Imperial Free City of Trieste | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1382–1809 1849–1922 | |||||||||||||
 Map of theAustrian Littoral | |||||||||||||
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| Capital | Trieste 45°38′N13°48′E / 45.633°N 13.800°E /45.633; 13.800 | ||||||||||||
| Government | Free city | ||||||||||||
| Emperor | |||||||||||||
| Legislature | Diet of Trieste | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | |||||||||||||
• Occupied byVenice | 1369–72 | ||||||||||||
• Ceded toAustria | October 1382 | ||||||||||||
| 14 October 1809 | |||||||||||||
• Austrian reconquest | 1813 | ||||||||||||
| 1816–49 | |||||||||||||
| 4 November 1918 | |||||||||||||
| 12 November 1920 | |||||||||||||
| 28 October 1922 | |||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||
| 1910 | 95 km2 (37 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
• 1910 | 229,995 | ||||||||||||
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| Today part of | |||||||||||||
TheImperial Free City of Trieste and its Territory (German:Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest und ihr Gebiet,Italian:Città Imperiale di Trieste e Dintorni) was a possession of theHabsburg monarchy in theHoly Roman Empire from the 14th century to 1806, a constituent part of theGerman Confederation and theAustrian Littoral from 1849 to 1920, and part of the ItalianJulian March until 1922. In 1719 it was declared afree port byEmperor Charles VI; the construction of theAustrian Southern Railway (1841–57) turned it into a bustlingseaport, through which much of the exports and imports of theAustrian Lands were channelled. The city administration and economy were dominated by the city'sItalian population element; Italian was the language of administration and jurisdiction. In the later 19th and early 20th century, the city attracted the immigration of workers from the city'shinterlands, many of whom were speakers ofSlovene.
After thefall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Trieste was aByzantine military outpost. In 567 AD the city was destroyed by theLombards, in the course of their invasion of northern Italy. In 788 it became part of theFrankish kingdom, under the authority of theircount-bishop. From 1081 the city came loosely under thePatriarchate of Aquileia, developing into a freecommune by the end of the 12th century.
After two centuries of war, Trieste came with the signing of a peace treaty on 30 October 1370 in front ofSt. Bartholomew's Church in the village ofŠiška (apud Sisciam) (now part ofLjubljana) under theRepublic of Venice.[1] The Venetians retained the town until 1378, when it became the property of thePatriarchate of Aquileia.[2] Discontent with the patriarch's rule, the main citizens of Trieste in 1382 petitionedLeopold III ofHabsburg,Duke of Austria to become part of his domains, in exchange for his defence.[2] This unitedCharlemagne's southernmarches under Habsburg rule,[3] subsequently consolidated as theAustrian Littoral (German:Österreichisches Küstenland).
Following an unsuccessfulHabsburg invasion of Venice in the prelude to theWar of the League of Cambrai, the Venetians occupied Trieste again in 1508, and under the terms of the peace were allowed to keep the city. The Habsburg Empire recovered Trieste a little over a year later, however, when conflict resumed. With their acquisition by the Habsburgs,Carniola and the Julian March ceased to act as an east-facing outpost of Italy against the unsettled peoples of the Danube basin, becoming a region of contact between the land-based Austrian domains and themaritime republic of Venice, whose foreign policy depended on control of theAdriatic.[3] Austro-Venetian rivalry over the Adriatic weakened each state's efforts to repel theOttoman Empire's expansion into theBalkans (which caused many Slavs to flee into theKüstenland, sowing the seeds of futureYugoslav union), and paving the way for the success ofNapoleon's invasion.[3]
On the Habsburg's annexation, Trieste had apatriciate, abishop and his chapter, two municipal chapters totalling 200 people, armed forces and institutions ofhigher education.[4]Italian irredentism was continually popular — writing in 1917, the Italian nationalistLitta Visconti Arese described the city as:
The last of the ItalianComuni still struggling in the twentieth century against the Germanic Empire and the Invasion of the Barbarians.[5]
Trieste became an important port and trade hub. In June 1717,[4] it was made afree port within theHabsburg Empire byEmperor Charles VI (r. 1711–40), effective from his visit to the city on 10 September 1718,[4] and remained a free port until 1 July 1891, when it was eclipsed by Fiume (nowRijeka).[6] From June 1734, Charles VI began assembling a navy in the city.[4] The reign of Charles VI's successor,Maria Theresa (r. 1740–65), marked the beginning of a flourishing era for the city, starting with her order for the dismantling of thecity walls in 1749, in order to allow the freer expansion of the city, and ordering expansive building works and canaldredging.[4]
In 1768, the German art historianJohann Joachim Winckelmann was murdered by a robber in Trieste, while on his way from Vienna to Italy.
