We are pleased to announce the publication of a new thematic issue of the scholarly journal Retrospektive (Volume VI, Issue 2-3), dedicated entirely to the history of the Rapallo border. The Rapallo border of 1920 remains one of the defining yet underexplored fault lines of interwar European history, leaving more than 300,000 Slovenians outside the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. This issue addresses that gap through original archival research, combining diplomatic history, military geography, everyday life, and intellectual biography in an interdisciplinary approach that reflects the journal’s core commitments.

Contents of the Issue:

Božo Repe, The Rapallo Treaty and Its Diplomatic Background
This article examines the diplomatic circumstances surrounding the preparation of the Treaty of Rapallo from the perspective of the great powers, tracing the behind-the-scenes negotiations that shaped the fate of the Slovenian population at the end of the First World War.

Bojan Balkovec, Historiography on the Rapallo Border
The author provides a systematic overview of existing literature on the Rapallo border, highlighting the differences between bibliographic tools and demonstrating methods for navigating the scholarly field.

Božidar Flajšman, Everyday Life of the Primorska Slovenians after the Rapallo Treaty
Drawing on extensive family archives and personal testimonies, the author reconstructs the living conditions of Slovenians in the Primorska region under Italian rule following the Rapallo Treaty.

Aleksander Duh, The Fortification Line of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in Carinthia and Styria (Sector 6)
Through a broad overview of European fortification history, the author examines the Rupnik Line with particular focus on the Carinthian and Styrian sectors.

Darja Kerec, The Lawyer, Diplomat, Writer, and Publicist Lujo Vojnović and the Rapallo Border
This article presents the Croatian lawyer and intellectual Lujo Vojnović and his role at the Paris Peace Conference, where he contributed to the Yugoslav delegation’s ethnographic section.

Lea Knez, The Northern Border in the Turbulent Twentieth Century
This article provides a historical overview of the Slovenian-Austrian border, one of the most contested geopolitical flashpoints in the region since the end of the First World War.

The complete issue is freely available on the Retrospektive journal website.