There Red Square with the dome of San Basilio in the background for the Italian spectators of the last century it was like an animated postcard while in the foreground with the microphone in hand it appeared Demetrio Volcic. Just an image from Moscow, an example among the many that come to mind among the correspondences of the journalist who died in Gorizia today at the age of 90, on 22 November last.

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Demetrio Volcic, who he was

A dean of public service, a face loved by viewers to whom, looking out from the televisions of the time for about twenty years from the Rai news, he had approached distant worlds not so much for distances as for events, the world behind the Iron Curtain in the era of the Blocks . A journalist who was a model along with others of that time, such as Citterich, Barbato, Pastore, Selva, Orlando, a highly respected figure, leaves. Enrico Mentana remembers him moved: «When I started being a journalist, more than 40 years ago, I had only one myth in television news. It was Demetrio Volcic, who left today. I was lucky enough to work with him and be friends with him. It was and has remained unattainable, from the Prague Spring to the USSR between Brezhnev and Gorbachev, from Wałesa’s Poland to Schmidt and Kohl’s Germany, Demetrius told the story as it unfolded with the passion, brilliance and culture we admired. He was a great one, for me the greatest, and I mourn him with all those who knew and loved him ». Touching words that intertwine the professional value of Volcic with the historical moment: he was in those places where history was made, at the forefront, telling what happened, a great witness of the time and narrator, a master of detail, also gifted with great irony, as well as than with the air of a gentleman of other times.

Volcic had in his DNA to be a man of borders, by birth being born in Ljubljana from a Trieste father and mother from Gorizia and by vocation, telling as a journalist all those trespassing facts whether they are the invasion of Czechoslovakia or Perestrojka or as a super expert or rather as a Kremlinologist, the complex events in Moscow. The family had moved to Slovenia during Fascism, only to return to Italy a few years later. He had lived in various cities, including Vienna and Paris. He joined Rai in the mid-fifties and then became its foreign correspondent for over twenty years and director of Tg1. He kept the Italians informed about what was happening beyond the free part of Europe, in the Soviet Union and in Eastern countries until the collapse of those political systems.

Rai remembered him with gratitude for this and for his style widely “based on the search for truth and clarity”, in the words of the president of Rai Marinella Soldi and the CEO Carlo Fuortes. “A point of reference on issues of international politics”, underlined Usigrai. Volcic was also a senator about twenty years ago elected with the center-left and a member of the European Parliament. Writer, he had published numerous successful books, – 1956. Khrushchev against Stalin, 1968. Autumn in Prague, Moscow Days of the End, The Little Tsar, Sarajevo. When the story east – the last of which came out in 2021, a sort of collage of what he had written previously with unpublished chapters. Volcic leaves behind his wife and son, who lives in Moscow and a daughter who lives in London.

Sad reminder. I was a young student, curious about what was going on in Moscow with Perestrojka. I met him there in the days when it was not yet understood. He showed me the first jeans and dollar markets. It was much more useful than many official speeches. Goodbye #DemetrioVolcic

– Enrico Letta (@EnricoLetta) December 5, 2021

A journalist I liked very much is missing, Demetrio Volcic. This book of yours, which tells of the XX Congress of the CPSU, is very beautiful, I recommend reading it. https://t.co/d6V9TL0M8q

– Roberto Burioni (@RobertoBurioni) December 5, 2021