Julian March
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The Julian March or Venezia Giulia (Croatian and Slovene: Julijska krajina; Italian: Venezia Giulia; German: Julisch Venetien; Venetian: Venesia Julia; Friulian: Vignesie Julie; Latin: Carsia Julia) is an historical region of southeastern Europe, today split between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy 12
It roughly concides with the former Austrian Littoral.
The Julian March ceased to be a single territory in 1947. Part of it, it is today included in the Italian autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giulia (Slovene: Furlanija-Julijska krajina), which literally means "Friuli and the Julian March".3
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History
Etymology
The Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli considered the territory of the Roman Italia province of Venetia et Histria ("Venetia and Istria") to be a geographical entity, subdivided into three parts:
- Euganean Venetia (Venezia Euganea), comprising the current Veneto region of Italy and the territory of Friuli (roughly corresponding to the current Italian provinces of Udine and Pordenone);
- Tridentine Venetia (Venezia Tridentina), comprising the current Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol;
- Julian Venetia (Venezia Giulia), more or less corresponding to the current Italian provinces of Gorizia and Trieste, the Slovenian Littoral and Croatian Istria county, and the town of Rijeka (Fiume);
The latter was named after the Julian Alps, which would in this view form the natural north-eastern border of Italy. The name was coined to denote a geographical region, roughly coinciding with the Austrian Littoral, limited by the lower flow of the Isonzo/Soča river and the Gulf of Trieste in the west, the Julian Alps in the north and north-east, and Carniola and Liburnia to the east, thus including all of the Kras Plateau and most of the Istrian peninsula.
After 1866, when the Veneto and most of Friuli were unified with the Kingdom of Italy, Ascoli's term "Venezia Giulia" began to assume a political connotation. Many Italian irredentists started using it as an alternative name for the Austrian Littoral region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thus highlighting its geographical and cultural affinity to the other two 'Venetias'.
In 1920, it became the official denominations for the new territories acquired by Italy with the Treaty of Rapallo. The English term "Julian March" is a translation of the Slovene and Serbo-Croatian name for the region, Julijska krajina, first coined by the Yugoslav press 1920: the name keeps the association to the Julian Alps, but drops the term "Venetia", which is a cultural association to Italy. The term "March", not present in the Italian original, denotes a border area. During the Italian-Yugoslav border conflict between 1945-1947, the term Julian March (Marche Julienne in French), became used by most English and U.S. diplomatic documents: it was also adopted in the official documents during the peace negotiations, as the most neutral name for the contested region.
The Italian Administration (1918-1943)
After World War I, the treaties of Saint-Germain and Rapallo, large portions of the dissolved Austro-Hungarian Empire were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. In the eastern Adriatic region, they included all of the Austrian Littoral (Trieste, Istria and the County of Gorizia and Gradisca) — except the island of Krk and the municipality of Kastav which were given to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes 4— some western districts of the Duchy of Carniola (Idrija, Ajdovščina, Vipava, Postojna, Pivka, and Ilirska Bistrica), and the Canale Valley of the Duchy of Carinthia (with the current municipalities of Tarvisio, Pontebba and Malborghetto Valbruna). Rijeka became a city state, called the Free State of Fiume, but was abolished in 1924 and divided between Italy and Yugoslavia. For all these territories, the name Julian March ("Venezia Giulia") was officially adopted.
The new provinces of Gorizia (which was merged with the Province of Udine between 1924 and 1927), Trieste, Pola and Fiume (after 1924), were created. Italians lived mostly in urban areas and along the coast, while Slavs, who formed the majority population, inhabited the hinterland. Fascist persecution, characterised as "centralising, oppressive and dedicated to the forcible Italianisation of the minorities" 5 caused the emigration of more than 100,000 Slovenes and Croats from the Julian March, mostly to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (around 70,000), but also to Argentina (some 30,000). On the other hand, several thousand Dalmatian Italians moved from Yugoslavia to Italy after 1918, many of them to Istria and Trieste.
After complete destruction of all Slovene minority cultural, financial and other organizations, and continuation of violent Fascist Italianization policies, the Slovene militant anti-Fascist organization TIGR emerged in 1927, co-ordinating the Slovene resistance against Fascist Italy until its dismantlement by the Fascist secret police in 1941, after which some of TIGR ex-members joined Slovene Partisans.
