Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the
Adriatic SeaThe Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
and Italy's border with
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city. Trieste is located at the head of the
Gulf of TriesteThe Gulf of Trieste is a shallow bay of the Adriatic Sea, in the extreme northern part of the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Gulf of Venice and is shared by Italy, Slovenia and Croatia...
and throughout history it has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of Germanic,
LatinThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, Austro-Hungarian and Slavic cultures. In 2009, it had a population of about 205,000 and it is the capital of the autonomous region
Friuli-Venezia GiuliaFriuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...
and
Trieste provinceThe Province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Trieste.It has an area of 212 km², and a total population of 236,520...
.
Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the
Habsburg MonarchyThe Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century, it was the most important port of one of the Great Powers of Europe. As a prosperous seaport in the Mediterranean region, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
,
BudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, and
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
). In the fin-de-siecle period, it emerged as an important hub for
literatureLiterature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. However, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Trieste's union to Italy after
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
led to some decline of its "
Mittel-EuropeanMitteleuropa is the German term equal to Central Europe. The word has political, geographic and cultural meaning. While it describes a geographical location, it also is the word denoting a political concept of a German-dominated and exploited Central European union that was put into motion during...
" cultural and commercial importance. Enjoying an economic revival during the 1930s and throughout the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, Trieste was an important spot in the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs. Today, the city is in one of the richest regions of Italy, and has been a great centre for shipping, through its port (
Port of TriesteThe Free Port of Trieste, is an Italian port on North Adriatic Sea in Trieste, Italy.It is subdivided into 5 different Free Areas, 3 of which have been allotted to commercial activities:*the Old Free Area...
),
shipbuildingShipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
and financial services.
Name
The original pre-Roman name of the city Tergeste derives from the Illyrian and
VeneticVenetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the North East of Italy and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps....
words terg- (market) and est- (place) is etymologically related with the Scandinavian torg(et), Old Church Slavonic tьrgъ, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian 'trg'/'tržište' meaning market and 'mesto' meaning place,
RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
tirgu, and
AlbanianAlbanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
word treg, all meaning "market". Roman authors also transliterated the name as Tergestum. Modern names of the city include: , , , ; .
Geography
Trieste is situated in the northernmost part of the high Adriatic in North-east Italy, near the border with
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. The city lies on the
Gulf of TriesteThe Gulf of Trieste is a shallow bay of the Adriatic Sea, in the extreme northern part of the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Gulf of Venice and is shared by Italy, Slovenia and Croatia...
.
Built mostly on a hillside that becomes a mountain, Trieste's urban territory is situated at the foot of an imposing escarpment that comes down abruptly from the Kras Plateau towards the sea. The Kras heights, close to the city, reach an altitude of 458 metres (1,502 ft)
above sea levelThe term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...
.
Climate
The territory of Trieste is composed of several different climate zones depending on the distance from the sea and elevation. The average temperatures are 6 °C (43 °F) in January and 24 °C (75 °F) in July.
The climate can be severely affected by the
BoraBora or Bura is a northern to north-eastern katabatic wind in the Adriatic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, and Turkey....
, a north to northeast
katabatic windA katabatic wind, from the Greek word katabatikos meaning "going downhill", is the technical name for a drainage wind, a wind that carries high density air from a higher elevation down a slope under the force of gravity. Such winds are sometimes also called fall winds...
that can reach speeds of up to 200 km per hour.
Ancient era
Originally an
IllyriaIn classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....
n settlement the town was later captured by the
CarniThe Carni were a tribe of the Eastern Alps in classical antiquity, settling in the mountains separating Noricum and Venetia....
.
From 177 BC Tergeste was under the
RomansThe Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
. It was granted the status of colony under
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, who recorded its name as Tergeste in his Commentarii de bello Gallico (51 BC). During 200-1 BC the city was developed as a military colony. At that time Tergeste was defined an "Illyrian city" by Artemidorus of Ephesus, a Greek geographer, and "Carnic" by
StraboStrabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
.
In imperial times the border of "Roman Italia" moved from the Timavo river to Formione (today Risano). The Roman Tergeste lived a flourishing period due to its position as a crossroad from
AquileiaAquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...
, the main Roman city in the area, and
IstriaIstria , formerly Histria , 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...
, and as a port as well, some ruins of which are still visible.
AugustusAugustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
built a line of walls around the city in 33-32 BC, while
TrajanTrajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
built a theatre in the 2nd century AD.
In the Early Christian era it remained a flourishing center, and after the end of the
Western Roman EmpireThe Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....
(in 476), Trieste was a
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
military outpost. In 567 AD the city was destroyed by the
LombardsThe Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
, in the course of their invasion of northern Italy. In 788 it became part of the
Frankish kingdomFrancia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...
, under the authority of their count-bishop. From 1081 the city came loosely under the Patriarchate of Aquileia, developing into a free commune by the end of the 12th century.
Habsburg Empire
After two centuries of war against the nearby major power, the
Republic of VeniceThe Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
(which occupied it briefly from 1369 to 1372), the main citizens of Trieste petitioned Leopold III of
HabsburgThe House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
, Duke of
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
to become part of his domains. The agreement of cessation was signed in October 1382, in St. Bartholomew's church in the
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
of
ŠiškaThe Šiška District or simply Šiška is the most populous of the city districts of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Several cultural monuments are located in Šiška, among them St. Bartholomew's Church, built in the 13th century and remodeled between 1933 and 1936 by the Slovene architect Jože...
(apud Sisciam), today one of the city quarters of
LjubljanaLjubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
. The citizens, however, maintained a certain degree of autonomy up until the 17th century.
Following an unsuccessful Habsburg invasion of Venice in the prelude to the
War of the League of CambraiThe War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and by several other names, was a major conflict in the Italian Wars...
, the Venetians occupied Trieste again in 1508, and under the terms of the peace were allowed to keep the city. The Habsburg Empire recovered Trieste a little over one year later, however, when conflict resumed.
Trieste became an important port and trade hub. In 1719, it was made a
free portA free port or free zone , sometimes also called a bonded area is a port, port area or other area with relaxed jurisdiction with respect to the country of location...
within the Habsburg Empire by
Emperor Charles VICharles VI was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia , Hungary and Croatia , Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711...
, and remained a free port until 1 July 1891. The reign of his successor,
Maria Theresa of AustriaMaria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...
, marked the beginning of a flourishing era for the city.
In 1768, the German art historian
Johann Joachim WinckelmannJohann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art...
was murdered by a robber in Trieste, while on his way from Vienna to Italy.
Trieste was occupied by
FrenchThe First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
troops three times during the
Napoleonic WarsThe Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, in 1797, 1805 and in 1809. Between 1809 and 1813, it was annexed to the
Illyrian ProvincesThe Illyrian Provinces was an autonomous province of the Napoleonic French Empire on the north and east coasts of the Adriatic Sea between 1809 and 1816. Its capital was established at Laybach...
