Description

A map, lithographed in black and red, shows Trieste in Italy, which was in 1952 a part of a bilingual area of Free Territory of Trieste. The names are printed in slovenian language. 

Trieste had traditionally been a nexus of Italian, Slavic, Germanic and Jewish cultures and, for the most part, the different cultural communities had gotten along quite well over the centuries.   Indeed, there was quite a bit of intermarriage between the communities.  This all changed from 1920 under the new Italian Fascist regime, particularly after the ascension of Mussolini to become ‘Il Duce’ in 1922.  The regime embarked upon a policy of forced ‘Italianization’ of the over 500,000 non-Italians in Trieste province.  Right wing hooligans migrated to the city from other parts of Italy.  The resulting Fascist mobs were particularly hard on the Slovenian community, torching their cultural centers, shops and homes.  Many Slovenians emigrated, while others organized the anti-Fascist TIGR resistance movement, the forerunner to the Slovenian Partisans of WWII.  In spite of all the turmoil (and maybe, in part, because of it), Trieste had an artistic renaissance during the 1920s and 30s, when music, the visual arts (such as the Avant-garde and Dada) and Art Deco architecture flourished. 

Following the Axis defeat in World War II, Trieste was taken over by Allied forces and, in 1947, was made the capital of a provisional state, the Free Territory of Trieste, under Western Allied supervision.  This arrangement was facilitated as a temporary measure until the permanent sovereignty of the city and the surrounding region could be decided.  The demographic problem was that the city of Trieste proper was overwhelmingly ethnic Italian, while the surrounding countryside was overwhelmingly Slovenian. 

In 1954, after years of tense discussions, a settlement was reached by which Trieste, its immediate surroundings, and narrow strip of coast connecting it northwestwards was given to Italy; while all of the rest of the countryside was given to Yugoslavia.  The Free Territory was dissolved and the sovereignty transfer was enacted, although Italy and Yugoslavia would not formally agree to the division until the Treaty of San Osimo in 1975.

The map was issued as an appendix to a yearbook Jadranski koledar (Adriatic Calendar), a yearbook published in Trieste, connecting Slavic people along the Adriatic coast, which was divided between different countries. The 1952 issue was the first post WWII edition, after the publication was supressed by the Fascists in the 1930s. The map was accompanied by an 8 page pamphlet with names of the streets, listed in Slovenian language.

We could only trace five examples of the map in libraries worldwide.

References: OCLC 780739902; Slovenska Bibliografija …1952, Ljubljana 1954, p. 61.