Ask the people of Gorizia what defines their home, and some will show you a photo of a cow, standing between a house and its wooden stables, straddling a white line on the ground. On the night of 15 September 1947, following the end of the Second World War and the treaties that retraced the contours of Europe, soldiers armed with paintbrushes split this medieval city in Italy’s north east.
The centre remained part of Italy; the farms and fields, on the eastern outskirts, were given to neighbouring Yugoslavia, modern-day Slovenia. The shot was taken in the morning, when the image of the animal over the new perimeter — seeming half defiant, half unsure where it belonged — captured a sentiment locals found hard to put into words.
