Foiba

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Type of deep natural sinkhole

title: "Foiba" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["karst-caves", "sinkholes", "karst-formations", "dinaric-alps", "dinaric-karst-formations", "karst"] description: "Type of deep natural sinkhole" topic_path: "general/karst-caves" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foiba" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Type of deep natural sinkhole ::

::callout[type=note] sinkholes ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Grotta_Plutone_from_Foibe_2016_by_Sharon_Ritossa.jpg" caption="Grotta Plutone is a foiba close to Basovizza, [[Trieste]] ([[Italy]])"] ::

A foiba (from Italian: ; plural: foibe or foibas)—jama () in South Slavic languages scientific and colloquial vocabulary (borrowed since early research in the Western Balkan Dinaric Alpine karst)—is a type of deep natural sinkhole, doline, or sink, and is a collapsed portion of bedrock above a void. Sinks may be a sheer vertical opening into a cave or a shallow depression of many hectares. They are common in the Karst region shared by Italy and Slovenia, as well as in the karst of the Dinaric Alps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Croatia. The foibe massacres, a war crime that took place during and after World War II, take their name from the foibe.

Etymology

The Italian word foiba derives from Friulan foibe, which in turn derives from Latin fŏvea 'pit, chasm'. The oldest document on which it is reported is an official report in 1770, written by the Italian naturalist Alberto Fortis, who wrote a series of books on the Dalmatian karst.

Description

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Polje-Modell.jpg" caption="Chart of a karstic basin where the vertical sinkholes (foibe) are visible"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Foiba.svg" caption="Simple scheme of a foiba"] ::

They are chasms excavated by water erosion, have the shape of an inverted funnel, and can be up to 200 m deep. Such formations number in the hundreds in Istria. In karst areas, a sinkhole, sink, or doline is a closed depression draining underground. It can be cylindrical, conical, bowl-shaped or dish-shaped. The diameter ranges from a few to many hundreds of metres. The name "doline" comes from dolina, the Slovenian word for this very common feature. The term "foiba" may also refer to a deep wide chasm of a river at the place where it goes underground.

Foibe massacres

Main article: Foibe massacres

During and right after the end of World War II, OZNA and Yugoslav Partisans killed a number between 11,000 and 20,000 of the local ethnic Italian population (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), as well against anti-communists in general (even Croats and Slovenes), usually associated with Fascism, Nazism and collaboration with Axis, as well as against real, potential or presumed opponents of Tito communism by throwing their still living bodies into the foibe. This event is known as foibe massacres. The type of attack was state terrorism, reprisal killings, and ethnic cleansing against Italians.{{cite book |first1 = Donald|last1 = Bloxham|author-link = Donald Bloxham|first2 = Anthony|last2 = Dirk Moses|author-link2 = A. Dirk Moses|editor-first = Donald|editor-last = Bloxham|editor-first2 = Robert|editor-last2 = Gerwarth|title = Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe|chapter = Genocide and ethnic cleansing|page = 125|year = 2011|publisher = Cambridge University Press|doi = 10.1017/CBO9780511793271.004| isbn=9781107005037 }} The foibe massacres were followed by the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus.

The Yugoslav partisans intended to kill whoever could oppose or compromise the future annexation of Italian territories: as a preventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of Tito communism

In literature

Foiba is also the name of the well-known sinkhole that opens near Pazin Castle, in Pazin, and of the river that flows into it. The place plays a central role in Jules Verne's novel Mathias Sandorf.

References

References

  1. Ottavio Lurati, ''Toponymie et géologie'', in Quaderni di semantica, year XXIX, number 2, December 2008, 443.
  2. "Foiba".
  3. Hofmann, Peter. (2014). "Unterirdisches Istrien: Ein Exkursionsführer zu den ungewöhnlichsten Höhlen und Karsterscheinungen". BoD – Books on Demand.
  4. "Glossary of speleology: letter F".
  5. Micol Sarfatti. (11 February 2013). "Perché quasi nessuno ricorda le foibe?".
  6. (2021). "Collective Identities and Post-War Violence in Europe, 1944–48". Springer International Publishing.
  7. Guido Rumici. (2002). "Infoibati (1943-1945)". Ugo Mursia Editore.
  8. "Relazione della Commissione storico-culturale italo-slovena - V Periodo 1941-1945".
  9. ''Il tempo e la storia: Le Foibe'', Rai tv, Raoul Pupo
  10. Lowe, Keith. (2012). "Savage continent".
  11. Silvia Ferreto Clementi. "La pulizia etnica e il manuale Cubrilovic".
  12. ''«....Già nello scatenarsi della prima ondata di cieca violenza in quelle terre, nell'autunno del 1943, si intrecciarono giustizialismo sommario e tumultuoso, parossismo nazionalista, rivalse sociali e un disegno di sradicamento della presenza italiana da quella che era, e cessò di essere, la Venezia Giulia. Vi fu dunque un moto di odio e di furia sanguinaria, e un disegno annessionistico slavo, che prevalse innanzitutto nel Trattato di pace del 1947, e che assunse i sinistri contorni di una "pulizia etnica". Quel che si può dire di certo è che si consumò - nel modo più evidente con la disumana ferocia delle foibe - una delle barbarie del secolo scorso.»'' from the official website of The Presidency of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, [http://www.quirinale.it/elementi/Continua.aspx?tipo=Discorso&key=930 official speech for the celebration of "Giorno del Ricordo"] Quirinal, Rome, 10 February 2007.
  13. "Il giorno del Ricordo - Croce Rossa Italiana".
  14. Georg G. Iggers. (2007). "The Many Faces of Clio: cross-cultural Approaches to Historiography, Essays in Honor of Georg G. Iggers". Berghahn Books.
  15. (Italian, Slovenian and Croatian [[anti-communism. anti-communists]], collaborators and [[nationalism. radical nationalists]]), the Yugoslav partisans exterminated the native [[anti-fascist]] autonomists — including the leadership of Italian anti-fascist partisan organizations and the leaders of Fiume's Autonomist Party, like [[Mario Blasich]] and [[Nevio Skull]], who supported local independence from both Italy and Yugoslavia — [[Fiume Autonomists purge. for example in the city of Fiume]], where at least 650 were killed after the entry of the Yugoslav units, without any due trial.Società di Studi Fiumani-Roma, Hrvatski Institut za Povijest-Zagreb ''[http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/DGA-free/Sussidi/Sussidi_12.pdf Le vittime di nazionalità italiana a Fiume e dintorni (1939-1947)] {{webarchive. link. (October 31, 2008). 88-7125-239-X, p. 597.
  16. "Le foibe e il confine orientale".
  17. (22 August 2009). "La Foiba di Pisino che ispirò Jules Verne".

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karst-cavessinkholeskarst-formationsdinaric-alpsdinaric-karst-formationskarst