PULA, May 3 (Hina) - The exhibition of Istrian art which will open in Rome on May 6 is "evidently a political exhibition," Vesna Girardi-Jurkic, the head of the Pula-based International Research Centre for Archaeology, said on
Friday.
PULA, May 3 (Hina) - The exhibition of Istrian art which will open in
Rome on May 6 is "evidently a political exhibition," Vesna Girardi-
Jurkic, the head of the Pula-based International Research Centre
for Archaeology, said on Friday. #L#
The artefacts of the exhibition were brought to Rome in 1940 in 16
trunks, she said, adding that one group of the Esuli maintained they
rescued all the material by taking it to Italy just as Serbs claimed
they rescued Vukovar's museum archives by taking it to Novi Sad in
Serbia in the early 1990s.
Girardi-Jurkic said the entire material should be returned to the
place of its origin and left to museums to take care of it.
"It is difficult to know exactly which material will be exhibited,
but according to the documentation of the Istria Archaeology Museum
and my own, the material is mostly from the Slovene part of Istria.
To say the material is from Istria is a big political platitude. The
material mostly belongs to the museums of Piran and Koper," she
said.
"I believe the exhibition should be examined closely before a stand
is taken and we see what the Croatian and Slovene sides can each
claim," she said.
The works of art taken to Rome 60 years ago, allegedly at an
initiative of the peninsula's population to save them from the war,
will be exhibited at the Venice Palace in Rome until June 6.
(hina) ha sb