The City that lost its purpose 2/12/21
Epitome of Mitteleuropa – of Europe distilled, as it were.”Trieste was founded as the port city for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was dissolved at the end of World War I. Its natural hinterland was present day Czech, Slovakia, Hungary and its heyday was 1897. Thus it was built for a lost purpose.
Guglielmo Oberdan, who fled Austrian conscription, and became an Italian, returned to Trieste in an unsuccessful effort to kill the Emperor, Franz Joseph, in 1882 It was a precursor of the ethnic hatreds that led to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, before. WWI.
James Joyce, who wrote A portrait of an artist as a young man there. Sir Richard Burton, explorer who ended his days there as a British Consular official. He had been an expert in Arabic and had a knowledge of the Moslem world.
The great composer and director Gustav Mahler also conducted in Triesta around 1907.
1856 Having ably reformed the Austrian Navy retired from the sea Maximilian (brother of Franz Joseph) and Carlota built Miramar Castle. His brother the Emperor sent him to become king of Mexico where the French abandoned their support for him. He was executed by Jaurezes rebels and she went crazy when she went home.
Historically it was a coastal village of Illyrians who traded fish salt, olive oil and wine . Colonized by Rome and called Tergeste and had built a forum here.. The Austrians fought the Turks and it was the Habsburgs when they came to rule this part of the Adriatic wanted a maritime empire also.
1711from Charles IV to France JosephI who died in 1916 a total of 6 monarchs ruled Austria the population of Trieste grew from 7000 to 220000 the nearest equivalent was Hong Kong started by the British in 1814.
1719 The Habsburgs under Charles VI declared Triest a free port and later had access to the Suez canal when that opened, and excavated the Grand Canal.
1830 a road was completed crossing the Karst to Slovenia and connecting Vienna to the Adriatic sea port.
It has 2 bays: the Bay of Trieste in the north and Bay of Maggia in the south. Trieste was not badly damaged in the wars.
The streets were built around the Canal Grande. The coastline stretches one way towards Split and Croatia and the other towards Venice.
The Cafe degli Sprecchi or Cafe of Mirrors is comforting today as in the days of Emperors.
Both Joseph Roth and Stefan Sweig mentioned Triest in their novels. The Austrian Empire had no overseas possessions despite hypothetical kingship over the Holy Land.
1886 when Venice was lost to Austria the fleet headquarter shifted to Trieste, later the main base was shifted to the deeper safer Pole.
Baron Pasquale Revoltella was a wealthy bachelor of Venetian origin and founded Assicurazioni Generale, he was also the Austrian representative of the Suez Canal and died in 1870 leaving his house and contents to the city and it became the civic gallery of modern art.
1857 Carl Marx said that Trieste was run by " motley crew of speculators' ' Italian, German English French Armenian and Jewish which meant they were not tied down by tradition.
1830 Josef Ressel, a forester, botanist and conservationist and inventor of screw propulsion for ships.
Ricardo Illy at the start of the 20C was the Mayor and set up the coffee company, a mainstay of the Triest economy.
Mirimar Castle had hosted a lot of unlucky people Empress Elizabeth stabbed to death in Geneva,Kaiser Wilhelm II, . Duke of Aosta the Italian Viceroy of Ethiopia never returned to Italy. American occupation governors who stayed there died in Korea and one in a car crash on the way back to Trieste.
1840s it was discovered as a health resort as smart as Nice and Monte Carlo. Franz Joseph often came and had a mistress in neighboring accommodation.
1878 4 railway lines conveyed good inland 1) by Ljubljana and Graz to Vienna 2)Udine Salzburg to Munich3 Gorizia to Prague and
1862-1863 Alfred Domette a poet from Trieste who became PM of New Zealand for these 2 years.
1772 to 1774 Casanova lived here for this time but left after being prosecuted in Venice.
1797 Louis XV of France's 2 daughter escaped the revolution and came here.
Jews left their stetles in east Europe to Trieste and on to the US or Palestine.
1919 The created state of Yugoslavia after the Habsburgs empire collapsed. Trieste was snatched from its geography and united with the Kingdom of Italy as a spoil of being on the winning side in WW1 and because it had a majority of Italian speakers and it banned Sloven schools.
During WW2 it was ruled by Germany and the area was called Kirstenland till Tito of Yugaslavia and the New Zealand division arrived. Churchill's famous speech said from Stettin to Trieste a Iron Curtain has fallen.
1945 The Yugoslaves arrived and wanted to make the city entirely Yugoslav.and there was a period of uncertainty but became an Italian state as part of a secret agreement with Slovene as a language also. Slovenia had to develop Koper as an outlet to the sea.
With the fall of communism thousands crossed the border by bus to do shopping ther as market economies had not yet been set up, but this later fizzled out.
Llloyd Triestino now belongs to Taiwanese owners.
Thomas Mann wrote part of Buddenbrooks during a stay at the Hotel deVille? and Eichman escaped to Argentina via Trieste?
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