After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Yugoslav resistance emerged in the occupied regions: by 1942, it had spread in the Julian March, as well, mostly in the Slovene-inhabited areas of Goriška.
German occupation and resistance (1943-1945)
After the Italian armistice of September 1943, an uprising by the local populations took place in many areas: the town of Gorizia was temporary liberated by Slovene Partisans, while in the Upper Soča Valley, a liberated zone, known as the Kobarid Republic, lasted for three months, between September and November 1943. The German Army started occupying the region, but encountered severe resistance by Yugoslav partisans, especially in the lower Vipava Valley and in the Alpine regions. By winter of 1943, most of the lowlands were occupied by the Nazis, but Yugoslav resistance remained active throughout the region, withdrawing to the mountainous areas.
In the aftermath of the Italian armistice, in autumn of 1943, the first cases of what would later become known as Foibe massacres occurred, mostly in what is today Croatian Istria. There, the Yugoslav partisans executed several hundred Italian civilians, mostly high ranking Fascist Party members and Italian state officials, but also other individuals alleged of collaboration with the Fascist regime.
In 1943, the Germans established the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, which was officially part of the Italian Social Republic, but was de facto under exclusive German administration. Many areas, especially north and north-east of Gorizia were controlled by the Yugoslav Partisan resistance, which was very active also on the Kras Plateau and in the internal areas of Istria. The Nazis tried to repress the Yugoslav guerrilla with brutalities against the civilian population: entire villages were burned down and thousands of people interned in Nazi concentration camps. Nevertheless, the Yugoslav resistance took over most of the region by the spring of 1945.
Italian resistance in the Operational Zone was very active in Friuli but much weaker in the Julian March, where it was confined to intelligence and underground resistance in larger towns, especially in Trieste and Pula.
On May 1945 the Yugoslav Army entered Trieste and in the following days, virtually the entire Julian March was occupied by Yugoslav forces. Much retaliation against real and potential political opponents took place, mostly at the expenses of the Italian population.
The contested region (1945-1954)
Between 1945 and 1947, the Julian March was a contested region between Italy and the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was during that time that the English term "Julian March" was adopted as the official name for the whole of the contested territories. The term is a translation from the Slovene and Croatian "Julijska krajina", a word coined in the 1920s as an alternative name for the Italian "Venezia Giulia", and adopted by the Western allies as the most politically neutral name for the region. In June 1945, the Morgan Line was drawn, dividing the region into two militarily administered zones. Zone B, much of the Julian March, was under Yugoslav administration, excluding the cities of Pula, Gorizia, Trieste, the Isonzo/Soča valley and most of the Kras plateau, which were under joint British-American administration. During this period, many Italians left the area under Yugoslav occupation, a phenomenon known as the Istrian exodus.
In 1946, U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the augmentation of U.S. troops within their occupation zone (Zone A) and the reinforcement of air forces in northern Italy after Yugoslav forces had shot down two US Army transport planes flying over the Julian March.6
In 1947, from four proposed solutions,7 an agreement on the border was reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yugoslavia acquired all the northern portion of the region east of Gorizia, as well as most of Istria and the city of Fiume. A Free Territory of Trieste was created, divided into two zones, one under Allied, and the other under Yugoslav military administration. Tensions however continued and in 1954 the Territory was abolished and divided between Italy (which got the city of Trieste and its surroundings) and Yugoslavia.8
After 1954
After the division of 1947 and 1954, the term "Julian March" survived in the name of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. This is however only a formal designation, since no official borders between Friuli and the Julian March exist within the region, and their historical borders overlap (both include the province of Gorizia).
In the part that became part of Yugoslavia, the name "Julian March" fell into disuse. In Slovenia, the region is referred to as Slovenian Littoral, which is a common denomination for the two traditional regions of Goriška and Slovenian Istria. The name Slovenian Littoral is sometimes extended to comprise the Slovene-speaking territories in the Provinces of Gorizia and Trieste. In Croatia, only the traditional name of Istria is used.