Trieste was occupied byFrench troops three times during theNapoleonic Wars, in 1797, 1805 and in 1809. Between 1809 and 1813, it was annexed to theIllyrian Provinces, interrupting its status as a free port and causing a loss of the city's autonomy; the municipal autonomy was not restored after the return of the city to theAustrian Empire in 1813. For the French, the Illyrian Provinces provided a military frontier against the remaining Austrian lands and a military base against the Turks, as well as providing distant endowments forMarshals of the Empire.[3]
WhenNapoleon defeated theRepublic of Venice in 1797, he found that Istria was populated by Italians on the coast and in the main cities, but the interior was populated mainly by Croats and Slovenians; this dual ethnicity in the same peninsula created antagonism between Slavs and Italians for the supremacy of Istria, whennationalism first started to rise after Napoleon's fall. The restoration of Istria to theAustrian Empire was confirmed at theCongress of Vienna, but a nationalistic feud began to develop between the Slavs and the Italians.[7]
Following the Napoleonic Wars, Trieste continued to prosper as thefree imperial city of Trieste (German:Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest), a status that granted economic freedom, but limited its political self-government. The city's role as main Austrian trading port and shipbuilding centre was later emphasised with the foundation of the merchant shipping lineAustrian Lloyd in 1836, whose headquarters stood at the corner of the Piazza Grande and Sanità. By 1913, Austrian Lloyd had a fleet of 62 ships comprising a total of236,000 tons.[clarify][8] With the introduction of theconstitutionalism in the Austrian Empire in 1860, the municipal autonomy of the city was restored, with Trieste becoming capital of theAdriatisches Küstenland, theAustrian Littoral region.
In the later part of the 19th century,Pope Leo XIII considered moving his residence to Trieste (or toSalzburg), due to what he considered a hostile anti-Catholic climate in Italy, following thecapture of Rome by the newly foundedKingdom of Italy. However, the Austrian monarchFranz Josef I gently rejected this idea.[9]
The modernAustro-Hungarian Navy used Trieste's shipbuilding facilities for construction and as a base. The Austrian acquisition ofLombardy-Veneto (1815–66) meant that Trieste was no longer in a frontier zone,[3] encouraging the construction of the first major trunk railway in the Empire, the Vienna–TriesteAustrian Southern Railway (German:Südbahn), was completed in 1857, a valuable asset for trade and the supply of coal. The importance of Trieste as a trading and shipbuilding city to the Empire is testified by the expenditure made. The construction ofPorto Nuovo cost 29 millioncrowns over 15 years (1868–83) and in the following decade another 10 million crowns were spent extending the port[3] (roughly equivalent to 12 tons of gold). Up until 1914, over 14 million crowns of subsidies were paid to Austrian shipping companies using Trieste.[3] This investment and railway-building resulted in a rapid expansion of Triestine trade, which peaked in 1913 at over 6 million tons of goods, with the port almost entirely reliant on Austro-Hungarian trade, as opposed totransshipment;[3] even after the Italian acquisition of the city, Trieste continued to be a port for central and southeastern Europe, rather than Italian trade,[3] mainly for coffee, sugar and tropical fruits, wines, oils, cotton, iron, wood and machinery.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Trieste was a buzzing cosmopolitan city frequented by artists and philosophers such asJames Joyce,Italo Svevo,Sigmund Freud,Dragotin Kette,Ivan Cankar,Scipio Slataper, andUmberto Saba. The city was the major port of theAustrian Riviera, and perhaps the only real enclave ofMitteleuropa south of the Alps. Viennese architecture andcoffeehouses still dominate the streets of Trieste to this day.
