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4: CASE STUDY 1: THE ITALIAN/SLOVENIAN BORDER
When Gorizia/Gorica fell within Italian territory a large section of its
hinterland, now within Yugoslavian territory, was suddenly without a
centre. Apart from Solkan and Šempeter, which were only small villages, the
majority of the land within the now Yugoslavian territory consisted of
farmland (Figure 20). The railway station, the northern of Gorizia/Gorica’s
two stations, was the only infrastructure that had been given to Yugoslavia.
A new Gorizia or Nova Gorica as it was called in Slovenian was to be built.
Youth groups were brought from all over Yugoslavia to help with the
building of this town. Many of the local people also took part in the work.
According to the information and reports presented in the papers about the
project at the time the workers were helping out as volunteers due to their
conviction and belief in the socialist system. Historian Drago Sedmak, who
works at the Goriški Musej Archive, explains however that for many it was
more of an opportunity to work as food and three meals per day were
provided (Drago Sedmak, 2011, pers. comm. 1 st August). Pictures from the
time show how the open fields were drained and how streets, streetlights
and buildings etc. developed into what was to become Nova Gorica. In the
period after the new border had been established times were difficult also in
Gorizia as many of its producers of goods or customers no longer could get
here. Over time new networks were developed on both sides of the border
which came to separate the two towns more and more until they operated
almost independently of each other.
Today a walk through the towns of Gorizia and Nova Gorica demonstrate
their very different development. Gorizia with its windy, cobbled roads and
sometimes highly narrow alleys demonstrates the slow, organic development
the town has had. Old maps of the town show how the city started on the
fortified hill above the current town and slowly spread downwards and
outwards. Nova Gorica, on the other hand, shows all the signs of a planned
town with its straight and broad streets crossing each other at straight angles.
Nova Gorica is laid out in a grid with roads running in straight lines from
north to south and from east to west. The exception is Ejavčeva Ulica which
stretches from the San Gabriele crossing and Gorizia into the heart of Nova
Gorica in a southwest–northeast direction. This was the original road heading
out of Gorizia/Gorica eastwards and out to what used to be the town’s former
cemetery. This older road stands in contrast to the rest of Nova Gorica’s
planned and organised layout. The roads in Nova Gorica are not narrow and
windy as in Gorizia but straight and wide. Over the decades since it was
established the town has stretched out in all directions, the different building
phases visible within its fabric: the municipal building, the first to be built,
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