Ethnic and linguistic structure
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The Julian March was divided into two major ethnic and linguistic clusters. The western parts were inhabited predominantly by an Italian population, with Italian, Venetian and Friulian as the three major languages, and a small Istriot minority. The eastern and northern areas were inhabited by South Slavs, namely Slovenes and Croats, with small Montenegrian (Peroj) and Serb minorities. Other ethnic groups included Istro-Romanians in eastern Istria, Carinthian Germans in the Canale Valley, as well as smaller German and Hungarian speaking communities in some larger urban centres, mostly members of former Austro-Hungarian élites.
According to the Austrian census of 1910/1911, the Julian March (that is, the whole former Austro-Hungarian area annexed to Italy after 1920/1924), counted 978,385 people. 421,444 or 43,1% declared Italian as their language of daily conversation (Umgangsprache), while 327,230 or 33,4% spoke Slovene, and 152,500 or 15,6% and spoke Croatian.9 In addition, there were around 30,000 German speakers (3,1% of the overall population), around 3,000 Hungarian speakers (0,3%), and smaller clusters of Istro-Romanian and Czech speakers.
The Friulian, Venetian and Istriot languages were counted as Italian. According to estimates, at least 60,000 or around 14% of those listed as Italians were in fact Friulian speakers, frequently with a pronounced separate ethnic identity.10
Romance languages
Standard Italian language was common among the educated strata in Trieste and in Gorizia, as well as in Istria and Rijeka (Fiume). In Trieste (and to a lesser extent in Istria), Italian was the predominating language of primary education. Both in Trieste and Istria, during the Austro-Hungarian period the Italian-speaking élites dominated the provincial administrations, although they were increasingly challenged by the Slovene and Croatian political movements. Before 1918, Trieste was the only self-governing unit of Austria-Hungary, where Italian speakers formed an absolute majority of the population.
However, most of the Romance population did not speak Italian as their native language, but two other closely related Romance languages, Friulian and Venetian. At the time, only Friulian was partially recognized a separate language, while Venetian was mostly considered as a variant of Italian. Many Friulians considered themselves as a separate ethnic group within the Italian nation. In the 1890s and the 1910s, a strong Friulian political movement existed, which tried to foster the Friulian language and introduce it into public life. On the other hand, no similar movement ever developed among the Venetian speakers, nor was there any attempt to introduce Venetian language into education and administration.
Friulian was spoken in the south-western lowlands of the County of Gorizia and Gradisca (except for the Monfalcone-Grado area where Venetian was spoken instead), as well as in the town of Gorizia proper. Larger Friulian-speaking centres included Cormons, Cervignano, and Gradisca d'Isonzo. A dialect of Friulian, known as Tergestine, was also spoken in Trieste and Muggia, but died out completely by the 1830s, replaced by Venetian. According to contemporary estimates, around three quarters of Italians in the County of Gorizia and Gradisca were native Friulian speakers, which amounted to a quarter of the population of the County, and around 7-8% of the overall population of the Julian March.
Venetian dialects were concentrated in Trieste, Rijeka and in Istria. The Istro-Venetian dialect was the majority language on the western Istrian coast. In many small western Istrian towns, such as Koper (Capodistria), Piran (Pirano) or Poreč (Parenzo), the Venetian-speaking majority reached 90% of the population, with peaks up to 100% in towns like Umag (Umago) or Muggia. In Istria, Venetian was also strongly present on the Cres-Lošinj archipelago, and in some towns of the interior of and eastern part of the peninsula, like Motovun, Labin, Plomin and, to a lesser extent, Buzet and Pazin. Although Istro-Venetian was strongest in urban areas, clusters of Venetian-speaking peasantry also existed. This is especially true for the area around Buje and Grožnjan, in north-central Istria, where Venetian spread in the mid 19th century, often assuming the form of a pidgin Venetian-Croat vernacular. In the County of Gorizia and Gradisca, Venetian was present in the territory around Monfalcone and Ronchi, between the lower flow of the Isonzo river and the Kras plateau, in an area popularly known as Bisiacaria, as well as in in the town of Grado. In Trieste, the local Venetian dialect, known as Triestine, was widely spoken by virtually all strata of the population, although it was the native language of only about half of the city's population. In Rijeka, a special form of Venetian, known as Fiumano, emerged in the late 18th and early 19th century, becoming the native language of around half of the city's population.
