Istria
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- This article is about a geographical region bordering the Adriatic Sea. For information on the asteroid, see 183 Istria. For the commune in Romania, see Istria, Constanţa.
Istria (Croatian and Slovenian: Istra, Italian: Istria) is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner.
The region lies mostly in Istria county of western Croatia. Important towns in Croatian Istria include Pula (Pola), Poreč (Parenzo), Rovinj (Rovigno), Pazin (Pisino), Labin (Albona), Motovun (Montona), Buzet (Pinguente) and Buje (Buie), as well as smaller towns of Višnjan (Visignano), Roč (Rozzo), and Hum (Colmo). A small slice in the north, including the coastal towns of Piran (Pirano), Portorož (Portorose) and Koper (Capodistria) lies in Slovenia, and a tiny region encompassing the town of Muggia (Slovenian Milje) belongs to Italy.
The larger geographical features of Istria include the Učka mountain range (Monte Maggiore) in the east, the rivers Dragonja, Mirna, Pazinčica and Raša, and the Lim bay.
Famous people like Dante, Jules Verne, James Joyce and Robert Koch worked, wrote, visited or were simply told about 'Terra Magica'.
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[edit] History
The name is derived from the Illyrian tribe of the Histri???, which Strabo refers to as living in the region. The Romans described the Histri as a fierce tribe of Illyrian pirates, protected by the difficult navigation of their rocky coasts. It took two military campaigns for the Romans to finally subdue them in 177 BCE.
Some scholars speculate that the names Histri and Istria are related to the Latin name Hister, or Danube. Ancient folktales reported—inaccurately—that the Danube split in two or "bifurcated" and came to the sea near Trieste as well as at the Black Sea. The story of the "Bifurcation of the Danube" is part of the Argonaut legend.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was pillaged by the Goths, the Lombards, annexed to the Frankish kingdom by Pippin III in 789, and then successively controlled by the dukes of Carinthia, Merano, Bavaria and by the patriarch of Aquileia, before it became the territory of the Republic of Venice in 1267. Venetian rule left a strong mark on the region, one that can still be seen today. The peninsula passed to the Habsburgs in 1797 with the Treaty of Campo Formio. The region belonged to the Habsburgs until 1918, save a short period of Napoleonic rule from 1805 to 1813.
The region has traditionally been ethnically mixed. Under Austrian rule in the 19th century, it included a large population of Italians, Croats, Slovenes and some Vlachs/Istro-Romanians. In 1910, the ethnic and linguistic composition was completely mixed. According to the Austrian census results, out of 404,309 inhabitants in Istria, 168,116 (41.6%) spoke Croatian, 147,416 (36.5%) spoke Italian, 55,365 (13.7%) spoke Slovenian, 13,279 (3.3%) spoke German, 882 (0.2%) spoke Romanian, 2,116 (0.5%) spoke other languages and 17,135 (4.2%) were non-citizens, which had not been asked for their language of communication. During the last decades of Habsburg dynasty the coast of Istria profited from the tourism within the Empire.
In the second half of the 19th century a clash of new ideological movements, Italian irredentism (which aimed to reunite former Venetian territories) and Slovenian and Croatian nationalism (developing individual identities in some quarters whilst seeking to unite in a South Slav bid in others), resulted in growing ethnic conflict between Italians one side and Slovenes and Croats in opposition. This was intertwined with the class conflict, as inhabitants of Istrian towns were mostly Italian and people who lived in the country were mostly Croats.
After World War I, Istria passed from Austrian Habsburg rule to that of Italy. The Slavs were exposed to a policy of forced Italianization and cultural suppression pursued by the fascist Italian government and many Slovenes and Croats ended up in prisons and concentration camps. The subsequent Nazi occupation during World War II further worsened ethnic relations.
