FIUME-RIJEKA, FRONTIERES ET IDENTITÉS 1880 – 1921
FIUME-RIJEKA, BORDERS AND IDENTITIES 1880 – 1921

Summary/Abstract: Following the Hungarian-Croatian Compromise of 1868, Fiume was given the statute of a separate body belonging to the Hungarian kingdom building thus its only access to the sea. Fiume had its own municipal administration that fostered the tendency toward autonomist politics. The city was largely Italian but the suburbs were on the contrary inhabited by Croats whose authorities resided in Zagreb. Hungary wanted to profile the city as a strategic place and developed its infrastructures and industries. Three different projects were at stake: the Hungarian central powers’ will to “magyarize” and promote the city according to state interests; the Croatian national identity aiming at reunifying the Croatian medieval triune kingdom; the Italian autonomist movement sometimes overlapping with irredentism. The paper examines Fiume’s “frontier” identity by looking at a multicultural society and its actors through language policies, associative life, multiple loyalties and conflicts.

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