Julian March

"Venezia Giulia" redirects here. For The post-WWII Allied police corps, see Venezia Giulia Police Force.

The Julian March (Croatian and Slovene: Julijska krajina; Italian: Venezia Giulia; German: Julisch Venetien; Venetian: Venesia Jułia; Friulian: Vignesie Julie; Latin: Carsia Julia) is a former political region of Southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. The Italian name for the Region, "Venezia Giulia" (or "Venetia Iulia", meaning "Julian Venice"), was invented as late as 1863 by the linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli from Gorizia, who sought to bring together under one name all of the territories of the Habsburg Empire claimed by Italy.

The Austrian Littoral between 1860 and 1918

File:Venezia Giulia Battisti.jpg

The Julian March as formulated by the Italian irredentist Cesare Battisti in his book Venezia Giulia (1900).

History

Etymology

Graziadio Isaia Ascoli considered the territory of the Roman Italia province of Venetia et Histria ("Venetia and Istria" to be a geographical-cultural unit, subdivided into three parts:

• Euganean Venice (Venezia Euganea), comprising the current Veneto region of Italy and most of the traditional region of Friuli (roughly corresponding to the current Italian provinces of Udine and Pordenone);
• Tridentine Venice (Venezia Tridentina), comprising the current Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol;
• Julian Venice (Venezia Giulia), more or less corresponding to the current Italian provinces of Gorizia and Trieste, the Slovenian Littoral and Croatian Istria county;

The name 'Julian March' comes from the Julian Alps, which would in this view form the natural north-eastern border of Italy. The term was coined to denote the region limited by the 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 Julian March 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 supposed geographical and cultural affinity to the other two 'Venetias'.

From 1918 to 1945

Poster celebrating the annexation of Trieste and Trentino to Italy as the fulfillment of the Irredentist dream.

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 - 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.

File:Narodni dom triest.jpg

The ruins of the Narodni dom, Slovene Hall in Trieste, burnt down by the Fascists in July 1920.

The new provinces of Gorizia (which was merged with the Province of Udine between 1924 and 1927), Trieste, Pula and Rijeka (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" caused the emigration of nearly 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. The policy of violent Italianization caused the creation of the militant antifascist organization TIGR which fought for the annexation of the region to Yugoslavia. During World War II, the Yugoslav partisans penetrated into the region, and in 1945 most of the territory was liberated by Yugoslav Allied troops (the Partisans).

The contested region (1945-1954)

The division of the Julian March between June 1945 and September 1947, with the Morgan Line in red.

Between 1945 and 1947, the Julian March was a contested region between Italy and the Socialist 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 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 US 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 .

In 1947, from four proposed solutions , an agreement on the border was reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yugoslavia got all the northern portion of the region east of Gorizia, as well as most of Istria and the city of Rijeka. 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 .

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.

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-linguistic division in Istria and Trieste. Italians and Friulians are shown in blue, Slovenes in yellow, and Croats in green.

Ethnic and linguistic structure

Percentage of native Italian (including Venetian and Istriot) speakers in Istria, according to the Austrian census of 1910.

The Julian March was divided into two major ethnic an 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 dominated 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. 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.

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, the Italian-speaking élites dominated the provincial administrations, although they were increasingly challenged by the Slovene and Croatian political movements. Only in Trieste the Italian speakers formed the 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

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 conspicuous 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 relatively 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 (7 larger and 4 smaller ones), belonging to 3 out of 7 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.

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

• Austrian Riviera
• Dalmatia
• History of Trieste
• London Pact
• Treaty of Osimo
• Venetian Slovenia

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