Rapallo Border Historical Society rapalskameja.si · 1920–1947
Rapallo border · 1920–1947

Contraband — Smuggling across the Rapallo Border

When the border divided fields, forests and families, smuggling became a means of survival for thousands of people — from the Alps to the Adriatic

The Rapallo border was not merely a line on a map. It cut across fields, forests and villages, severing people on one side from the land they had cultivated and the markets where they had sold their produce. Out of necessity, a smuggling network developed along all 244 kilometres. Contraband became part of survival and part of community identity.


Contraband or Smuggling?

Border communities distinguished between two concepts. Smuggling (tihotapstvo) carried a negative connotation in popular perception — the activity of greedy criminals, organised crime and violence. Contraband (kontrabant) was something different: an informal, community-accepted exchange of goods driven by necessity rather than greed. Contrabandists were neighbours, fathers, mothers and children carrying goods across the border for their own use.

Ethnologist Milan Trobič notes that local informants consistently distinguished between these two terms, even though in legal terms they meant the same thing: the unauthorised transport of goods across a state border. Contrabandists were motivated by survival; smugglers by profit. In practice these lines blurred — but the distinction went to the heart of community morality.

Why Did Contraband Arise at All?

Both sides of the border suffered from the deepening economic crisis of the 1920s and 1930s. But prices of goods differed — and the price differential was the root of everything.

In Yugoslavia, tobacco, saccharin, coffee and flour were cheaper than in Italy, where the sale of sugar and saccharin was under a state monopoly. Italy had wine, rice, silk and southern fruit. For a kilogram of sugar a worker in Yugoslavia had to work a full day in 1934; saccharin fetched several times its Italian price. A farmer who came home from the end of a night shift with a few horses could earn in a single night more than in a whole month of regular work.

Moreover, the border divided dual-landowners — farmers who had a field or forest on the other side. The agreements of Nettuno (1925) and Belgrade (1924) permitted them to cultivate their own parcels, but restrictions and taxes made normal farming impossible. From this grey zone contraband grew almost of its own accord.

What Was Smuggled?

Goods flowed in both directions, but with different articles. Below are the key flows recorded by historians and witnesses:

From Yugoslavia into Italy
  • Horses and cattle
  • Tobacco and cigarettes
  • Saccharin (under Italian monopoly)
  • Coffee (raw, unroasted)
  • Timber with forged stamps
From Italy into Yugoslavia
  • Wine
  • Rice and pasta
  • Olive oil

Who Were the Contrabandists?

Smugglers came from all social strata — farmers, workers, officials, and even border guards. Archival sources are dominated by men, as they led the organised groups; but historians and witnesses emphasise that women and young people were often the most frequent carriers of smaller goods.

Women passed more easily past the guards, hid goods under their clothing, and guards often did not suspect them or let them through. Trobič describes girls and women who walked up to seven hours on foot through fog and rain to earn fifteen or twenty dinars on the other side from selling eggs, meat or chicory, and then buy a piece of silk in Postojna.

Mrs Jelka Žejn from Medvedje Brdo near Rovte recounted that on one occasion she made artificial breasts from two loaves of butter and strapped them under her blouse. Passing through the checkpoint on the Rapallo border, she brought across a full four kilograms of butter, while the Italian guards only admired her and kept saying: Come bella signorina! She successfully repeated the same trick several times — each time with a regular consignment of coffee and saccharin.

— after Ozebek 2014, Municipal Museum Idrija

A special group were the Brici from the Goriška Brda hills, whom historian Jeram calls the successors of Martin Krpan. Accustomed to smuggling from the days of the Austria-Hungary border with Italy, they knew the Rapallo border better than anyone else. At night they moved in groups of 10 to 15 men; Italian guards preferred to avoid them.

