Iris Pupella-Noguès Miroslav Vilhar (1818-1871) was a Slovene poet and politician. The monument erected in Postojna and its inauguration in 1906 had been a demonstration of the Slovene identity for the whole region. When the city is annexed to Italy after the WWI, the monument becomes the heart of the claims: for Slovenes, it embodies the struggle against an oppressive power and for Italians it represents an obstacle to the symbolical appropriation of space. During the first years of fascism, the monument is repeatedly attacked until its relocation to a lesser central zone in 1927, and its destruction in 1941. Through the use of Italian archives and press, the article seeks to retrace the life and death of the monument, radiant artifact that embodies the tensions between Italians and Slovenes on the border.
