"O Gorizia tu sei maledetta", also known as Gorizia, is an antimilitarist and anarchist war song composed during the First World War. It refers to the Battle of Gorizia in which approximately 21,000 Italian soldiers and 9,000 Austrian soldiers lost their lives. The original version was collected by Cesare Bermani in Novara, according to the testimony of a man who had heard it from the infantrymen during the capture of Gorizia, on 10 August. Born from the frustration of the Italian soldiers following the sixth battle of the Isonzo, which had led to the conquest of Gorizia by the Italian troops, however at the price of a high cost in human lives, it was considered immoral, defeatist and anti- war by the Italian military leaders, who decreed that anyone caught singing it would be shot.
