CAMILLO MEDEOT
Life and Works

Italian version

International Competition
Prize "Camillo Medeot"

The Istituto di storia sociale e religiosa in memory of Camillo Medeot’s work, awards a prize for an unpublished work, which tackles the history of the County of Gorizia.

The competition is open to bachelor, master and doctoral theses, if they have not been awarded in a similar competition.

The prize is worth 2.000,00 Euro.

Competitors must send no later than 30/06/2006 to Istituto di storia sociale e religiosa the following documents:

a) application form (date of birth, domicile, telephone number);

b) two copies of the thesis.

Sending these documents, competitors give permission to Istituto di storia sociale e religiosa to place their theses in its library.

A committee consisting in

1) Institute’s President or his delegate;

2) University Professors and experts on the thesis’ themes will evaluate the works

In the case of ex aequo committee will subdivide the prize.

The prize will be awarded in Gorizia in december 2006 by a member of Medeot’s family.

   Born in San Lorenzo Isontino on 25th July 1900, CAMILLO MEDEOT comes from - as he will describe it to Quirino Principe in 1975 - "a family of peasants, poor but not too much". His parents, seeing him a gracile child not adapted to work in the fields, decide to make to study him, before at the popular school in the village, then at the Secondary School for Teachers in Gradisca d'Isonzo. Studies that the First World War interrupts in 1915. He is a refugee at Landegg-Pottendorf, in one of the "Cities of wood" (Barackenlager) built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the evacuees from the war zones, and he is employed at barely 16 years, as a "student", in the administration of the field. After two years he resumes the studies to become a teacher at Kremsier (then called Kromeríz), in Moravia. He completes them as the war is over, in 1919, at the Royal Institute of Magistral studies in Gradisca, and he takes service very soon. For teaching he has a true and real passion, much to love just the title of Master (Teacher). It is therefore that he teaches at Monticchio (Pola), Lucinico, Cormòns, Dolegna, Brazzano, and finally at the Seminary of Gorizia, from 1925 to 1965. On 23rd May 1931 he marries a colleague, Ofelia Marega; they will have five sons.

He matures just in the '20 that vocation to "integral catholic" which he will express in the collaboration to "The Idea of the People", where writes brave articles of critic to Fascism; in the participation to politics, as enrolled to the Italian People's Party from 1920 to 1926, when the party officially is melted, from 1945 to the Christian Democratic Party - and in this militancy he covers the charges of communal councilman, from 1952 to 1956, and city council member in reached (Public education: 1945-48, 1952-56); in the inner activity to many catholic associations, as President of the section isontina of the Magistral association "Niccolò Tommaseo" from 1923 to 1927 and of the AIMC (Ass. Ital. Maestri Cattolici), as promoter of the provincial Magistral mayoralty. His committment in the christian associations takes him to being president of the Catholic Action (1947-48 and 1958-64) and of the Civic Committees (1952-60); in the management of city institutions: the college "Dante Alighieri", the communal Institute of music, the communal Committee international aids, the Institute "Oddone Lenassi". In 1960 he founds the Catholic Center Isontino of Culture.

Works of Camillo Medeot

Storie di preti isontini internati nel 1915, Gorizia 1969;
I cattolici del Friuli orientale nel primo dopoguerra, Gorizia 1972;
Le orsoline a Gorizia 1672-1972, Gorizia 1972;
Due friulani internati (1915-18), Udine 1974;
Lettere da Gorizia a Zaticina, Udine 1975;
Cronache Goriziane 1914-18, Gorizia 1976;
L'Istituto Magistrale di Gradisca 1909-1926, Udine 1977;
Friulani in Russia e in Siberia 1914-1919, Gorizia 1978;
Prigionieri friulani a Novi Zavòd, IN LXXI 1979;
Viva il Friûl, VC 13.1.1979;
Il primato dei fratelli Mosetti, IN LXXII 1980;
Grado 1914-1919, Gorizia 1980;
Un friulano nelle terzine giocose di un istriano, IN LXXVI 1981;
La storia della mia gente, San Lorenzo Isontino, Gorizia 1983.

Bibliography about Camillo Medeot

T. Tessitori, Sacerdoti al confino, MV 30.5.1970;
G. Biasutti, Camillo Medeot, Lettere da Gorizia..., PAN XXXVII 1977;
G.N. Matalon, Gorizia e l'Isontino, VC 16.12.1978;
F. Salimbeni, Ricordo di Camillo Medeot lo studioso di storia patria, SG LVII-LVIII 1983;
C.G. Mor, Il maestro Medeot, IN II 1983;
M. Brecelj, Camillo Medeot, Goricki letnik XI, 1984;
F. Salimbeni, Camillo Medeot, in Marian e i paîs dal Friûl Orientâl, Udine 1986;
G. Nazzi, Defriulanizzazione di Gorizia, Udine 1993;
I. Santeusanio - L. Pillon, Camillo Medeot: la figura e l'opera, Gorizia 1993;
Una vita da testimone, Voce Isontina 27.11.1993;
G. Faggin, Camillo Medeot tradizione goriziana, Voce Isontina 5.8.1995;
F. Vidic, Le battaglie di Camillo Medeot, Il Messaggero Veneto 5.8.2003.

16 July 2003. The anniversary of Camillo Medeot's death is approached: on 6 August, twenty years ago. Here is, therefore, a short book review of one, even little known, between the most meaningful works of the Author.

Federico Vidic

PORTRAIT OF A CITY AND A CHURCH UNDER THE GRENADES

"Letters from Gorizia to Zaticina ", by Camillo Medeot

In a moment the reading of this booklet of Camillo Medeot is flown. "Letters from Gorizia to Zaticina" : it would have to be the daily bread of who cares the history of our city; but not a fine history for its sake (as if carefully addressed never it is), history that gives the happened facts and analyzes critically places in being the plan for the future and the knowledge of the real vicissitude of Gorizia.
With the usual attention to the eyewitnesses, to the most directed sources of daily life, like personal letters, Medeot explanes the tragic vicissitudes of the first year of the Great War in a town, Gorizia, tortured by the obstinate front that opposes Austrians and Italians. Until fatidical Sixth Battle of Isonzo River, when the city comes secondly "delivered" (as the Italian say) or "occupied" (as the subject of the Kaiser). The collective vicissitude of a city, isolated from the rest of the peasantry and the diocese is exposed through letters-statement stilated by Mons. Francesco Castelliz to Prince Archbishop Francesco Borgia Sedej (bishop of the city from 1906 to 1931), then refugee at the Convent of Zaticina. The complex and contrasted figure of Monsignore emerges therefore. Castelliz, whose Camillo Medeot "finds the paste of contradictions and touchiness and, above all, of a satisfaction of himself or being always he the Deus ex machina" (P. Londero, from the Presentation to the book). Other main character Major-General Zaidler, commander of the Public Square of Gorizia, man outlined with some irony of exceptional dowries military, loyal, honest, but exuberantly too much sure of himself.
Round all is carried out the series of personages and daily facts interlaced to the great moments of history, narrated with a sure lightness and great mastery of style, with the subject always clearly exposed with the maximum impartiality and cleariness that "history of the native land", as Fulvio Salimbeni said, is "history of the own earth and own people".

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