The Julian March (Croatian and ), also called Julian Venetia (; ; ; ), is an area of southern Central Europe which is currently divided among Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia.The New Europe by Bernard Newman, pp. 307, 309Contemporary History on Trial: Europe Since 1989 and the Role of the Expert Historian by Harriet Jones, Kjell Ostberg, Nico Randeraad p. 155 The term was coined in 1863 by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, a native of the area, to demonstrate that the Austrian Littoral, Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino (then all part of the Austrian Empire) shared a common Italian linguistic identity. Ascoli emphasized the Augustan partition of Roman Italy at the beginning of the Empire, when Venetia et Histria was Regio X (the Tenth Region).Bernard Newman, The New Europe, pp. 307, 309Marina Cattaruzza, Italy and Its Eastern Border, 1866–2016, Routledge 2016 - ch. I
The term was later endorsed by Italian irredentists, who sought to annex regions in which ethnic Italians made up most (or a substantial portion) of the population: the Austrian Littoral, Trentino, Fiume and Dalmatia. The Triple Entente promised the regions to Italy in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in exchange for Italy's joining the Allied Powers in World War I. The secret 1915 Treaty of London promised Italy territories largely inhabited by Italians (such as Trentino) in addition to those largely inhabited by Croats or Slovenes; the territories housed 421,444 Italians, and about 327,000 ethnic Slovenes.Lipušček, U. (2012) Sacro egoismo: Slovenci v krempljih tajnega londonskega pakta 1915, Cankarjeva založba, Ljubljana. Cresciani, Gianfranco (2004) "Clash of civilisations" , Italian Historical Society Journal, Vol.12, No.2, p.4
A contemporary Italian autonomous region, bordering on Slovenia, is named Friuli-Venezia Giulia ("Friuli and Julian Venetia")."The History of "Venetia Julia"
Etymology
The term "Julian March" is a partial translation of the Italian name "Venezia Giulia" (or "Julian Venetia"), coined by the Italian historical linguist Graziadio Ascoli, who was born in Gorizia. The term "March" in "Julian March" refers to a medieval European designation for a borderland or frontier district, more specifically, a buffer zone between different realms.
In an 1863 newspaper article, Ascoli focused on a wide geographical area north and east of Venice which was under Austrian rule; he called it Triveneto ("the three Venetian regions"). Ascoli divided Triveneto into three parts: Euganean Venetia (Venezia Euganea or Venezia propria; Venetia in the strict sense), made up of Italy's Veneto region and most of the territory of Friuli (roughly corresponding to the present Italian provinces of Udine and Pordenone) Tridentine Venetia (Venezia Tridentina): the present Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol Julian Venetia (Venezia Giulia): "Gorizia, Trieste and Istria ... including the land between the Venetia in the strict sense of the term, the Julian Alps, and the sea"
According to this definition, Triveneto overlaps the ancient Roman region of Regio X – Venetia et Histria introduced by Emperor Augustus in his administrative reorganization of Italy at the beginning of the first century AD. Ascoli (who was born in Gorizia) coined his terms for linguistic and cultural reasons, saying that the languages spoken in the three areas were substantially similar. His goal was to stress to the ruling Austrian Empire the region'sIn 1863 all of the Triveneto, as defined by Ascoli, was part of the Austrian Empire. After the Italian third war of independence against Austria of 1866, Veneto and part of Friuli (i. e. Venezia Euganea in Ascoli's terms) were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. Latin and Venetian roots and the importance of the Italian linguistic element.
The term "Venezia Giulia" did not catch on immediately, and began to be used widely only in the first decade of the 20th century. It was used in official administrative acts by the Italian government in 1922–1923 and after 1946, when it was included in the name of the new region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
History
Early Middle Ages to the Republic of Venice
At the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Migration Period, the area had linguistic boundaries between speakers of Latin (and its dialects) and the Germanic- and Slavic-language speakers who were moving into the region. Germanic tribes first arrived in present-day Austria and its surrounding areas between the fourth and sixth centuries. They were followed by the Slavs, who appeared on the borders of the Byzantine Empire around the sixth century and settled in the Eastern Alps between the sixth and eighth centuries. In Byzantine Dalmatia, on the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, several city-states had limited autonomy. The Slavs retained their languages in the interior, and local Romance languages (followed by Venetian and Italian) continued to be spoken on the coast.Jože Pirjevec, Serbi croati sloveni, Il Mulino, 2002,
Beginning in the early Middle Ages, two main political powers shaped the region: the Republic of Venice and the Habsburg (the dukes and, later, archdukes of Austria). During the 11th century, Venice began building an overseas empire (Stato da Màr) to establish and protect its commercial routes in the Adriatic and southeastern Mediterranean Seas. Coastal areas of Istria and Dalmazia were key parts of these routes since Pietro II Orseolo, the Doge of Venice, established Venetian rule in the high and middle Adriatic around 1000.F. C. Lane, Venice. A maritime Republic, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973 The Venetian presence was concentrated on the coast, replacing Byzantine rule and confirming the political and linguistic separation between coast and interior. The Republic of Venice began expanding toward the Italian interior (Stato da Tera) in 1420, acquiring the Patriarchate of Aquileia (which included a portion of modern Friuli—the present-day provinces of Pordenone and Udine—and part of internal Istria).
