Abstract

This essay reconstructs the strategy adopted by the Christian Democrats in managing the Eastern Italian border issue from post 1945 until the late Seventies. We analyze in depth the reasons for the Christian Democrats's consensus and decline in Trieste, a city in which a Catholic movement has traditionally been weak, theater of a harsh ideological and national struggle and claimed by Yugoslavia's Government. This article tackles issues like the success of the Christian Democrats party in the defense of the «Italian character» of this area and the anti-Communist struggle in the Venezia Giulia territory; the program of political normalization promoted by Catholicism and by the center-left coalition; the electoral collapse suffered by the Christian Democrats, caused by negative public reactions to the entente between Rome and Belgrade. This case study, supported by previously unpublished documentation, such as material from the Giulio Andreotti archive, aims at analyzing the role of the parties of the Italian Republic and of the post-war ruling classes in the transition to democracy, examining the ability of the main Italian governmental party to offer political representation and integration to a such a peculiar periphery as Trieste.