Linguistic diversity in the border city of Split : literary representation of multilingualism in "Esilio" by Enzo Bettiza and its Croatian translation

In this article, the Croatian translation of Enzo Bettiza’s autobiography, Esilio (“The Exile”), originally written in Italian, is analysed. Bettiza, himself bilingual (Italian, Croatian), was born in pre-war Split and lived in Dalmatia until 1945. His autobiographical accounts describe the Split of 1930s as a multicultural and multilingual space but at the same time, implicitly, demonstrate how multilingualism (including the use of linguonyms) can be disputed and defined as a means of nationalism and colonialism, which is proved by the analysis of fierce discussions about this book in Croatia. It is demonstrated in this article how multilingualism is represented both in the source and target languages, Italian and Croatian, and what consequences it has for the process of mediation.