After the end of World War II, Istria was assigned to Yugoslavia, except for a small part in the northwest corner that formed Zone B of the formally independent Free Territory of Trieste; however Zone B was under Yugoslav administration and after the de facto dissolution of the Free Territory in 1954 it was also incorporated in Yugoslavia. Only the small town of Muggia, near Trieste, being part of Zone A remained with Italy. During and shortly after World War II, a large number of Italians were killed in the foibe massacres, both in Istria and in the Kras/Carso area surrounding Trieste. In the postwar years fear of Yugoslav communist regime, followed by actual, harsh, pressure by Yugoslav authorities resulted in almost all Italians leaving Istria. By 1956, when the last wave of the exodus was completed, Istria had lost about half of its population and a large part of its social and cultural identity. The drama experienced by the Italians in Istria is most powerfully visible in the exodus from Pula, a city located on the southernmost tip of the Istrian peninsula. Between December 1946 and September 1947, the city was abandoned by 28,000 of its 32,000 inhabitants. Most of them left in the immediate aftermath of the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty on February 10, 1947, which ceded Pula to Yugoslavia. In an emotional display of desperation, some exiles took with them not only their belongings but also their dead. The exodus from Pula received wide international press coverage. Some well-known postwar exiles from Istria include race driver Mario Andretti, actress Alida Valli, singer Sergio Endrigo and boxer Nino Benvenuti. Following the exodus, the areas were settled with additional Croats, Slovenians and a minute number of other Yugoslav nationalities like Albanians.
In the new federal republic of Yugoslavia, Istria was divided between the republics of Croatia and Slovenia, following ethnical division lines. After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 this administrative subdivision became a border between independent states. Since Croatia's first multi-party elections in 1990, the regional party Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS-DDI, Istarski demokratski sabor or Dieta democratica istriana) has consistently received a majority of the vote and maintained through 1990s a position often contrary to the government in Zagreb, led by then nationalistic and rightist party Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ, Hrvatska demokratska zajednica) with regards to decentralization in Croatia and certain regional autonomy. However, that changed in 2000, when IDS formed with five other parties left-centre coalition government, led by Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP, Socijaldemokratska Partija Hrvatske). After reformed HDZ won Croatian parliamentary elections in late 2003 and formed minority government, IDS has been cooperating with state government on many projects, both local (in Istria County) and national.
There is a long tradition of tolerance between the people who live there, regardless of their nationality, and although many Istrians today are ethnic Croats, a strong regional identity has existed over the years. The Croatian word for the Istrians is Istrani, or Istrijani, the latter being in the local čakavian dialect. Today the Italian minority is small, but the Istrian county in Croatia is bilingual.
[edit] Ethnicity
Discussions about Istrian ethnicities often use the words "Italian," and "Croatian" to describe the character of Istrian people. However, these terms are best understood as "national affiliations" that may exist in combination with or independently of linguistic, cultural and historical attributes.
In Istrian contexts, for example, the word "Italian" can just as easily refer to a descendant of immigrants from Sicily during the Mussolini period as it can refer to autochthonous speakers of the Venetian or Istriot language whose antecedents in the region extend back to the inception of the Venetian Republic. It can also refer to Istrian Slavs who adopted the veneer of Italian culture as they moved from rural to urban areas, or from the farms into the bourgeoisie.
Similarly, national powers claim Istrian Slavs according to local language, so that speakers of Čakavian and Štokavian dialects of Croatian language are considered to be Croatians. Like with all other regions, the local dialects of the Slavic communities are very slight across close distances. The Istrian Slavic and Italian vernaculars had both developed for many generations before being divided as they are today. This meant that Croats on one side and Venetians/other Italians on the other will have yielded towards each other culturally whilst distancing themselves from members of their ethnic groups living farther away.
Many Istrians consider themselves simply to be Istrians, with no additional national affiliation (by 2001. Croatian census 8,865 (4.3%) people in Istria county declared themselves "Istrian"[1]). Others consider themselves to be patriotic members of the larger nations.
[edit] Gallery
 Aerial picture of Pula/Pola |
 Forum in Pula/Pola |
 The promenade (riva) of Poreč/Parenzo |
 Rovinj/Rovigno, seen from Campanile of Sv. Eufemija church |
 Motovun/Montona |
 Lim canal |
 Piran/Pirano city core |
 Praetorian Palace in Koper/Capodistria |
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
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