Francesco Salata (17 September 1876 – 10 March 1944) was a Dalmatian Italian senator, politician, journalist, historian and writer. Salata was an irredentist, although he had a more legalistic approach than other contemporaries, as well as being more liberal. He was panned and attacked by the fascists, although, after they took power, he was employed by the fascist government, and wrote books apologizing for the fascist politics. Very fond of his native Istria, Salata opposed what he saw as the slavicisation carried out by Croatian priests in Istria, the Kvarner and Dalmatia. He accused the Slovenian and Croatian clergy of carrying out the slavicisation of Istria and the Kvarner. Salata upheld the idea that Dalmatia, Istria and the Kvarner were, historically, Italian lands.
Among his best-known works are Guglielmo Oberdan secondo gli atti segreti del processo: carteggi diplomatici e altri documenti inediti (1924), republished in a reduced version as Oberdan in 1932, Il patto Mussolini: storia di un piano politico e di un negoziato diplomatico (1933), and Il nodo di Gibuti: storia diplomatica su documenti inediti (1939).
Biography
Salata was born on 17 September 1876 in Ossero, on the island of Cres, which at the time was part of the Austro-hungarian empire. His family wasn't hereditary aristocratic but nonetheless was well-to-do. His father was podestà of Ossero from 1883 until 1901.
In 1911 Salata married Ilda Mizzan, from a Pisino family. They had a daughter together, Maria, born in 1911. Salata toured Istria with Gabriele D'Annunzio, who, years before she engaged to Salata, became acquainted with his future wife in Pisino, where she designed a tribute paid to the poet upon his entry in the Istrian town, with D'Annunzio dedicating to her a copy of his Francesca da Rimini.
As early as in his high school years, Salata risked to be expelled from all the schools of the empire because of his attempts to found a branch of the Lega Nazionale in Ossero, which promoted the Italian language and culture in territories inhabited by Germans, Croatians and Slovenians, that is Trentino and the Adriatic coast.
After attending high school in Capodistria (Koper), Salata studied law at the University of Vienna (a total of seven semesters). He also studied two semesters at the University of Graz. Salata interrupted his studies to dedicate himself first to journalism and then to his studies on history. In 1888 he was the editor of Pola's (Pula) Il popolo istriano, and later a collaborator of Trieste's "Il Piccolo".
He participated in conferences of the Italian society of archaeology in Istria (Società istriana di archeologia e storia patria). His first intervention was on Francesco Patrizi, and it was published under the name Nel terzo centenario della morte di Francesco Patrizio – negli Atti e memorie della Società istriana di archeologia e storia patria. With his works L’antica diocesi di Ossero e la liturgia slava: pagine di storia patria (1897) and Nuovi studi sulla liturgia slava (1897), he joined the debate against the exploitation of the paleoslavic liturgy carried out by Slavic (Croatian) priests to promote the use of Croatian in the Catholic churches of Istria and the Kvarner. Both works end with an attack on the Slovenian and Croatian clergy. His subsequent works are increasingly patriotic.
Salata joined the Società politica istriana (SPI), believing in the civic and cultural superiority of the Italian element, which, because of this, was entitled to govern the res publica. According to Salata, this "preeminence" conformed to the "Austrian law of political representation of classes and interests," and it derived from the important number of Italians in modern-day Croatian lands and their "civic value and contributive force." According to Salata, Italians were superior "in ownership, intelligence and venerable culture." Salata became secretary and vice-president of the SPI in 1903. The party promoted Italian culture in Istria, fighting for positions of control in the local administrations. It also fought for the consolidation of the use of the Italian language at an administrative level and in schools.