Democratic Party (JSDS), helping in the development of its grassroots network first in the Austrian Littoral. In 1917, Ferfolja adhered to the May Declaration, a joined manifesto of Slovene and Croatian political parties in the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, demanding the formation of a unified and autonomous political entity of all Austro-Hungarian South Slavs on the basis of national self-determination. Together with Dragotin Lončar and Albin Prepeluh, he formed an alternative "patriotic" current in the Yugoslav Social Democratic Party, critical with the official internationalist and Austro-Marxist stance of the party.
After the Italian occupation of Trieste in early November 1918, he advocated the collaboration with Italian socialism, becoming a close collaborator of the local Italian trade union leader Valentino Pittoni. Ferfolja however objected the unifaction of Slovene and Croat social democrats of the Julian March with the Italian Socialist Party. After the Congress of Livorno of 1921, when most of the socialists of Trieste and the Julian March, both Italian and Slovene, joined the Communist Party of Italy, he withdrew from active politics. During the Fascist regime, he remained faithful to his democratic principles, although refusing to engage in any subversive action. In 1940/41, he was a legal advisor in the so-called Second trial of Trieste against the Slovene Communist leader Pinko Tomažič.
During World War II, he joined the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People; in 1944, he became the president of its Trieste section. After the occupation of Trieste by the Yugoslav People's Army in May 1945, he became one of the members of the city's "Liberation Council". He continued his collaboration with the Titoist political structures in Trieste until 1946, when he resigned from all position in protests against the overwhelming Communist influence. After the formation of the Free Territory of Trieste in 1947, Ferfolja organized the Group of Independent Slovenes (Skupina neodvisnih Slovencev, SNS), together with Frane Tomčič and Dušan Rybář, as an alternative left wing opposition against the prevailing influence of the Communist Party of the Free Territory of Trieste among the Slovene workers in Trieste. After 1950, Ferfolja's platform joined forces with other Slovene anti-Communist political organizations, forming the Slovene National List, the predecessor of the modern Slovene Union.
He died in Trieste in 1958.
The history of Slovenia chronicles the period of the Slovenian territory from the 5th century BC to the present. In the Early Bronze Age, Proto-Illyrian tribes settled an area stretching from present-day Albania to the city of Trieste. The Slovenian territory was part of the Roman Empire, and it was devastated by the Migration Period's incursions during late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The main route from the Pannonian plain to Italy ran through present-day Slovenia. Alpine Slavs, ancestors of modern-day Slovenians, settled the area in the late 6th Century AD. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the land for nearly 1,000 years. Between the mid-14th century through 1918 most of Slovenia was under Habsburg rule. In 1918, most Slovene territory became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and in 1929 the Drava Banovina was created within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with its capital in Ljubljana, corresponding to Slovenian-majority territories within the state. The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was created in 1945 as part of federal Yugoslavia. Slovenia gained its independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991, and today it is a member of the European Union and NATO.
TIGR, fully the Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R., was a militant anti-fascist and insurgent organization established as a response to the Fascist Italianization of the Slovene and Croat people on part of the former Austro-Hungarian territories that became part of Italy after the First World War, and were known at the time as the Julian March. It is considered one of the first anti-fascist resistance movements in Europe. It was active between 1927 and 1941.
Igo Gruden was a Slovene poet and translator.
Ivan Cankar was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet, and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Slovene, and has sometimes been compared to Franz Kafka and James Joyce.
Doberdò del Lago is a comune (municipality) in the Regional decentralization entity of Gorizia in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 30 kilometres (19 mi) northwest of Trieste and about 11 kilometres (7 mi) southwest of Gorizia, and borders the following municipalities: Duino-Aurisina, Fogliano Redipuglia, Komen (Slovenia), Miren-Kostanjevica (Slovenia), Monfalcone, Ronchi dei Legionari, Sagrado and Savogna d'Isonzo. It is located in the westernmost part of the Karst Plateau.
Dragotin Kette was a Slovene Impressionist and Neo-Romantic poet. Together with Josip Murn, Ivan Cankar, and Oton Župančič, he is considered the founder of modernism in Slovene literature.
Alojz Gradnik was a Slovenian poet and translator.
The Slovene Union is a political party in Italy representing the Slovene minority in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Its Slovene name means literally "Slovene Community", but the denomination "Slovene Union" is used in other languages.
Lavo Čermelj, Italianized name Lavo Cermeli, was a Slovene physicist, political activist, journalist, and author. In the 1930s, he was one of the foremost representatives of Slovene anti-Fascist émigrés from the Italian-administered Julian March, together with Josip Vilfan, Ivan Marija Čok, and Engelbert Besednjak.
Bogumil Vošnjak, also known as Bogomil Vošnjak, was a Slovene and Yugoslav jurist, politician, diplomat, author, and legal historian. He often wrote under the pseudonym Illyricus.
The Slovene Society is the second-oldest publishing house in Slovenia, founded on 4 February 1864 as an institution for the scholarly and cultural progress of Slovenes.
Yugoslav Social-Democratic Party or JSDS was a socialist political party in Slovenia and Istria within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was founded in 1898 in Trieste.
Josip Ribičič was a Slovene writer, known as an author of popular children's literature.
Albin Prepeluh was a Slovenian left wing politician, journalist, editor, political theorist and translator. Before World War I, he was the foremost Slovene Marxist revisionist theoretician. After the War, he became one of the most persistent advocates of Slovenian autonomy within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and, together with Dragotin Lončar, the ideologist of the democratic reformist faction of Slovenian Social Democrats. In the late 1920s, he evolved towards agrarianism. He was also known under the pseudonym Abditus.
Dragotin Lončar was a Slovenian historian, editor, and Social Democratic politician.
Boris Furlan was a Slovenian jurist, philosopher of law, translator and liberal politician. During World War II, he worked as a speaker on Radio London, and was known as "London's Slovene voice". He served as a Minister in the Tito–Šubašić coalition government. In 1947, he was convicted by the Yugoslav Communist authorities at the Nagode Trial.
Engelbert Besednjak was a Slovene Christian Democrat politician, lawyer and journalist. In the 1920s, he was one of the leaders of the Slovene and Croat minority in the Italian-administered Julian March. In the 1930s, he was one of the leaders of Slovene anti-Fascist émigrés from the Slovenian Littoral, together with Josip Vilfan, Ivan Marija Čok and Lavo Čermelj.
Josip Vilfan or Wilfan was a Slovene lawyer, politician, and human rights activist from Trieste. In the early 1920s, he was one of the political leaders of the Slovene and Croatian minority in the Italian-administered Julian March. Together with Engelbert Besednjak, Lavo Čermelj and Ivan Marija Čok, he was the most influential representative of the Slovene émigrés from the Slovenian Littoral during the 1930s. Next to Leonid Pitamic and Boris Furlan, Vilfan is considered one of the most important Slovene legal theorists of the first half of the 20th century.
Etbin Kristan was a Slovenian labour leader and Social Democratic politician and writer during the late-Austrian-Hungarian and the Yugoslav monarchy.
Slovene minority in Italy, also known as Slovenes in Italy is the name given to Italian citizens who belong to the autochthonous Slovene ethnic and linguistic minority living in the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The vast majority of members of the Slovene ethnic minority live in the Provinces of Trieste, Gorizia, and Udine. Estimates of their number vary significantly; the official figures show 52,194 Slovenian speakers in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as per the 1971 census, but Slovenian estimates speak of 83,000 to 100,000 people.