In 2015 the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka hosted the international conference From Leo Weiczen to Leo Valiani. The aim of the conference was to present and discuss the work and life of an intellectual of European calibre, born and raised in Rijeka, where he started his antifascist activism. Weiczen/Valiani continued his revolutionary activism in the following years of internment and imprisonment in Italy, and as political émigré in France, Spain and Mexico. During World War II he became a prominent leader of the partisan movement in Italy, therefore a member of the Constituent Assembly of Italian Republic. Having abandoned his political career, he became a proficient historian and newspaper commentator. President Sandro Pertini proclaimed him senator for life of the Italian Republic. He was also honorary President of the Società di studi fiumani in Rome
The idea of this conference dates 2014. The Departments of History and Italian Studies of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences shared the organization of this conference, wholeheartedly supported by two faculty managements. The City of Rijeka also promoted this event, which was inserted by the Italian Consulate in the manifestation Weeks of Italian Culture in Rijeka. The conference hosted an exhibition on Leo Valiani/Weiczen and his family imbedded in the Rijeka Jewish network with documentation from the State Archive in Rijeka. The curators of the exhibition were Ivan Jeličić and Lea Čeč, who were helped by the students of the “Liceo” (Rijeka’s Italian high school). The exhibition was open to the public after the conference in the hall of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. This special issue of the journal of the Department of History (the West Croatian History Journal) selected some of the papers of the conference, modified by authors into scholarly articles and peer reviewed before being accepted. In the second part of this publication you will find some additional works, including the catalogue of the exhibition, which will hep the reader to get a more comprehensive picture of the various aspects of the life and work of Leo Weiczen/Valiani, from his “fiuman” environment, to his experiences as European intellectual and revolutionary, and as respected historian of Austria- Hungary
