With the Kingdom of Italy's victory in the First World War, the irredentist dream of expanding national borders eastward was realised in lands that had been governed for centuries by the multiethnic Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian authorities. These territories were indeed characterised by a massive Italian presence, but this presence was so clear and fleeting that it was beyond any doubt in urban contexts, especially in large seaside cities like Trieste, Pola, and Zadar, direct descendants of Venetian maritime expansion in the Middle Ages and early modern times. In rural areas, however, the situation changed dramatically, with a Slavic-speaking component far outweighing the Italian-speaking and culturally Italian component.

After annexation to the Kingdom of Italy, the situation remained unresolved, with regard to the potential conflicts that could arise in such a complex social context, now upended by the arrival of a new master. In response to this problem, the Fascist government made Slavophobia a cornerstone of its political and cultural agenda, gradually attacking Slavic culture in Venezia Giulia, starting with the ban on teaching in Slovenian and Croatian with Gentile's school reform in 1923 and continuing with the modification of place names and surnames, thus Italianizing them.

In theory, these Italianizations should have served to restore the original Italian or Latin form—depending on the name analysed—to terms that already had that origin. However, in reality, demands for Italianization began to be advanced even for surnames and place names of clear Slavic origin. For this reason, many of these names have lost their original meaning. Just think of examples of surnames like Kmet (peasant) becoming Meti or Knez (count) becoming Nesi.

This repressive policy toward local linguistic minorities is not surprising, both because fascism—thanks to the contribution of the theoretician Ettore Tolomei, who had promulgated the laws for the linguistic assimilation of Bolzano—had already adopted similar approaches in other regions of Italy, and because Venezia Giulia had been the cradle of fascist squadrism as we know it, with the burning of the Hotel Balkan in Trieste, home to a people's house and a Slavic-language newspaper, famous for being the first real episode of squadrist terrorism.