, interrupting its status of free port and losing its autonomy. The municipal autonomy was not restored after the return of the city to the
Austrian EmpireThe Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
in 1813. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Trieste continued to prosper as the
Free Imperial CityIn the Holy Roman Empire, a free imperial city was a city formally ruled by the emperor only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which were governed by one of the many princes of the Empire, such as dukes or prince-bishops...
of Trieste (Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest), a status that granted economic freedom, but limited its political self-government. The city's role as main Austrian trading port and shipbuilding centre was later emphasized with the foundation of the merchant shipping line Austrian Lloyd in 1836, whose headquarters stood at the corner of the Piazza Grande and Sanità. By 1913 Austrian Lloyd had a fleet of 62 ships comprising a total of 236,000 tons. With the introduction of the
constitutionalismConstitutionalism has a variety of meanings. Most generally, it is "a complex of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law"....
in the Austrian Empire in 1860, the municipal autonomy of the city was restored, with Trieste became capital of the Adriatisches Küstenland, the
Austrian LittoralThe Austrian Littoral was established as a crown land of the Austrian Empire in 1849. In 1861 it was divided into the three crown lands of the Imperial Free City of Trieste and its suburbs, the Margraviate of Istria, and the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, which each had separate...
region.
The particular
Friulian dialectFriulan , is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulan has around 800,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian...
, called Tergestino, spoken until the beginning of the 19th century, was gradually overcome by the Triestine dialect of
VenetianVenetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
(a language deriving directly from vulgar
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
) and other languages, including German grammar, Slovene and standard
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
languages. While Triestine was spoken by the largest part of the population, German was the language of the Austrian bureaucracy and Slovene was predominant in the surrounding villages. From the last decades of the 19th century, Slovene language speakers grew steadily, reaching 25% of the overall population of the municipality of Trieste in 1911 (30% of the Austro-Hungarian citizens in Trieste).
According to the 1911 census, the proportion of Slovene speakers amounted to 12.4% in the city center, 47.6% in the suburbs, and 90.5% in the surroundings. They were the largest ethnic group in 9 of the 19 urban neighborhoods of Trieste, and represented an absolute majority in 7 of them. The Italian speakers, on the other hand, were 60.1% of the population in the city center, 38.1% in the suburbs, and 6.0% in the surroundings. They were the largest linguistic group in 10 of the 19 urban neighborhoods, and represented the majority in 7 of them (including all 6 in the city center). Of the 11 villages included within the city limits, the Slovene speakers had an overwhelming majority in 10, and the German speakers in one (Miramare).
German speakers amounted to 5% of the city's population, with the highest proportions in the city center.
A small number of the population spoke
CroatianCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
(around 1.3% in 1911), and the city also counted several other smaller ethnic communities: Czechs,
Istro-RomaniansIstro-Romanians / Istrorumeni are an ethnic group living in northeastern Istria, currently spanning over a small area of Croatia and a...
,
SerbsThe Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
and
GreeksThe Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, which mostly assimilated either to the Italian or Slovene-speaking community.
In the later part of the 19th Century
Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII , born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903...
considered moving his residence to Trieste (or to
Salzburg-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
), due to what he considered a hostile anti-Catholic climate in Italy, following the
Capture of RomeThe Capture of Rome was the final event of the long process of Italian unification known as the Risorgimento, which finally unified the Italian peninsula under King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy...
by the newly-founded
Kingdom of ItalyThe Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
. However, the Austrian monarch
Franz Josef IFranz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
gently rejected this idea.
The modern
Austro-Hungarian NavyThe Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....
used Trieste's shipbuilding facilities for construction and as a base. The construction of the first major trunk railway in the Empire, the Vienna-Trieste
Austrian Southern RailwayThe Austrian Southern Railway was an Austrian railway company established in 1841...
, was completed in 1857, a valuable asset for trade and the supply of coal.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Trieste was a buzzing cosmopolitan city frequented by artists and philosophes such as
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
,
Italo SvevoAron Ettore Schmitz , better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian writer and businessman, author of novels, plays, and short stories.- Biography :...
,
Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
,
Dragotin KetteDragotin Kette was a Slovene Impressionist and Neo-Romantic poet. Together with Josip Murn, Ivan Cankar and Oton Župančič, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature.-Life:...
,
Ivan CankarIvan Cankar was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature...
,
Scipio SlataperScipio Slataper was an Italian language writer from Trieste, most famous for his lyrical essay My Karst. He is considered, alongside Italo Svevo, as the initiator of the prolific tradition of Italian literature in Trieste....
, and
Umberto SabaUmberto Poli was an Italian poet and novelist, born in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean port of Trieste when it was the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Poli assumed the nom de plume "Saba" in 1910, and his name was officially changed to Umberto Saba in 1928. From 1919 he was the...
. The city was the major port of the
Austrian RivieraThe Austrian Riviera is a description for the coastal strip of former Austrian Littoral, a Habsburg crown land which until 1919 stretched along the northeastern Adriatic Coast.The Austrian Riviera covered coastal areas adjacent the port city of Trieste...
, an enclave, the only one very real part of
MitteleuropaMitteleuropa is the German term equal to Central Europe. The word has political, geographic and cultural meaning. While it describes a geographical location, it also is the word denoting a political concept of a German-dominated and exploited Central European union that was put into motion during...
on the south of Alps. Viennese architecture and coffeehouses still dominate the streets of Trieste to this day.
Annexation to Italy
Together with
TrentoTrento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...
, Trieste was a main focus of the irredentist movement, which aimed for the annexation to Italy of all the lands they claimed were inhabited by an Italian speaking population. Many local Italians enrolled voluntarily in the Royal Italian Army (a notable example is the writer
Scipio SlataperScipio Slataper was an Italian language writer from Trieste, most famous for his lyrical essay My Karst. He is considered, alongside Italo Svevo, as the initiator of the prolific tradition of Italian literature in Trieste....
).
After the end of
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, and many of its border areas, including the
Austrian LittoralThe Austrian Littoral was established as a crown land of the Austrian Empire in 1849. In 1861 it was divided into the three crown lands of the Imperial Free City of Trieste and its suburbs, the Margraviate of Istria, and the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, which each had separate...
, were disputed among its successor states. On November 3, 1918, the Armistice of villa Giusti was signed ending hostilities between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Trieste was occupied by the
Italian ArmyThe Italian Army is the ground defence force of the Italian Armed Forces. It is all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel, numbering 108,355 in 2010. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft...
(warmly welcomed by the Italian portion of the local population) after the Austro-Hungarian troops had been ordered to lay down their arms, a day before the Armistice was due to enter effect, effectively allowing the Italians to claim the region had been taken before the cessation of hostilities (a similar situation occurred in South Tyrol). Trieste was officially annexed to the Kingdom of Italy only with the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920. Immediately a policy of "deslavification" started with the italianisation of the slovene toponyms. The region reorganized under a new administrative unit, known as the
Julian MarchThe Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
(Venezia Giulia).
The union to Italy, however, brought a loss of importance to the city, as the new state border deprived it of its former hinterland. The Slovene ethnic group (around 25% of the population according to the 1910 census) suffered persecution by rising
Italian FascismItalian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
. The period of violent persecution of Slovenes began with riots in April 13, 1920, which were organized as a retaliation for the assault on Italian occupying troops in
SplitSplit is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...
by the local Croatian population. Many Slovene-owned shops and buildings were destroyed during the riots, which culminated when a group of Italian Fascists, led by
Francesco GiuntaFrancesco Giunta was an Italian Fascist politician.-Early fascist career:Born in the Tuscan town of San Piero a Sieve, he started his career as a lawyer. He served as a machine gun captain in the World War I...
