Ettore Vittorio Uicich was born in
Pisino, Istria (then under Austrian rule), on 16 July 1870. A trader by profession, Uicich was an ardent
irredentist already in his youth. He always strove for the "Italianness" of "his hometown and of all of
Istria". In 1908, he founded the
Italian cycling club
Intrepido in his hometown of Pisino (now Pazin, Croatia). During
World War I, in July 1914, he received a letter of drafting by
Austria-Hungary. Uicich, however, had already left his family and was moving to Italy. Before leaving Pisino, he put his Italian flag into a box and dug it in an alley as a token of "faith and hope". It was dug up by his friends in October 1916, dug in a safer place, and dug up again and displayed on his house upon the entry of the
Bersaglieri in Pisino in November 1918. His flag is now kept in the of
Modena. He was posthumously awarded the
Silver Medal of Military Valor. ==References==