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About me
If you were to draw a line between the places where I have spent most of my time, you would understand why I consider myself a child of the East-West divide and, on mother’s side, a granddaughter of the “World of Yesterday”.
I come from the north-east of Italy, an area with a rich and turbulent history, including the Isonzo Front in the First World War, the Nazi occupation zone in the Second World War and, finally, the Italian border with the Soviet bloc for the first eighteen years of my life.
A few kilometres from my home was Gorizia, a city that, like Berlin or Görlitz, was and still is divided into two distinct cities, one Italian and the other Slovenian.
I was born in Udine, lived and studied in Milano and Vienna, spent several years in Salzburg and have been living in Berlin for a few years now, still spending some of my time in Vienna (one foot in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin and the other foot is in the 9th District of Vienna).
It is curious—and meaningful, if you believe coincidences do not exist—that the most important stations of my life (Udine, Salzburg, Berlin) all lie on the same longitude.
This 13° longitude sits close to the geographic center of Europe, if one considers Europe, as I do, to stretch from Lisbon to Luhansk.
- Berlin: 13°24′ East
- Salzburg: 13°03′ East
- Udine: 13°23′ East
I am doomed to identify myself as a Mitteleuropean. And I am happy to be such.
Finally, this picture speaks more than a thousand words: this is the only flag that still moves me:
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Stories big and small that start in Berlin and look eastward, where the heart of the continent beats and its future is shaped.
✍️ Digital Essays 📷 Photo Stories 🎙️ Podcast
From Berlin, Europe looks clearer—its history, its contradictions, its possible future.
Beyond Berlin dives into the stories that define this continent: memory, culture, politics, and the arts. It’s about how the past still breathes in the present, and how the line between East and West can finally blur.
It’s an evolving project—a mix of essays, photo stories, and podcasts that follow Europe’s pulse beyond its old borders.
This is also a personal statement. I am a social liberal European who refuses to accept decline as fate.
I believe Europe must rediscover pride—without forgetting its tragedies, but without being trapped by them.
“Make Europe Great Again” shouldn’t be taboo—it should be a challenge. Less guilt. Less moral posturing. Less dependency. Less empty cosmopolitanism. Less “global South-ism”. More identity. More confidence. More Europe.
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CONTACT berlin@valentinagiannella.eu
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© Valentina Giannella
Made in Berlin & Vienna
🇪🇺 Part of one Europe,
going from Lisbon to Luhansk