, burned down the Narodni dom ("National House"), the community hall of Trieste's Slovenes.
After the emergence of the Fascist regime in 1922, an official policy of
ItalianizationItalianization or Italianisation is a term used to describe a process of cultural assimilation in which ethnically non or partially Italian people or territory become Italian. The process can be voluntary or forced...
continued. Public use of the Slovene language was prohibited, by 1927 all Slovene associations were dissolved, while names and surnames of Slavic and German origin were Italianized by the end of 1930. Several thousand Slovenes from Trieste, especially intellectuals, emigrated to the
Kingdom of YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
and to
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, where many became prominent in their field. Among the notable Slovene émigrés from Trieste were the writers
Vladimir BartolVladimir Bartol was a Slovene writer, most famous for his novel Alamut. Alamut was published in 1938 and translated into numerous languages, becoming the most popular work of Slovene literature around the world.-Biography:Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in San Giovanni , a suburb of the...
and
Josip RibičičJosip Ribičič was a Slovene writer, mostly famous as an author of popular children literature.- Life :He was born as Josip Ribičić in the town of Baška on the island Krk...
, the legal theorist
Boris FurlanBoris Furlan was a Slovenian jurist, philosopher of law, translator and liberal politician. During World War II, he worked as a speaker on Radio London, and was known as the "London's Slovene voice". He served as a Minister in the Tito-Šubašić coalition government...
, and the architect
Viktor SulčičViktor Sulčič, also known as Víctor Sulcic, was a Slovenian born architect in Argentina. He was born in 1895 in Križ near Trieste, died in 1973 in Buenos Aires....
. Meanwhile several thousands ethnic Italians from
DalmatiaDalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
moved to Trieste from the newly created Yugoslavia.
In the late 1920s, Yugoslav irredentism started to appear, and the Slovene militant anti-fascist organization
TIGRTIGR, abbreviation for Trst , Istra , Gorica and Reka , with the full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R. was a militant anti-Fascist and insurgent organization active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the eastern Italian border region known as the Julian March.The...
carried out several bomb attacks in the city centre. In 1930 and 1941, two trials against Slovene activists were held in Trieste by the fascist Special Tribunal for the Security of the State.
Despite the demise of its traditional multicultural and pluri-linguistic character, and the emigration of many Slovene and most of the German speakers, the overall population continued to grow. Even the economy enjoyed a significant improvement in the late 1930s, with development of industrial activities.
The Fascist Regime built several new infrastructures and public buildings, including the almost 70 m (229.66 ft) high Victory Lighthouse (Faro della Vittoria), which became one of the city's landmarks. The
University of TriesteThe University of Trieste is a medium-sized university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. The university consists of 12 faculties, boasts a wide and almost complete range of university courses and currently has about 23,000 students enrolled and 1,000 professors...
was also established in this period.
Several artistic and intellectual subcultures continued to swarm even under the repressive Fascist regime. In the 1920s, the city was home to an important avant-gardist movement in visual arts, centered around the futurist
Tullio CraliTullio Crali was an Italian artist associated with Futurism. A self-taught painter, he was a late adherent to the movement, not joining until 1929...
and the constructivist
Avgust ČernigojAvgust Černigoj, also known in Italian as Augusto Cernigoi was a Italian painter, known for his avant-garde experiments in Constructivism....
. In the same period, Trieste consolidated its role as one of the centres of modern
Italian literatureItalian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
, with authors such as
Umberto SabaUmberto Poli was an Italian poet and novelist, born in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean port of Trieste when it was the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Poli assumed the nom de plume "Saba" in 1910, and his name was officially changed to Umberto Saba in 1928. From 1919 he was the...
,
Biagio MarinBiagio Marin was an Italian poet, best known from his poems in the Venetian-Friulian dialect, which had no literary tradition until then. In his writings he has never obeyed rhetoric or poetics...
,
Giani StuparichGiani Stuparich was an Italian author.He was born in Trieste, then in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.In 1948 he won a gold medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his "La Grotta" ....
, and Salvatore Satta. Among the non-Italian authors and intellectuals that remained in Trieste, the most notable were the Austrian
Julius KugyJulius Kugy was an Austrian - Italian mountaineer and writer of Slovene origin. He wrote mostly in German. He is renowned for his travelogues from the Julian Alps, in which he reflected on the relationship between man, nature, and culture...
and the Slovene
Boris PahorBoris Pahor is a Slovene writer from Italy. He is considered to be one of the most influential living authors in the Slovene language and has been nominated for the Nobel prize for literature by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
. Intellectuals were frequently associated with
Caffè San MarcoCaffè San Marco is a historic café in Trieste, Italy. Founded in 1914, it became famous as a rendezvous for intellectuals including Italo Svevo, James Joyce and Umberto Saba.-External links:* * -References:...
, a cafè in the city still open today.
The promulgation of the anti-Jewish racial laws in 1938 was a severe blow to the city's Jewish community, the third largest in Italy. The Fascist anti-semitic campaign resulted in a series of attacks on Jewish property and individuals, culminating in July 1942, when the
Great SynagogueThe Synagogue of Trieste is a Jewish house of worship located in Trieste, northern Italy.-History:...
was raided and devastated by the Fascist Squads and the mob.
World War II and its aftermath
With the
invasion and occupation of YugoslaviaThe Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
in April 1941, World War Two came close to Trieste. Starting from the winter of 1941, the first Yugoslav partisan units appeared in Trieste province, although the resistance movement did not reach the city itself until late 1943.
After the Italian armistice in September 1943, the city was occupied by
German troopsThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. Trieste became nominally part of the newly constituted
Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
, but it was de facto ruled by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
: the Nazis created the Operation Zone of the Adriatic Littoral out of former Italian north-eastern regions, with Trieste as the administrative center. The new administrative entity was headed by
Friedrich RainerFriedrich W. Rainer was a leader in the Nazi Party, as well as an Austrian State governor of Salzburg and Carinthia. He is the only Austrian governor who has ever held the same office in two separate states...
. Under the Nazi occupation, the only concentration camp with a crematorium on Italian soil was built in a suburb of Trieste, at the
Risiera di San SabbaRisiera di San Sabba was a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners during World War II, located in Trieste, northern Italy. SS members Odilo Globocnik and Karl Frenzel, and Ivan Marchenko are all said to have participated in the killings at this camp. Erwin...
, on 4 April 1944. Around 3,000 Jews,
South SlavsThe South Slavs are the southern branch of the Slavic peoples and speak South Slavic languages. Geographically, the South Slavs are native to the Balkan peninsula, the southern Pannonian Plain and the eastern Alps...
and Italian anti Fascists were killed in the Risiera, while thousands of others were imprisoned before being transferred to other concentration camps.
The city saw intense Italian and Yugoslav
partisanA partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
activity, and suffered from
AlliedThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
bombings. The city's Jewish community was deported to extermination camps, where most of them died.