Together withTrento, Trieste was a main focus of theirredentist movement,[10] which aimed for the annexation to Italy of all the lands they claimed were inhabited by an Italian-speaking population. Many local Italians enrolled voluntarily in theRoyal Italian Army (a notable example is the writerScipio Slataper).[11]
After the end ofWorld War I, theAustro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, and many of its border areas, including theAustrian Littoral, were disputed among its successor states. On November 3, 1918, theArmistice of Villa Giusti was signed ending hostilities between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Trieste, withIstria andGorizia was occupied by theItalian Army after the Austro-Hungarian troops had been ordered to lay down their arms, a day before the Armistice was due to enter into effect, effectively allowing the Italians to claim the region had been taken before the cessation of hostilities (a similar situation occurred inSouth Tyrol). Trieste was lost toAustria atSaint-Germain-en-Laye and officially annexed to theKingdom of Italy atRapallo in 1920. If theLiberal governments ruling Italy at time granted Trieste of its ancient autonomy, maintained most of former Austrian laws, and simply gave a new name to theAustrian Littoral asJulian March (Italian:Venezia Giulia) without any other legal change,[clarification needed]Fascist violence which occurred toSocialists andChristian Democrats in other parts of Italy, were suffered bySlovene organizations in Trieste.[12]
The union to Italy brought a loss of importance to the city, as it was now a city on the margin of Italy's map, cut off from its economic hinterland.[citation needed] TheSlovene ethnic group (around 25% of the population according to the 1910 census)[13][14][15][16][17][18] suffered persecution by risingItalian Fascism. The period of violent persecution of Slovenes began with riots on 13 April 1920, which were organized as a retaliation for the assault on Italian occupying troops inSplit by the local Croatian population. Many Slovene-owned shops and buildings were destroyed during the riots, which culminated when a group of Italian Fascists, led byFrancesco Giunta, burned down theNarodni dom ("National Hall"), the community hall of Trieste's Slovenes.
The end of Trieste autonomy was a consequence of theMarch on Rome in 1922. Immediately after their rise to power, theFascists abolished the Austrian administrative structure of theJulian March, which was divided between the newly formedProvince of Trieste, of whichTrieste became a meremunicipality, and theProvince of Pola; the remainder of the territory was annexed by theProvince of Udine.[19]
The particularFriulian dialect, calledTergestino, spoken until the beginning of the 19th century, was gradually overcome by theTriestine dialect (with aVenetian base, deriving directly from vulgarLatin) and other languages, including German grammar,Slovene and standardItalian languages. While Triestine was spoken by the largest part of the population, German was the language of the Austrian bureaucracy and Slovene was predominant in the surrounding villages. From the last decades of the 19th century, Slovene language speakers grew steadily, reaching 25% of the overall population of the municipality of Trieste in 1911 (30% of the Austro-Hungarian citizens in Trieste).[17]
According to the 1911 census, the proportion of Slovene speakers amounted to 12.6% in the city centre, 47.6% in the suburbs, and 90.5% in the surroundings.[20] They were the largest ethnic group in 9 of the 19 urban neighborhoods of Trieste, and represented an absolute majority in 7 of them.[20] The Italian speakers, on the other hand, were 60.1% of the population in the city centre, 38.1% in the suburbs, and 6.0% in the surroundings. They were the largest linguistic group in 10 of the 19 urban neighborhoods and represented the majority in 7 of them (including all 6 in the city centre). Of the 11 villages included within the city limits, the Slovene speakers had an overwhelming majority in 10, and the German speakers in one (Miramare).
German speakers amounted to 5% of the city's population, with the highest proportions in the city centre. A small number of the population spokeSerbo-Croatian (around 1.3% in 1911), and the city also counted several other smaller ethnic communities:Czechs,Istro-Romanians,Serbs andGreeks, which mostly assimilated either to the Italian or Slovene-speaking community.
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