Darko Bratina

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Darko Bratina (30 March 1942 – 23 September 1997) was an Italian sociologist, film theorist and politician of Slovene ethnicity.

Born in Gorizia to a Slovene-speaking family, he could not be given a Slovene name because of Fascist-era laws, so his official name became Diodato Bratina. His Slovene name was Božidar, but he was mostly known by the nickname Darko.

He grew up attending Slovene-language schools in Gorizia and began studying civil engineering at the University of Trieste. He soon switched to social sciences, studying at the High Institute of Social Sciences in Trento, where he met his future wife and started a family. He graduated with a thesis on the social structure of ethnic minorities in Europe. Afterward, he lectured at the FIAT Industrial Administrative School. While in Turin, he was influenced by Felice Balbo, a Christian left thinker who blended Marxist ideas with Catholic faith. He also developed an interest in film theory, organized regional film festivals in northern Italy, and translated Ian Jarvie’s Sociology of Film into Italian.

From the mid-1970s he taught social theory at the University of Trieste and worked with the Slovene Research Institute (SLORI), which he led in the 1980s. After the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1991, he supported European Union expansion and promoted cross-border cooperation around the Italian town of Gorizia and neighboring Slovenian towns to form a transnational metropolitan area.

Bratina entered politics in 1984, running for the European Parliament as an independent on the Italian Communist Party list with support from the Slovene Union; he did not win, but he received many preferential votes in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In 1991 he joined the Democratic Party of the Left. In 1992 he was elected to the Italian Senate and was re-elected in 1994 and 1996. From November 1996 until his death he also served in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

He died of a heart attack in Obernai, France, near Strasbourg, after giving a speech at the Council of Europe. Demetrio Volcic succeeded him in the Senate after a by-election.