On April 30, 1945, the Italian anti-Fascist National Liberation Committee (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, or CLN) of don Marzari and Savio Fonda, constituted of approximately 3,500 volunteers, incited a riot against the German occupiers. On May 1,
AlliedThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
forces of the Yugoslav Partisans' 8th Dalmatian Corps arrived and took over most of the city, except for the courts and the castle of San Giusto, where the German garrisons refused to surrender to any force other than New Zealanders. The 2nd New Zealand Division continued to advance towards Trieste along Route 14 around the northern coast of the Adriatic sea and arrived in the city the next day (see official histories
The Italian Campaign and
Through the Venetian Line). The German forces capitulated on the evening of May 2, but were then turned over to the Yugoslav forces.
The Yugoslavs held full control of the city until June 12, a period known in the Italian historiography as the "forty days of Trieste". During this period, hundreds of local Italians and anti-Communist Slovenes were arrested by the Yugoslav authorities, and many of them disappeared. These included former Fascists and Nazi collaborators, but also Italian nationalists, and any other real or potential opponents of Yugoslav Communism. Some were interned in Yugoslav concentration camps (in particular at
Borovnica, SloveniaBorovnica is a settlement and municipality in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia. It is situated about 20 km southwest of the national capital Ljubljana....
), while others were murdered and thrown into the potholes ("
foibeThe Foibe killings or Foibe massacres refers to the killings that took place mainly in Istria during and shortly after World War II from 1943 to 1949, perpetrated mainly by Yugoslav Partisans. The name derives from a local geological feature, a type of deep karst sinkhole called a foiba...
") on the
Kras plateauKarst ; also known as the Karst Plateau, is a limestone borderline plateau region extending in southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It lies between the Vipava Valley, the low hills surrounding the valley, the westernmost part of the Brkini Hills, northern Istria, and the Gulf of Trieste...
.
After an agreement between the Yugoslav leader
Josip Broz TitoMarshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and the British
Field MarshalField Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...
Harold AlexanderField Marshal Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis was a British military commander and field marshal of Anglo-Irish descent who served with distinction in both world wars and, afterwards, as Governor General of Canada, the 17th since Canadian...
, the Yugoslav forces withdrew from Trieste, which came under a joint British-U.S. military administration. The
Julian March was dividedThe Morgan Line was the line of demarcation set up after World War II in the region known as Julian March which prior to the war belonged to the Kingdom of Italy. The Morgan Line was the border between two military administrations in the region: the Yugoslav on the east, and that of the Allied...
between Anglo-American and Yugoslav military administration until September 1947, when the Paris Peace Treaty established the
Free Territory of TriesteThe Free Territory of Trieste was to be a city-state situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, created by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II and provisionally administered by an appointed military governor commanding the peacekeeping United...
.
Zone A of the Free Territory of Trieste (1947-54)
In 1947, Trieste was declared an independent city state under the protection of the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
as the
Free Territory of TriesteThe Free Territory of Trieste was to be a city-state situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, created by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II and provisionally administered by an appointed military governor commanding the peacekeeping United...
. The territory was divided into two zones, A and B, along the
Morgan LineThe Morgan Line was the line of demarcation set up after World War II in the region known as Julian March which prior to the war belonged to the Kingdom of Italy. The Morgan Line was the border between two military administrations in the region: the Yugoslav on the east, and that of the Allied...
, established in 1945.
From 1947 to 1954, the A Zone was governed by the Allied Military Government, composed of the American "
Trieste United States Troops-Establishment of Trieste United States Troops :The Army command Trieste United States Troops was established 1 May 1947 in accord with a protocol to the Italian peace treaty which created the Free Territory of Trieste....
" (TRUST), commanded by Major General Bryant E. Moore, the commanding general of the American 88th Infantry Division, and the "British Element Trieste Forces" (BETFOR), commanded by Sir
Terence AireyLieutenant-General Sir Terence Sydney Airey, KCMG, CB, CBE was an officer in the British Army.-Family and education:Airey was the son of Sydney Airey...
, who were the joint forces commander and also the military governors. Zone A covered almost the same area of the current Italian
Province of TriesteThe Province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Trieste.It has an area of 212 km², and a total population of 236,520...
, except for four small villages south of
MuggiaMuggia is a small Italian comune in the extreme south-east of Trieste lying on the border with Slovenia.Muggia is the last and only flap of Istria still in Italian territory, after the dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste in 1954....
, which were given to Yugoslavia after the dissolution of the Free Territory in 1954. Zone B, which remained under the military administration of the
Yugoslav People's ArmyThe Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...
, was composed of the north-westernmost portion of the
IstriaIstria , formerly Histria , 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...
n peninsula, between the river
MirnaThe Mirna is a river in Istria, Croatia. It is Istria's longest and richest river, being long and having a basin covering an area of . It rises near Buzet, and empties into the Adriatic Sea near Novigrad.-External links:* *...
and the
Debeli RtičDebeli Rtič is a cape in the northern Adriatic sea on the border between Slovenia and Italy. It is located north-west of the Slovenian town of Ankaran, and west of the Italian town of Muggia....
cape.
In 1954, the Free Territory of Trieste was dissolved. The vast majority of Zone A, including the city of Trieste, was ceded to Italy. Zone B became part of Yugoslavia, along with four villages from the Zone A (
PlavjePlavje is a village in the Koper Municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia. It is located on the northernmost edge of the Istrian peninsula, on the border with Italy, on a small hill overlooking the Gulf of Trieste....
,
Spodnje ŠkofijeSpodnje Škofije is a settlement in the Koper Municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia.-Overview:Until the dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste in 1954, it was part of the municipality of Muggia, now in Italy...
,
Hrvatini-Overview:For centuries Hrvatini belonged to the municipality of Muggia . After the dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste in 1954, it was annexed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Since then, it has been gravitating towards Koper...
, and
JelarjiJelarji is a small settlement in the Koper Municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia on the border with Italy.-External links:*...
), and was divided among the
Socialist Republic of SloveniaThe Socialist Republic of Slovenia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1943 until 1990...
and
CroatiaSocialist Republic of Croatia was a sovereign constituent country of the second Yugoslavia. It came to existence during World War II, becoming a socialist state after the war, and was also renamed four times in its existence . It was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia by territory and...
. The annexation of Trieste to Italy was officially announced on 26 October 1954, and was welcomed by the majority of the Trieste population.
The final border line with
YugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, and the status of the ethnic minorities in the areas, was settled in 1975 with the
Treaty of OsimoThe Treaty of Osimo was signed on 10 November 1975 by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Italian Republic in Osimo, Italy, to definitely divide the Free Territory of Trieste between the two states...
. This line is now the border between
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
.
Economy
The economy depends on the port and on trade with its neighbouring regions. Trieste is a lively and cosmopolitan city, with more than 7.7% of its population being from abroad, and it is rebuilding some of its former cultural, economic and political influence. The city is a major centre in the EU for
tradeTrade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
,
politicsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
,
cultureCulture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
,
shipbuildingShipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
,
educationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
,
transportTransport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
and
commerceWhile business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
. The city is part of the Corridor 5, which aims at ensuring a bigger transport connection between countries in Western Europe and Eastern European nations, such as
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
,
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
,
HungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Bosnia. This will be also a great impetus for a further boost to the economy of Trieste. Trieste is also home to some Italian mega-companies, such as
Assicurazioni GeneraliAssicurazioni Generali S.p.A. is the largest insurance company in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. It has its headquarters in Trieste...
