Da Cleveland a Corfù. L'azione dei comitati jugoslavi in Europa e nel mondo nella corrispondenza diplomatica italiana 1915-1917

The main purpose of this essay is a reconstruction of some particular events which are indeed of considerable importance for the fate of relations between Italy and the southern Slavs at the end of the Great War. They concern more or less secret actions, but carefully followed by Italian diplomacy, of the Yugoslavian organizations in the world, under the moral direction of the Yugoslav Committee (Jugoslovenski Odbor) leaded by Ante Trumbić, and founded, fatally, just four days after the Italian joining to the Great War: it results, from the researches done at this goal, that the most important centers of “Yugoslav” propaganda in the world and in Europe were settled not only in London, Paris and in Florence and, shortly, in Rome, but also in Genève, in Lausanne, and, out of Europe, in Antofagasta (Chile), and in Washington, Chicago and Cleveland (Ohio), where, on September 19 th, 1915, the chiefs of the local “Yugoslav” emigration released a declaration, addressed to President Wilson, whose contents and resolution are quite similar to the ones taken and formalized later, on July 20 th, 1917, in the more notorious Corfu Declaration: from this particular derives the intention to grasp the possible continuity between these two declaration in terms of common action and common direction.