D'Annunzio's Martyr / D'Annuzijeva mučenica

On 12 September 1919, Italian commander Gabriele D’Annunzio swept into Rijeka and declared that it belonged to Italy. What followed was one of the city’s most turbulent periods, where D’Annunzio’s proto-Fascist regime saw Croats - or anyone resistant to Italian rule - persecuted. In paintings of the period, Rijeka is often depicted as a martyred woman; yet women’s stories of the time have largely been left untold. This original and insightful exhibition changes that, by exploring the female experience of D’Annunzio’s rule. We hear moving first-hand accounts from native Rijekan women, who saw their home occupied and transformed. But there are also stories from women that had supported D’Annunzio, and some that had even been his lovers. It all adds up to a complex and human picture of one of the darkest times in Rijeka’s past.