, which was in 2005, Italy's 2nd and the world's 24th biggest company by revenue.
FincantieriFincantieri - Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p.A. is a shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. It was formed in 1959 and is the largest shipbuilder in the Mediterranean, and one of the largest in Europe...
, one of the world's leading shipbuilding companies is headquartered in Trieste.
Trieste is also home to Banca Generali SpA,
Allianz SE is a global financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core business and focus is insurance. As of 2010, it was the world's 12th-largest financial services group and 23rd-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.Its Allianz Global Investors...
Italia, and
WärtsiläWärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...
Italia.
During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste became a leading European city in
economyAn economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
,
tradeTrade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
and
commerceWhile business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
, and was the fourth largest and most important centre in the Empire, after
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
,
BudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. The economy of Trieste, however, fell into a small decline after the city's annexation to Italy after
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. But Fascist Italy promoted a huge development of Trieste in the 1930s, with new manufacturing activities related even to naval and armament industries (like the famous "Cantieri Aeronautici Navali Triestini (CANT)"). Allied bombings during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
destroyed the industrial section of the city (mainly the shipyards).
As a consequence, Trieste was a mainly peripheral city during the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. However, since the 1970s, Trieste has had a huge economic boom, thanks to a significant commercial shipping business to the container terminal, steel works and an oil terminal. Trieste is also Italy's and Mediterranean's (and one of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
's) greatest coffee ports, as the city supplies more than 40% of Italy's
coffeeCoffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
. Coffee brands, such as
Illyillycaffè is a brand of coffee produced in Trieste, Italy.illy produces only one blend in three roast variations: normal, dark roast, and decaffeinated. The blend is packaged as whole beans, pre-ground coffee, E.S.E. pods, or iperEspresso Capsules....
, were founded and are headquartered in the city. Currently, Trieste is one of Europe's most important ports and centres for
tradeTrade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
and
transportTransport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
, with Trieste being part of the "Corridor 5" plan, to create a bigger transport connection between Western and Eastern European countries.
Demographics
| ISTAT Istituto Nazionale di Statistica is the Italian national statistical institute.-History:Istat was created in 1926 to collect and organize essential data about the nation. Administering the census is one of its activities...
2007 http://demo.istat.it/ |
| |
Trieste, FVG |
Italy |
| Median age |
46 years |
42 years |
| Under 18 years old |
13.8% |
18.1% |
| Over 65 years old |
27.9% |
20.1% |
| Foreign Population |
6.2% |
5.8% |
| Births/1000 people |
7.63 b |
9.45 b |
As of April 2009, there were 205,507 people residing in Trieste, located in the
province of TriesteThe Province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Trieste.It has an area of 212 km², and a total population of 236,520...
,
Friuli-Venezia GiuliaFriuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...
, of whom 46.7% were male and 53.3% were female. Trieste had lost roughly 1/3 of its population since the 1970s, due to the crisis of the historical industrial sectors of steel and shipbuilding, a dramatic drop in fertility rates and fast population aging. Minors (children aged 18 and younger) totalled 13.78% of the population compared to pensioners who number 27.9%. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06% (minors) and 19.94% (pensioners). The average age of Trieste residents is 46 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Trieste declined by 3.5%, while
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
as a whole grew by 3.85%. However, in the last two years the city has shown signs of stabilizing thanks to growing immigration fluxes. The crude birth rate in Trieste is only 7.63 per 1,000, one of the lowest in eastern Italy, while the Italian average is 9.45 births.
The dominant local
dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
of Trieste is called Triestine ("Triestin", pronounced triɛsˈtin), influenced by a form of
VenetianVenetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
. This dialect and the official Italian language are spoken in the city, while Slovene is spoken in some of the immediate
suburbThe word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
s. The Triestin is considered an autochthonous of the area (along with Slovenian, German, and Istro-Romanian). There are also small numbers of
SerbianSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
,
CroatianCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
,
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and
HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
speakers.
At the end of 2009,
ISTATIstituto Nazionale di Statistica is the Italian national statistical institute.-History:Istat was created in 1926 to collect and organize essential data about the nation. Administering the census is one of its activities...
estimated that there were 15,795 foreign born residents in Trieste, representing 7.7% of the total city population. The largest autochthonous minority are Slovenes, but there is also a large immigrant group from Balkan nations (particularly nearby
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
,
AlbaniaAlbania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and
RomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
): 4.95%,
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
: 0.52%, and
sub-saharan AfricaSub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
: 0.2%.
Serbian communityThe Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
consists of both autochthonous and immigrant groups. Trieste is predominantly Roman Catholic, but also has large numbers of Orthodox Christians, mainly
SerbsThe Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
, due to the city's large migrant population from Eastern Europe and its Balkan influence.
The city's most spoken language is Italian and Slovene,
VenetianVenetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
and
Friulian languageFriulan , is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulan has around 800,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian...
speakers. There are also small groups of native
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
,
Istro-RomaniansIstro-Romanians / Istrorumeni are an ethnic group living in northeastern Istria, currently spanning over a small area of Croatia and a...
and
HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
speakers.
The top countries of origin of the inhabitants of Trieste with foreign citizenship at December 31, 2008 were:
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
5741
RomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
1457
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
1368
Main sights
Castles
Miramar Castle
The Schloß Miramar, on the waterfront 8 km from Trieste, was built between 1856 and 1860 from a project by
Carl JunkerCarl Junker was an Austrian engineer and architect. His construction projects include Miramare Castle in Trieste and the First Vienna Mountain Spring Pipeline.- Life :...
working under
Archduke MaximilianMaximilian I was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire.After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico on April 10, 1864, with the backing of Napoleon III of France and a group of Mexican monarchists who sought to revive the Mexican monarchy...
. The Castle gardens provide a setting of beauty with a variety of trees, chosen by and planted on the orders of Maximilian, that today make a remarkable collection. Features of particular attraction in the gardens include two ponds, one noted for its swans and the other for lotus flowers, the Castle annexe ("Castelletto"), a bronze statue of Maximilian, and a small chapel where is kept a cross made from the remains of the "Novara", the flagship on which Maximilian, brother of Emperor
Franz JosefFranz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
, set sail to become
Emperor of MexicoThe Second Mexican Empire was the name of Mexico under the regime established from 1864 to 1867. It was created by Napoleon III of France, who attempted to use the Mexican adventure to recapture some of the grandeur of earlier Napoleonic times...
. Much later, the castle was also the home of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, the last commander of Italian forces in East Africa during the Second World War. During the period of the application of the Instrument for the Provisional Regime of the Free Territory of Trieste, as establish in the Treaty of Peace with Italy (Paris 10/02/1947), the castle served as headquarters for the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
's
TRUST-Establishment of Trieste United States Troops :The Army command Trieste United States Troops was established 1 May 1947 in accord with a protocol to the Italian peace treaty which created the Free Territory of Trieste....
force.
Castle of San Giusto
Designed on the remains of previous castles on the site, it took almost two centuries to build. The stages of the development of the Castle's defensive structures are marked by the central part built under
Frederick IIIFrederick the Peaceful KG was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452...
