Leo Weiczen Valiani and his Multilayered Identities: An Introduction

This volume “Leo Weiczen Valiani: Fiuman, European, Revolutionary, Historian”, appears as a special thematic issue of the West Croatian History Journal. In September 2015 the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka hosted the international conference “From Leo Weiczen to Leo Valiani”, to present the life and activities of this prominent European intellectual originally from Rijeka for the first time to a Croatian audience and in a Croatian institution. Born in Habsburg Hungarian “Fiume”, Valiani spent the World War I years as a schoolchild in Budapest, was raised in a German-speaking family and in the Italian-speaking environment of Rijeka’s turbulent postwar. In Rijeka he became an antifascist subversive, and in World War II a leader in the Italian resistance movement, and subsequently member of Italian Constitutional Assembly. As a prolific historian and newspapers commentator, he was also appointed Senator for life. Our aim is to discuss this multifaceted prominent intellectual as Fiuman, European, Revolutionary, and Historian.