It seems that we have always been arguing about land. Thus, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Vodnjan and Savičenta engaged in century-long legal battles over their borders. Examined witnesses in three separate verdicts testified about whose cows grazed on which pasture in 1553 and what each party gave in exchange for access to watering holes and animal watering. Villagers measured distances by how far a shotgun could shoot or how far a crossbow could fly. Precision to the meter came much later. There was a community where life was lived, and the rest was the rest of the world. Danijela Doblanović Šuran wrote a book about these special provinces called “Differentie.” This term was used for all disputed border areas in Istria. She transcribed witness testimonies, found border stone blocks and watering holes that still exist today, and summarized everything into a timeless gift that gives us the opportunity to read about how our ancestors lived in this area of Istria and how human nature is essentially more or less the same. In a way, the dispute ended in the summer of 2023 (because it began again in 1995). Now, surveyors have measured it to the millimeter. The book is bilingual (Italian and Croatian), published by the Humanistic Society Histria from Koper.