In addition to these two large language groups, two smaller Romance linguistic communities existed in Istria. In south-westen Istria, in the coastal strip between Pula and Rovinj, the archaic Istriot language was spoken. In some villages of eastern Istria, north of Labin, Istro-Romanian language was spoken by around 3,000 people.
South Slavic languages
The Slovene language was spoken in the north-eastern and southern part of Gorizia and Gradisca (where it represented around 60% of the population), in northern Istria, and in the Inner Carniolan areas annexed to Italy in 1920 (Postojna, Vipava, Ilirska Bistrica, Idrija). Slovene was also the primary language of a significant minority in Trieste (between a fourth and a third of the city's population). Smaller Slovene-speaking communities lived in the Canale Valley (Carinthian Slovenes), in Rijeka, and in some larger towns outside of the Slovene ethnic territory, especially in Pula, Monfalcone, Gradisca d'Isonzo, and Cormons.
A wide variety of Slovene dialects was spoken throughout the region. The Slovene linguistic community in the Julian March was divided among as many as 11 different dialects (seven larger and four smaller ones), belonging to three out of seven dialect groups in which the Slovene language is divided. Due to a high level of education, which included a high literacy rate, most Slovenes were fluent in standard Slovene variant, with the exception of some northern Istrian villages, where primary education was carried out in Italian, and when the Slovene national movement penetrated only in the late 19th century, and the Carinthian Slovenes in the Canale Valley which had been subjected to a policy of Germanization until 1918, and could frequently speak only the local dialect, with no knowledge of standard Slovene.
Slovene-Italian bilingualism was present only in some coastal villages of north-western Istria and in the confined semi-urbanized areas around Gorizia and Trieste, while the vast majority of Slovene speakers had very little or no knowledge of Italian. Instead, German was the prevalent second language of the Slovene rural populations.
The Croatian language was spoken in central and eastern Istrian peninsula, on the Cres-Lošinj archipelago. In the town of Rijeka, it was the second most spoken language after Venetian. Around Buzet in north-central Istria, the Kajkavian version of Croatian was spoken, while in all other areas Čakavian was predominant, frequently with strong Kajkavian and Venetian influences in the vocabulary. Italian-Croatian bilingualism was frequent in all western Istria, on the Cres-Lošinj archipelago and in Rijeka, while it was quite rare elsewhere.
Other linguistic minorities
Until 1918, German was the predominant language in secondary and higher education throughout the region, meaning that all the educated élites were fluent in German. Many Austrian civil servants used German in their daily life, especially in larger urban centres. However, due to the scarcity of German speakers and the lack of a proper cultural infrastructure, most of German speakers would speak Italian, Slovene or Croatian in social and public occasion, depending of their political and ethnic preferences and area of stationing. Among the rural population, German was only spoken by around 6,000 people in the Canale Valley.
In the major urban areas, mostly in Trieste and Rijeka, Hungarian, Serbian, Czech, and Greek were also spoken by smaller communities.
See also
References
- ^ http://books.google.be/books?id=gTA34DxHx4AC&pg=PA307&lpg=PA307&dq=Julian+march&source=web&ots=0Cna8kKpre&sig=lcLKOyjrtZyygVHBjWQnLt2i3jM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA309,M1 The New Europe by Bernard Newman, pp. 307, 309]
- ^ Contemporary History on Trial: Europe Since 1989 and the Role of the Expert Historian by Harriet Jones, Kjell Ostberg, Nico Randeraad ISBN 0-7190-7417-7 p. 155
- ^ The History of "Venetia Julia"
- ^ http://razor.arnes.si/~mkralj/istra-history/e-periodtotal.html
- ^ The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border by Glenda Sluga, p. 47
- ^ http://7499thgroupreunions.com/ELINT.aspx
- ^ The Italo-Yugoslav Border Issue: Four Solutions And The Urgent Need For Just One
- ^ http://untreaty.un.org/unts/1_60000/6/40/00011990.pdf
- ^ Jože Pirjevec and Milica Kacin Wohinz (Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2000), 303
- ^ Rolf Wörsdörfer, Krisenherd Adria 1915-1955 : Konstruktion und Artikulation des Nationalen im italienisch-jugoslawischen Grenzraum (Paderborn : F. Schöningh, 2004).
External links
- The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border by Glenda Sluga
- Istituto Giuliano: an Italian association dedicated to the promotion of culture and tradition in the Julian March