Horse Smuggling

The greatest earnings came from smuggling horses, characteristic especially of the southern and central part of the border near the Javorniki and Snežnik mountains. A pair of horses cost 4,000–5,000 dinars in Yugoslavia, while the same amount in lire in Italy — at an exchange rate of 1:2.5 to 3.5. To prevent the horses from making noise, their hooves were wrapped in sackcloth. Bribes to commanders ranged from 300 to 500 dinars per horse. At night, through the Jurjeva valley, as many as ninety horses could pass in a single hour.

When the border authorities began marking livestock with special seals, smugglers devised forged seals made from dough and attached them to the animals' ears. Once the sold horses had been taken away by Italians, some professional smugglers would steal them back shortly afterwards and sell them again.

Saccharin and Coffee

Saccharin was hidden in hollow bread rolls, with 100 tablets in a red box wrapped in paper, or poured into drilled holes in a wooden cart and cleverly concealed. Coffee crossed the border raw and unroasted — in that state the guards found it harder to smell. Women carried it in specially sewn pouches tied under the waist and covered by clothing.

Timber with Forged Stamps

Timber fetched five times the price in Italy. Yugoslav owners of Javorniki forests on the Italian side were permitted to sell timber in Italy, but under strict supervision with stamping. Smugglers cut off the stamped sections, enlarged the logs with thicker timber and re-stamped them with forged hammers.

Guards, Penalties and Corruption

On the Italian side the border was guarded by three separate forces: the customs/border guards (Guardia di Finanza, known as Fiamme gialle after their yellow collar flames) for contraband control, the Guardia alla Frontiera (from 1934) for military control, and the fascist MVSN for political control. On the Yugoslav side were the border guards (mostly Serbian conscripts) and customs/border guards.

The penalty under Italian law for an unauthorised border crossing was at least three years imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 lire for a politically motivated crossing; in all other cases at least six months imprisonment. Before the Second World War, guards were permitted to shoot at anyone crossing the border at a prohibited location. Several smugglers were killed, and some remained disabled for the rest of their lives.

The paradox was that guards were often the most reliable part of the smuggling network — for a bribe. Bribed commanders demanded 300 to 500 dinars for the passage of each horse; with larger groups they personally helped divert the fascists' attention. Corruption was part of the system on both sides of the border.

When the fascist capo came to us and said he knew me, that he had seen me at contraband, I tried to wriggle out. But he came straight to the point: we should pay him and he would make sure we could drive the animals across safely. There was no way to get round him — he was hiding in the bushes watching and counting how many horses went through.

— testimony, collected by Janez Zrnec 1995; cited after Hrabar 2016

1941 — When the Border Became Real

Until 1941 the Rapallo border was dangerous for individuals but not impassable: there were never enough customs/border guards to maintain effective surveillance of the entire border line. With the April War of 1941 this changed radically. Part of the Rapallo border became the border with Germany, which meticulously maintained a 100-metre-wide cleared strip, and for the first time placed wire obstacles between boundary markers and minefields in between. The number of fatalities rose sharply — the border remained in this form until the end of the war.

After Italy's capitulation in September 1943, the German army took over control and maintained it until the liberation in May 1945. After the war the Rapallo border remained guarded — this time as the border between Yugoslavia and Zone B of the Julian March under Yugoslav military control.

Memory and Legacy

When the Rapallo border was dissolved by the Paris Peace Treaty in 1947, the wartime contraband died with it. But the memory lived on. It became part of local identity, the material of literary works and folk narratives. In storytelling, contrabandists were credited with heroism — which has a parallel in the figure of Martin Krpan: a prohibited act in the service of the community becomes morally permissible, even praiseworthy.

Some grew wealthy; others were destroyed by greed or drink. Many used their earnings to build a house or buy a plot of land. For the majority — for the mothers who carried coffee in hollow bread rolls, for the young men who drove horses through Jurjeva valley at night, for the women who walked twenty kilometres to Rijeka (Reka) and back — contraband was simply part of survival.

Sources and Bibliography