Trieste, Trieste - Italy

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Sep 9, 1993

*City official name :Trieste
*Founded date :
*Location :Trieste Province
*Elavation :? ft (? m)
*Area :Approximately ? square miles (? km²).
*Facts :Trieste (Latin Tergeste, Slovenian and Croatian Trst, German and Friulian Triest, Hungarian Trieszt) is a city and port in northeastern Italy right on the border with Slovenia. Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. With a population of 211,184 (2001) it is capital of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trieste province.

Trieste flourished as part of Austro-Hungarian Empire during the period 1867 - 1918 when it was Central Europe's prosperous Mediterranean seaport and its capital of literature and music.

Today, Trieste is a border town. The population is an ethnic mix of the neighboring regions; The dominant local Venetian dialect of Trieste is called Triestine ("Triestin" - pronounced /triˈɛstin/, in Italian "Triestino"). This dialect and Italian is spoken in the city center whilst Slovenian is spoken in several of the immediate suburbs. Italian and the Slovenian language are considered autochthonous to the area. There is also a large number of German-speakers.

The economy depends on the port and on trade with its neighboring regions. Throughout the Cold War Trieste was peripheral, but is rebuilding some of its former influence.

Places of touristic interest in Trieste include numerous examples of Art Nouveau and neoclassical architecture from its Austrian past, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, International School for Advanced Studies and the Trieste University.

The area of what is now Trieste was settled by the Carni, an Indo-European tribe (whence the name Carso) since the 3rd millennium BC. Subsequently the area was populated by the Histri, an Illyrian people, who remained the main civilization until the 2000 BC, when the Palaeo-Veneti came.

By 177 BC, the city was under the governance of the Roman republic. Trieste was granted the status of a colony under Julius Caesar, who recorded its name as Tergeste in his Commentarii de bello Gallico (51 BC).

After the end of the Western Roman Empire (in 476), Trieste remained a Byzantine military centre. In 788 it became part of the Frank kingdom, under the authority of their count-bishop. From the year 1081 the city came loosely under Aquileia's patriarchy, developing into a free commune at the end of the 12th century. After two centuries of war against the nearby major power, the Republic of Venice (who occupied it briefly from 1369 to 1372), the Triestins donated the city to Leopold III von Habsburg, duke of Austria. The citizens, however, mantained a certain degree of autonomy well until the 17th century.

Trieste had grown into an important port and trade hub. It was constituted a free port by Emperor Charles VI and remained a free port from 1719 until July 1, 1891. The reign of his successor, Maria Theresa of Austria, marked for Trieste in particular the beginning of a flourishing era.

The city was occupied by French troops three times during the Napoleonic Wars, in 1797, 1805 and 1809. In the latter occasion it was annexed to the Illyrian Provinces by Napoleon. In this period Trieste lost in a definitive way its autonomy (even when it was returned to the Austrian Empire in 1813), and status of free port was interrupted.

Following the Napoleonic Wars, Trieste continued to prosper as the Imperial Free City of Trieste (Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest) and it became capital of the Austrian Littoral region, the so-called Küstenland. Its role as the principal Austrian commercial port and shipbuilding center was later emphasized by the Foundation of the Austrian Lloyd in 1836 and the construction of the Vienna-Trieste Austrian Southern Railway, completed in 1857.

In the beginning of the 20th century, Trieste was a buzzing cosmopolitan city frequented by artists such as James Joyce, Italo Svevo and Umberto Saba. The city was part of the so-called Austrian Riviera and a very real part of Mitteleuropa. The particular Friulian dialect, called Tergestino, spoken until the beginning of the 19th century, had been gradually supplanted by Triestine (i.e. a Venetian dialect) and other tongues, including Italian, German and Slovenian. While Triestine was the language of the major part of the population, German was the language of the Austrian bureaucracy and Slovenian was the language of the surrounding villages. Viennese architecture and coffeehouses still mark the streets of Trieste today.

Together with Trento, Trieste was the main seat of the irredendist movement, which aimed to the annexion to Italy of all the lands historically inhabited by culturally Italian people. After World War I ended and Austria-Hungary disintegregated, Trieste was transferred to Italy (1920) along with the whole Julian March (Venezia Giulia). The annexion, however, brought a loss of importance for the city, reduced to a border one deprived of a true hinterland. The Slovenian ethnic group (forming about the 25% of the population) was also suppressed by the Fascist Regime. This led to a period of inner strain which culminated on April 13, 1920, when a group of Italian nationalists burnt the Narodni dom (National House), the cultural centre of Trieste's Slovenians

After the constitution of the Italian Social Republic, on September 23, 1943, Trieste was nominally absorbed into this entity. The Germans, however, annexed it to an Adriatic Littoral Operation Zone, which included also Gorizia and Ljubljana and was led by Austrian Friedrich Rainer. Under the Nazi occupation, the sole extermination camp on Italian soil was constructed near Trieste, at the Risiera di San Sabba, on April 4, 1944. The city also suffered from the partisan activity and from Allied bombardments.

On April 30, 1945 the Italian anti-fascist Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN) of don Marzari and Fonda Savio, with 3500 volunteers, incited a revolt against the Nazis. On May, 1 Yugoslav partisans of Tito's army arrived and occupied most of Trieste. The 2nd New Zealand Division continued its advance along Route 14 around the north coast of the Adriatic to Trieste and arrived to the city on the very next day. The German forces eventually capitulated in the evening of May 2.

The Yugoslavs quickly began forming their own (Communist) military administration. They began to execute arrests against the population, also against the Italian democratic resistance force, the CLN (see Foibe massacres). On May 5, 1945 the Yugoslavs fired on a pro-Italian demonstration, killing at least five people. Yugoslav troops had to leave the city on June 12 under pressure from the New Zealand Second Division.

In 1947, Trieste became an independent state as the Free Territory of Trieste. This state was de facto dissolved in 1954: the city of Trieste went to Italy, while the southern part of the territory went to Yugoslavia. The annexation to Italy was officially proclaimed on October 26 of that year.

The border questions with Yugoslavia and the status of the ethnic minorities were settled definitively in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo.

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Photos

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy

Trieste
Trieste, Trieste - Italy