(1470-1), the round Venetian bastion (1508-9), the Hoyos-Lalio bastion and the Pomis, or "Bastione fiorito" dated 1630.
Places of worship
- The St. Justus Cathedral. Symbol of Italian Trieste during the Risorgimento.
- The Serbian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Spyridon (1869). The building adopts the Greek-cross plan with five cupolas in the Byzantine tradition.
- The Basilica of St. Silvester (11th century)
- The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore (1682)
- The Church of San Nicolò dei Greci (1787). This church by the architect Matteo Pertsch
Matteo Pertsch was a classical architect responsible for many historic structures in Trieste.He was born in Buchhorn to a family of German origin. In 1790 he went to Milan to study in the Brera Academy of Fine Arts...
(1818), with bell towers on both sides of the facade, follows the Austrian late baroque style.
- The Synagogue of Trieste
The Synagogue of Trieste is a Jewish house of worship located in Trieste, northern Italy.-History:...
(1912)
- The Temple of Monte Grisa
The Temple of Monte Grisa is a Roman-Catholic church north of the city of Trieste. Located at an altitude of 300 meters on the edge of the Karst Plateau it is a conspicious landmark, seen by many, visited by few....
(1960)
Archaeological remains
- Arch of Riccardo (33 BC). It is a Roman gate built in the Roman walls in 33. It stands in Piazzetta Barbacan, in the narrow streets of the old town. It's called Arco di Riccardo ("Richard's Arch") because is believed to have been crossed by King Richard of England on the way back from the Crusades.
- Basilica Forense (2nd century)
- Palaeochristian basilica
- Roman Age Temples" : one dedicated to Athena, one to Zeus, both on the S.Giusto hill.
The ruins of the temple dedicated to Zeus are next to the Forum, those of Athena's temple are under the basilica, visitors can see its basement.
Roman theatre
Trieste or Tergeste, which dates to the protohistoric period, was enclosed by walls built in 33–32 BC on Emperor Octavian’s orders. The city developed greatly during the 1st and 2nd centuries.
The Roman theatre lies at the foot of the San Giusto hill, facing the sea. The construction partially exploits the gentle slope of the hill, and much of the theatre is made of stone. The topmost portion of the
amphitheatreAn amphitheatre is an open-air venue used for entertainment and performances.There are two similar, but distinct, types of structure for which the word "amphitheatre" is used: Ancient Roman amphitheatres were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used...
steps and the stage were supposedly made of wood.
The statues that adorned the theatre, brought back to light in the 1930s, are now preserved at the Town Museum. Three inscriptions from the
TrajanTrajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
period mention a certain Q. Petronius Modestus, someone closely connected to the development of the theatre, which was erected during the second half of the 1st century.
Caves
In the whole Trieste province, there are 10 speleological groups out of 24 in the whole
Friuli-Venezia GiuliaFriuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...
region. The Trieste plateau (Altopiano Triestino), called Kras or the Carso and covering an area of about 200 km² within Italy has approximately 1,500 caves of various sizes (like that of Basovizza, now a monument to the Foibe massacres).
Among the most famous are the
Grotta GiganteGrotta Gigante , also known as Riesengrotte or as Grotta di Brisciachi, is a giant cave on the Italian side of the Trieste Carso, in the municipality of Sgonico...
, the largest tourist cave in the world, with a single cavity large enough to contain St Peter's in Rome, and the Cave of Trebiciano (350 m (1,148.29 ft) deep) at the bottom of which flows the
Timavo RiverThe River, known in Slovene as the or , is a 2-km river in the Province of Trieste. It has four sources near San Giovanni near Duino and outflows in the Gulf of Panzano between Trieste and Monfalcone , Italy....
. This river dives underground at
Škocjan CavesSkocjan Caves is a cave system in Slovenia. Due to its exceptional significance, Škocjan Caves was entered on UNESCO’s list of natural and cultural world heritage sites in 1986. International scientific circles have thus acknowledged the importance of the caves as one of the natural treasures of...
in Slovenia (they are on UNESCO list and only a few kilometres from Trieste) and flows about 30 km before emerging about 1 km from the sea in a series of springs near Duino, reputed by the Romans to be an entrance to Hades ("the world of the dead").
Others
- The Revoltella Museum
The Revoltella Museum is a modern art gallery founded in Trieste in 1872 by Baron Pasquale Revoltella. The baron, after he left his house to the city and all the works, furniture and books it contained.- The building :The main building was built in 1858 designed by Friedrich Hitzig...
- modern art gallery
- The Risiera di San Sabba
Risiera di San Sabba was a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners during World War II, located in Trieste, northern Italy. SS members Odilo Globocnik and Karl Frenzel, and Ivan Marchenko are all said to have participated in the killings at this camp. Erwin...
(Risiera di San Sabba Museum), a National monumentA National monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of national importance such as a war or the country's founding. The term may also refer to a specific monument status, such as a National Heritage Site, which most national monuments are by reason of their cultural...
. It was the only Nazi concentration camp with crematorium in Italy.
- The Foiba di Basovizza, a National monument. It is a reminder of the killings of Italians (and other ethnic groups) by Yugoslav partisans after World War II, the last episode of an interethnic violence begun in the 19th century, with the rise of nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, and heavily intensified by the Fascist government.
- Civico Museo di Storia Naturale di Trieste
Civico Museo di Storia Naturale di Trieste is a natural history museum in Trieste, northern Italy.-External links:**...
(natural history museum) containing fossils of early manThe Hominidae or include them .), as the term is used here, form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees , gorillas , humans , and orangutans ....
.
- Civico Orto Botanico di Trieste
The Civico Orto Botanico di Trieste is a municipal botanical garden located at via Marchesetti 2, Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy....
, a municipal botanical gardenA botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...
- Orto Botanico dell'Università di Trieste
The Orto Botanico dell'Università di Trieste is a nature preserve and botanical garden operated by the University of Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy....
, the University of TriesteThe University of Trieste is a medium-sized university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. The university consists of 12 faculties, boasts a wide and almost complete range of university courses and currently has about 23,000 students enrolled and 1,000 professors...
's botanical gardenA botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...
- Val Rosandra
Val Rosandra is a valley centered on the river with the same name in the municipality of Dolina in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, between the city of Trieste and the border with Slovenia. It is also included into a natural park, mostly set around the river Rosandra and the...
, a national park on the border between the Province of TriesteThe Province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Trieste.It has an area of 212 km², and a total population of 236,520...
and SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
.
- Caffè San Marco
Caffè San Marco is a historic café in Trieste, Italy. Founded in 1914, it became famous as a rendezvous for intellectuals including Italo Svevo, James Joyce and Umberto Saba.-External links:* * -References:...
, historical cafè in the center of the city.
- Piazza Unità d'Italia
Piazza Unità d'Italia is the main town square in Trieste, Italy. It is situated at the foot of the hill containing the castle of San Giusto and the square faces the Adriatic Sea. The square is often said to be Europe's largest square located next to the sea...
, Trieste's central square surrounded by 19th century beautiful buildings.
Media
Newspaper
- Il Piccolo
Il Piccolo is the main daily newspaper of Trieste, Italy. It has been founded in 1881 and it has since kept a moderately progressive political stance.-External links:*...
