Deep in my heart, I am a child of 1968. This is the year of my real birth, as it were. Always to the left of the system in which I grew up, I saw it through funny glasses. My parents were the same in spite of the age difference, which was accentuated by the war that preceded my birth. Many of my parents’ friends were idealists of the same ilk, as well. The abuses of the system were often discussed in my adolescent presence, but they were never perceived as the system’s inherent fault.

It has taken me a while to fathom that most of the people of consequence in Motovun owe their success in life to the system of old. To its systematic abuses, that is. Their parents pushed them forward. Some of them provided their offspring with ill-begotten property that came handy after the system’s demise. But all of them are the worst products of the old system. They are its erstwhile leeches, no less. Indeed, it was the people like them who triggered the revolt of 1968.

The old system was far from perfect, it goes without saying. It was the boondocks that witnessed it at its very worst, though. This is where idealism that I cherished at the system’s core was unthinkable. Actually, unimaginable. The most powerful people in Motovun must have sensed this from the moment I set foot in this godforsaken town. The lofty politicians and proprietors, they must have smelled 1968 in my breath from the first encounter. Whence most of their visceral animosity, no doubt. Deep down, 1968 is still alive. And in Motovun, of all places.