Abstract

The aim of this essay is to review the recently re-discovered interest by part of Italian historiography, in particular of the historians of international relations, for the study of Italy's strategies and policies in the Adriatic and Balkan area in the contemporary era. The picture that emerges is that of a new political and cultural climate after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the start of the Albanian transition, which allowed Italian historians and scholars to work on these issues with greater calm, far from the tensions, passions and polemics that have characterized the relations between Italy and the neighboring Adriatic and Balkan nations for most of the twentieth century.