- Primorski dnevnik
Primorski dnevnik is a Slovene language daily newspaper published in Trieste, Italy. It is the only Slovene daily in any country other than Slovenia, and one of the three newspapers in Italy published in a language other than Italian...
Publishing house
Education
The
University of TriesteThe University of Trieste is a medium-sized university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. The university consists of 12 faculties, boasts a wide and almost complete range of university courses and currently has about 23,000 students enrolled and 1,000 professors...
is a medium-size state supported institution that consists of 12 faculties, boasts a wide and almost complete range of university courses and currently has about 23,000 students enrolled and 1,000 professors. It was founded in 1924.
Sports
The local "calcio" club is called Triestina, one of the oldest in Italy. Indeed, the
U.S. Triestina CalcioUnione Sportiva Triestina is an Italian football club based in Trieste, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.It is in the season 2010-11 from Serie B, having returned there in 2002 after 11 seasons in Serie C and Serie D, the club was relegated to Lega Pro Prima Divisione.-History:The club was...
in 1947/48 was the runner up in the Italian Serie "A" after the champion
TorinoTorino Football Club, commonly referred to as simply Torino, is a professional Italian football club based in Turin, Piedmont, that was founded in 1906. The club has spent most of its history in the top tier in Italian football....
.
Trieste is notable for having had two football clubs participating in the championships of two different nations at the same time during the period of the
Free Territory of TriesteThe Free Territory of Trieste was to be a city-state situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, created by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II and provisionally administered by an appointed military governor commanding the peacekeeping United...
.
TriestinaUnione Sportiva Triestina is an Italian football club based in Trieste, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.It is in the season 2010-11 from Serie B, having returned there in 2002 after 11 seasons in Serie C and Serie D, the club was relegated to Lega Pro Prima Divisione.-History:The club was...
played in the Italian
Serie ASerie A , now called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since 1929. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new...
. Although it faced relegation after the
first season-Final classification:-Results:...
after the Second World War, the FIGC changed the rules to keep it in, as it was seen as important to keep a club of the city in the Italian league, while
YugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
had its eye on the city. In the championship of
next season-Final classification:-Results:...
the club played its best seaon with a 3rd place finish. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia bought
A.S.D. PonzianaCircolo Sportivo Ponziana 1912 is an Italian association football club based in the city of Trieste, founded in 1912.Currently playing in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Group of Promozione, the 7th level of the Italian football league, Ponziana however did spend some time in the Yugoslav First League...
, a small team in Trieste, which under a new name, Amatori Ponziana Trst, played in the Yugoslavian league for 3 years. Triestina went bankrupt in the 1990s, but after being re-founded regained a position in the Italian second division
Serie BSerie B, currently named Serie bwin due to sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It is contested by 22 teams and organized by the Lega Serie B since July 2010, after the split of Lega Calcio that previously took care of both the...
in 2002. Ponziana was renamed as "
Circolo Sportivo Ponziana 1912Circolo Sportivo Ponziana 1912 is an Italian association football club based in the city of Trieste, founded in 1912.Currently playing in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Group of Promozione, the 7th level of the Italian football league, Ponziana however did spend some time in the Yugoslav First League...
" and currently plays in Friuli-Venezia Giulia Group of
PromozionePromozione is the name of a level of football in Italy. It is considered to be the 7th level in the Italian football league system. Each individual league winner within the Promozione level progresses to their closest regional league in the Eccellenza level...
, who is 7th level of Italian league.
Trieste also boasts a famous basketball team
Pallacanestro TriestePallacanestro Trieste 2004, also known for sponsorship reasons as Acegas A.P.S. Trieste is an Italian professional basketball team from the town of Trieste....
, which reached its zenith in the 1990s when, with large financial backing from sponsors Stefanel, it was able to sign players such as
Dejan BodirogaDejan Bodiroga is a retired Serbian professional basketball player.He is offten considered as one of the best players who did not play in the NBA....
, Fernando Gentile and
Gregor FučkaGregor Fučka is a retired Italian basketball player of Slovenian origin. A 215 cm forward-center, he was a European Player of the Year Mister Europa and Euroscar laureate in 2000.- Pro career :...
, all stars of European basketball.
Transport
Maritime transport
Trieste's maritime location and its former long term status as part of the
AustrianThe Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
and Austro-Hungarian empires made the
Port of TriesteThe Free Port of Trieste, is an Italian port on North Adriatic Sea in Trieste, Italy.It is subdivided into 5 different Free Areas, 3 of which have been allotted to commercial activities:*the Old Free Area...
the major commercial port for much of the landlocked areas of central Europe. In the 19th century, a new port district known as the Porto Nuovo was built northeast to the city centre.
In modern times, Trieste's importance as a port has declined, both due to the annexation to Italy, for Italy's wider choice of better located ports, and the competition with the nearby new port of Koper in
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. However, there is significant commercial shipping to the container terminal, steel works and oil terminal, all located to the south of the city centre. After many years of stagnation, a change in the leadership placed the port on a steady growth path, recording a 40% increase in shipping traffic as of 2007.
Rail transport
Railways came early to Trieste, due to its port and the need to transport people and goods inland. The first railroad line to reach Trieste was the Südbahn in 1857. This railway stretches for 1400 km to
LvivLviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, via
LjubljanaLjubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
,
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
;
SopronIn 1910 Sopron had 33,932 inhabitants . Religions: 64.1% Roman Catholic, 27.8% Lutheran, 6.6% Jewish, 1.2% Calvinist, 0.3% other. In 2001 the city had 56,125 inhabitants...
,
HungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
;
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
,
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
; and
KrakówKraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, crossing the backbone of the
AlpsThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
mountains through the Semmering Pass near
GrazThe more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
. It approaches Trieste through the village of
Villa OpicinaVilla Opicina is a village in north-eastern Italy, close to the Slovenian border at Fernetti . The first town in Slovenia after the border is Sežana, which is also where the first railway station in Slovenia is located after Villa Opicina....
, a few kilometres from the big city but over 300 metres higher in elevation. Due to this, the line takes a 32 kilometer detour to the north, gradually descending before terminating at the
Trieste Centrale railway stationTrieste Centrale railway station ) is the main station serving the city and comune of Trieste, in the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northeastern Italy....
.
A second trans-Alpine railway was dedicated in 1906, with the opening of the
Transalpina RailwayThe Bohinj Railway or Transalpina is a railway in Slovenia extending into Italy. It connects Jesenice in Slovenia with the towns of Nova Gorica in Slovenia and Gorizia in Italy through the Julian Alps. It was built by Austria-Hungary in 1904 as a strategic railway to the port of Trieste...
from Vienna, Austria via Jesenice and
Nova GoricaNova Gorica railway station serves the town and municipality of Nova Gorica, in the Slovenian Littoral region of Slovenia, and is also accessible from the town of Gorizia, Italy....
. This railway also approached Trieste via Villa Opicina, but it took a rather shorter loop southwards towards Trieste's other main railway station, the Trieste Campo Marzio railway station, south of the central station. This line no longer operates, and the Campo Marzio station is now a railway museum.
