Julian March
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Julian March (Italian: Venezia Giulia; Croatian and Slovene: Julijska Krajina; German: Julisch Venetien; Friulian: Vignesie Julie; Latin: Carsia Julia) is a former political region of Southeastern Europe, nestled on what is now the border between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. The Italian name for the Region, "Venezia Giulia" (Venetia Iulia), was invented as late as 1863 by the glossologist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli from Gorizia, who based it off the Roman region of Regio X: Venetia et Histria.2
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[edit] History
[edit] Etymology
The linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, who created the term, considered the territory of the Roman Italia province of Venetia et Histria ("Venetia and Istria", with capital Aquileia) of Augustus' Roman Empire, to be a georgaphical-cultural unit, subdivided into three parts:
- Venezia Euganea or "Euganean Venetia", comprising the current Veneto region of Italy and the provinces of Udine and Pordenone;
- Venezia Tridentina or "Tridentine Venetia", comprising Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol;
- Venezia Giulia or "Julian Venetia", more or less corresponding to the current Italian provinces of Gorizia and Trieste), the Slovenian Littoral and the 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/Isonzo river and the Gulf of Trieste on the west, the Julian Alps on 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 begun assuming also political connotation. Many Italian irredentist 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".
[edit] From 1918 to 1945
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, Šturje, 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 was transformed into a city state, called 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, Pula and Rijeka (after 1924), were created. Italians lived mostly in some of the cities and along the coast, while Slavs, which formed the majority population, inhabited the hinterland. The fascist persecution caused the emigration of nearly 100,000 Slovenes and Croats from the Julian March, mostly in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (around 70,000), but also in 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. A policy of violent Italianization was pursued, causing the creation of the militant antifascist organization TIGR which fought for the annexation of the region to Yugoslavia. During World War II, the Yugoslav partisan movement penetrated into the region, and in 1945 most of the territory was occupied by the Yugoslav People's Army. Many Italians, pro-Italians and anti-Communist Slovenes and Croats were killed in the Foibe massacres by the Yugoslav Communist authorities.
[edit] The contested region (1945-1954)
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 July 1945, the so-called Morgan Line was drawn, dividing the region into two militarly administred zones. The Zone A was occupied by the Yugoslav People's Army: most 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. Already during this period, Italians of Istria and Rijeka started fleeing the area under Yugoslav occupation in fear of persecution. An estimated 250,000 ethnic Italians emigrated from the Yugoslavia between 1943 and 1954, a phenomenon known as the Istrian exodus.
In 1946 U.S. President Harry S. 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 a US Army transport plane flying over the Julian March.
In 1947, an agreement on the border was reached in 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 over however continued and in 1954 the Territory was abolished and divided between Italy (which got the city of Trieste and its surroundings) and Yugoslavia.
[edit] After 1954
After the division of 1947 and 1954, the Julian March ceased to be a dinstict political unit. The term survived in the name of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. This is however only a formal designations, since no official borders between Friuli and the Julian March exist within the region. Generally, the Venezia Giulia is meant to include the eastern part of the province of Gorizia, on the left bank of the Soča/Isonzo river and south to the Kras, and the province of Trieste. The population speaks mainly the Venetian dialects, with presence of Slovenian dialects in the Italian part of the Kras and in the city of Trieste. Friulian dialects are spoken in several small centres along the Soča/Isonzo.
In the part that was annexed to Yugoslavia, the name "Julian March" fail 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.
