This article uses Eugenio Montale's poem ‘Dora Markus’ to reflect on considerable complications attending the concept of the patria vera, or the homeland, in borderland Italy. The geographical locales are Istria – the peninsula southeast of Trieste on the Adriatic coast – and Carinthia some distance to the north, where Italy meets Austria and Slovenia. Both places have been multiethnic and politically contested regions for centuries, changing political hands so frequently that they make a mockery of the very notion of homeland. This article considers historical, poetic, and linguistic knowledge to offset much of the nationalist, ideological rhetoric surrounding the two world wars.
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