The Habsburg held the March of Carniola, roughly corresponding to the central Carniolan region of present-day Slovenia (part of their holdings in Inner Austria), since 1335. During the next two centuries, they gained control of the Istrian cities of Pazin and Rijeka-Fiume, the port of Trieste (with Duino), Gradisca and Gorizia (with its county in Friuli).
Republic of Venice to 1918 The region was relatively stable from the 16th century to the 1797 fall of the Republic of Venice, which was marked by the Treaty of Campo Formio between Austria and France. The Habsburgs gained Venetian lands on the Istrian Peninsula and the Quarnero (Kvarner) islands, expanded their holdings in 1813 with Napoleon's defeats and the dissolution of the French Illyrian provinces. Austria gained most of the republic's territories, including the Adriatic coast, Istria and portions of present-day Croatia (such as the city of Karlstadt).
Habsburg rule abolished political borders which had divided the area for almost 1,000 years. The territories were initially assigned to the new Kingdom of Illyria, which became the Austrian Littoral in 1849. This was established as a crown land (Kronland) of the Austrian Empire, consisting of three regions: the Istrian peninsula, Gorizia and Gradisca, and the city of Trieste.Veneto, including western part of modern Friuli, which had also become part of Austrian Empire since 1815, was included in the Kingdom of Lombardo-Veneto
The Italian-Austrian war of 1866, followed by the passage of what was then known as Veneto (the current Veneto and Friuli regions, except for the province of Gorizia) to Italy, did not directly affect the Littoral; however, a small community of Slavic speakers in northeastern Friuli (an area known as Slavia Friulana – Beneška Slovenija) became part of the Kingdom of Italy. Otherwise, the Littoral lasted until the end of the Austrian Empire in 1918.
The Italians in Julian March supported the Italian Risorgimento: as a consequence, the Austrians saw the Italians as enemies and favored the Slav communities of Julian March. During the meeting of the Council of Ministers of 12 November 1866, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria outlined a wide-ranging project aimed at the Germanization or Slavization of the areas of the empire with an Italian presence:Die Protokolle des Österreichischen Ministerrates 1848/1867. V Abteilung: Die Ministerien Rainer und Mensdorff. VI Abteilung: Das Ministerium Belcredi, Wien, Österreichischer Bundesverlag für Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst 1971, vol. 2, p. 297. Citazione completa della fonte e traduzione in Luciano Monzali, Italiani di Dalmazia. Dal Risorgimento alla Grande Guerra, Le Lettere, Firenze 2004, p. 69.)
Istrian Italians were more than 50% of the total population of Istria for centuries, while making up about a third of the population in 1900.
Kingdom of Italy (1918–1943)
The Kingdom of Italy annexed the region after World War I according to the Treaty of London and later Treaty of Rapallo, comprising most of the former Austrian Littoral (Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste and Istria), south-western portions of the former Duchy of Carniola, and the current Italian municipalities of Tarvisio, Pontebba and Malborghetto Valbruna which had been Carinthian (aside from Fusine in Valromana in eastern Tarvisio, which had been part of Carniola). The annexed areas included many partially or fully Slovene or Croat areas. The island of Krk and the municipality of Kastav, which had formerly been part of the Austrian Littoral, became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929).
Rijeka-Fiume, which had enjoyed special status within the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen (the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary), became an independent city-state in the Treaty of Rapallo: the Free State of Fiume. It was abolished following the 1924 Treaty of Rome and divided between Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
The new provinces of Gorizia (which was merged with the Province of Udine between 1924 and 1927), Trieste, Pola and Fiume (after 1924) were created. Tarvisio, Pontebba, Malborghetto Valbruna, and the westernmost part of the former Littoral around Cervignano del Friuli remained part of Udine (and so Euganean Venetia) after 1927.
Italians lived primarily in cities and along the coast, and Slavs inhabited the interior. Fascist persecution, "centralising, oppressive and dedicated to the forcible Italianisation of the minorities",The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border by Glenda Sluga, p. 47 caused the emigration of about 105,000 Slovenes and Croats from the Julian March—around 70,000 to Yugoslavia and 30,000 to Argentina. Several thousand Dalmatian Italians moved from Yugoslavia to Italy after 1918, many to Istria and Trieste.
In response to the Fascist Italianization of Slovene areas, the militant anti-Fascist organization TIGR emerged in 1927. TIGR co-ordinated Slovene resistance against Fascist Italy until it was dismantled by the secret police in 1941, and some former members joined the Yugoslav Partisans. The Slovene Partisans emerged that year in the occupied Province of Ljubljana, and spread by 1942 to the other Slovene areas which had been annexed by Italy twenty years earlier.
German occupation and resistance (1943–1945) After the Italian armistice of September 1943, many local uprisings took place. The town of Gorizia was temporarily liberated by partisans, and a liberated zone in the Upper Soča Valley known as the Kobarid Republic lasted from September to November 1943. The German Army began to occupy the region and encountered severe resistance from Yugoslav partisans, particularly in the lower Vipava Valley and the Alps. Most of the lowlands were occupied by the winter of 1943, but Yugoslav resistance remained active throughout the region and withdrew to the mountains.