The event was organised by the Association of Istria County Anti-fascist Fighters.
Opening the seminar, which pooled some 50 participants, the leader of anti-fascist fighters from Istria County, Miho Valic, said this was the first seminar in Croatia on people from the Croatian and Slovene Adriatic coast who emigrated to Italy between the 1940s and the 1950s.
A member of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Petar Strcic, said his research showed that most of 100,000 people who had emigrated at the time were Croats and not Italians as claimed by Italian historians.
Strcic said that Croats had emigrated to Italy mostly because of the post-war economic and political situation and that Italy was actually a transit country for those wishing to emigrate overseas.
Strcic added that it was high time for Slovene, Italian and Croatian politicians to stop manipulating the emigrants for political purposes and leave the matter to historians and scientists.