Fulvio Tomizza’s biblical-geocentric return to Istria

Abstract

Fulvio Tomizza is a complex literary phenomenon whose origins reach back to rural Istria. The collision and boundary between Italy-Yugoslavia is the most significant moment in his work. Leaving for Trieste after the London memorandum of 1954 as part of the great Istrian exodus, his novels, which from the initial realistic phase are streaked with oneiroic-psychological analysis, describe this syndrome. Criticism, especially in Trieste, has marked him as a Triestian-Central European writer. The present paper points at Tomizza’s cultural exodus into Central European complexity, giving a brief review of what is understood by this term. However, this literary exodus did not placate Tomizza’s vox dementis for Istria and its geoethics. Tomizza counterpoints this return, this second exodus from Central Europe to Istria as standing for absolute etho-fatalistic value and Eden itself, with the Bible, attempting to absolve decrepitude through archetypal visions. Since this entire literary procedure engages Istria and its specific rural ethics and traditions to quite an extent, the author perceives the contribution and identification of Central Europe as a phenomenon of civilization encompassing diverse ethnic communities.