To facilitate freight traffic between the two stations and the nearby dock areas, a temporary railway line known as the Rivabahn was built along the waterfront in 1887. This railway survived until 1981, when it was replaced by the Galleria di Circonvallazione, a 5.7 kilometer railway tunnel route, to the east of the city. Freight services from the dock area now include container services to northern Italy and to Budapest, Hungary, together with
rolling highwayA rolling highway is a combined transport system to transport trucks by rail....
services to Salzburg, Austria and Frankfurt, Germany.
Passenger rail service to Trieste now mostly consists of trains to and from Venice, Italy, connecting there with trains to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and
MilanMilan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
at
MestreVenezia Mestre railway station is a junction station in the comune of Venice, Italy. It is located within the mainland frazione of Mestre, and is classified by its owner, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, as a gold category station....
. These trains reach the Trieste central station bypassing the
Gulf of TriesteThe Gulf of Trieste is a shallow bay of the Adriatic Sea, in the extreme northern part of the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Gulf of Venice and is shared by Italy, Slovenia and Croatia...
, connecting with the Südbahn's northern loop. International trains between Italy and Slovenia now pass through Villa Opicina, bypassing Trieste.
Trieste will be connected to the Italian
TAVTreno Alta Velocità SpA is special purpose entity owned by RFI for the planning and construction of a high-speed network in Italy.-Purpose:...
railway network: a 300 km/hour fast train route is going to connect Trieste with Venice in the next years.
Air transport
Trieste is served by
Friuli Venezia Giulia Airport-The company:Aeroporto Friuli-Venezia Giulia SpA is the Company that has been running the airport since July 1997; its shareholders are the Consorzio per l'Aeroporto Friuli-Venezia Giulia - a consortium of local authorities and municipalities - and the Friuli – Venezia Giulia Region .In addition...
, located at Ronchi near
MonfalconeMonfalcone is a town and comune of the province of Gorizia , located on the coast of the Gulf of Trieste. Monfalcone means "Mount of Falcon" in Italian....
at the head of the Gulf of Trieste.
Local transport
Local public transport in Trieste is operated by Trieste Trasporti, which operates a network of around 60
busA bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
routes and two
boatA boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...
services. They also operate the
Opicina TramwayThe Opicina Tramway is an unusual hybrid tramway and funicular railway in the city of Trieste, Italy. It links Piazza Oberdan, on the northern edge of the city centre, with the village of Villa Opicina in the hills above....
, a hybrid between tramway and
funicular railwayA funicular, also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.-Operation:The basic principle of funicular...
providing a more direct link between the city centre and Villa Opicina.
Twin towns — Sister cities
Trieste is
twinnedTwin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
with:
RijekaRijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
,
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
PulaPula is the largest city in Istria County, Croatia, situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, with a population of 62,080 .Like the rest of the region, it is known for its mild climate, smooth sea, and unspoiled nature. The city has a long tradition of winemaking, fishing,...
,
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
SilivriSilivri is a city and a district in Istanbul Province along the Sea of Marmara in Turkey, outside of metropolitan Istanbul, containing many holiday and weekend homes for residents of the city. The largest city in the district is also named Silivri...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
Çankırı-Agriculture:Various produce like wheat, corn, beans, apple etc. are grown in the farms, and fields that are rich of water.-Industry:Most of the industry is located near the city center and Korgun. Other towns that are in the industrial map of the city are Şabanözü, Çerkeş, Ilgaz, Kurşunlu, and...
,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
Como, Italy
GrazThe more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
,
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
MykolaivMykolaiv , also known as Nikolayev , is a city in southern Ukraine, administrative center of the Mykolaiv Oblast. Mykolaiv is the main ship building center of the Black Sea, and, arguably, the whole Eastern Europe.-Name of city:...
,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
See also
- People from Trieste
-Literature:Many famous authors were born and/or lived many years in Trieste. They include:-Italian language authors:* Enzo Bettiza, writer and journalist, born in Split* Claudio Magris, writer and essayist* Biagio Marin, poet...
- Treaty of peace with Italy (1947)
The Treaty of Peace with Italy was a treaty signed in Paris on February 10, 1947, between Italy and the victorious powers of World War II, formally ending the hostilities...
- INFN, (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), the nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
laboratory.
- International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology - was promoted by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization as a centre of excellence for research and training in genetic engineering and biotechnology for the benefit of developing countries. The Centre, currently...
(ICGEB),
- The Abdus Salam
Mohammad Abdus Salam, NI, SPk Mohammad Abdus Salam, NI, SPk Mohammad Abdus Salam, NI, SPk (Urdu: محمد عبد السلام, pronounced , (January 29, 1926– November 21, 1996) was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the electroweak unification of the...
International Centre for Theoretical PhysicsThe Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics was founded in 1964 by Pakistani scientist and Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam after consulting with Munir Ahmad Khan. It operates under a tripartite agreement among the Italian Government, UNESCO, and International Atomic Energy Agency...
(ICTP)
- International School for Advanced Studies
The ' is an international, Italian-state-supported post-graduate teaching and research institute with a special statute, located in Trieste ....
(SISSA)
- ELETTRA Synchrotron Light Laboratory
ELETTRA Synchrotron Light Laboratory is a national synchrotron laboratory located in Basovizza on the outskirts of Trieste, Italy.The facility, available for use by the Italian and international scientific communities, houses several ultra bright light sources, which use the synchrotron and free...
- Fincantieri
Fincantieri - Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p.A. is a shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. It was formed in 1959 and is the largest shipbuilder in the Mediterranean, and one of the largest in Europe...
- Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi
The Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi is an opera house located in Trieste, Italy and named after the composer Giuseppe Verdi. Privately constructed, it was inaugurated as the Teatro Nuovo to replace the smaller 800-seat "Cesareo Regio Teatro di San Pietro" on 21 April 1801 with a performance of Johann...
- Trieste Astronomical Observatory
The Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste is an astronomical center of studies located in Trieste, northern Italy....
- U.S. Triestina Calcio
Unione Sportiva Triestina is an Italian football club based in Trieste, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.It is in the season 2010-11 from Serie B, having returned there in 2002 after 11 seasons in Serie C and Serie D, the club was relegated to Lega Pro Prima Divisione.-History:The club was...
, Trieste's soccer club, founded in 1918
- Il Piccolo
Il Piccolo is the main daily newspaper of Trieste, Italy. It has been founded in 1881 and it has since kept a moderately progressive political stance.-External links:*...
, Trieste's daily newspaper
- Primorski dnevnik
Primorski dnevnik is a Slovene language daily newspaper published in Trieste, Italy. It is the only Slovene daily in any country other than Slovenia, and one of the three newspapers in Italy published in a language other than Italian...
, Trieste's Slovene language daily newspaper
- Free Territory of Trieste
The Free Territory of Trieste was to be a city-state situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, created by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II and provisionally administered by an appointed military governor commanding the peacekeeping United...
Further reading
- Angelo Ara, Claudio Magris. Trieste. Un'identità di frontiera. Einaudi Editore. Torino, 1982. ISBN 88-06-59823-6
- Banti, Alberto Mario. Il Risorgimento italiano. Laterza Editore. Bari, 2004
- Morris, Jan - Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere DaCapo Press 2001 www.dacapopress.com
External links