Julian March
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Venezia Giulia, also known as Julijska krajina in Slovenian, Vignesie Julie in Friulian Carsia Iulia in Latin, Julisch Venetien in German and Julian March, is a geographical, political and cultural region of Southeastern Europe, nestled on what is now the border between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia.
[edit] History
What is today grossly enclosed within the undetermined borders of Venezia Giulia was once included in the Küstenland of the Austrian Empire. The name "Venezia Giulia" was invented only in 1863 by the glossologist Graziadio Ascoli. He considered the ancient territory of the Regio X (Venetia et Histria, capital Aquileia) of the Augustus' age Roman Empire, dividing it into three parts:
- Venetia Iulia (Istria, Carniola, Iapidia)
- Venetia Tridentina (Trentino and South Tyrol)
- Venetia Euganea (the current Veneto region of Italy).
The Venetia Giulia was given its name from the Julian Alps, now divided between the province of Udine and Slovenia.
In 1866, part of this artificial territory was annexed to Italy. This included the Venetia Euganea and part of the Venetia Iulia, without the ancient counties of Gorizia and Gradisca. From this moment on, the use of term "Venetia Iulia" was restricted to the "irrendent" part of the Ascoli's Venetia Iulia that had remained under Habsburg rule. This region was therefore limited by the Isonzo river, the Julian Alps, the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner Gulf, including the Kras highland and Istria. The use of the term extended sometimes also the to the totality of Italian-speaking Dalmatia, that had remained a part of the Austrian Empire.
With the defeat of the latter in World War I, the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 gave back Venetia Iulia to the Kingdom of Italy. The new provinces of Gorizia (which formed the new province of Friuli together with Udine), Trieste, Pola (Pula) and, later (1924), Fiume, were created. At that moment the two populations of Romance and Slavic language were in the new region roughly of the same size. Italians lived mostly in the main cities and along the coast, while Slavs inhabited the hinterland. Nationalist persecutions, however, caused the emigration of thousands of Slovenians and Croatians. The inverse phenomen took place after World War II, however, when most of it became part of Yugoslavia, and more than 250,000 ethnic Italians were displaced from the region.
In 1946 President Truman ordered the augmentation of US troops along the zonal occupation line and the reinforcement of air forces in northern Italy after Yugoslav forces shot down an unarmed US Army transport plane flying over Venezia Giulia.
Currently Venezia Giulia, a quite different region than the original one, includes the eastern part of the province of Gorizia, on the left bank of Isonzo and south to the Carso, and the province of Trieste. Total surface amount to some 679 km², comprised in the current region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The population speak mainly Venetian dialects, with presence of Slovenian dialects in the Italian part of the Carso and in the city of Trieste. Friulian dialects are spoken in several small centres along the Isonzo.
