Basketball as a Diplomatic Tool Beyond the Iron Curtain

Abstract

This article analyses the role of sport, particularly basketball, in the lives of the Slovenian minority in the Italian Littoral (Trieste, Gorizia, and the Karst) during the Cold War (1947–1991). It traces the evolution from the 19th-century Sokol movement, resilient to fascist repression, to the postwar revival under the ZSDI, a federation that coordinates over 50 associations and 27 disciplines, serving as a tool for identity cohesion, socialisation, and cross-border negotiation with Yugoslavia. The focus is on basketball: from its origins in the 1960s (Bor, Polet) to the Jadran epic of the 1970s and 1980s, with competitive successes (promotion to Serie B in 1986), the influence of Telecapodistria, and key figures such as Branko Lakovi and Peter Brumen, who embodied cultural resistance and integration in the Italian leagues. Sport emerges as “social capital” for preserving language, symbols, and communities in border contexts, from clandestine to legally recognised (Osimo 1975, Law 38/2001).