A BSTRA CT

Darko Darovec, Archivist, the Regional Public Archives Koper, Goriška 6, 66000 Koper, Slovenia

A HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF ISTRIA

Abstract

The author draws up an outline of the most important political, administrative and ethnic changes in the history of the Istrian Peninsula.

It is stated that the first recorded inhabitants, known as Illyrian-Celtic Histri - and who gave the peninsula its name, were defeated and subjugated by the Romans in 178/7 B.C. The Goths succeeded the Romans after the year 476, then (539) the Byzantines followed and after them (788) the Franks. Under the rule of the Roman-German emperors, this region was incorporated into different administrative-political formations, duchies and margraviates until it eventually became a margraviate itself (about 1060). As such it was ruled for several centuries by Aquileia’s patriarchs, who also exercised temporal power, until 1420 when the Venetian Republic ultimately subjugated most of the peninsula. The central part with the so-called Pazin margraviate remained under the rule of the Hapsburgs from 1374 until the decline of the Venetian Republic (1797). The Napoleonic Period was not only characteristic of social but also of numerous administrative changes. One of the consequences of Napoleon conquering this region was also the century-long Austria’s rule in Istria (1797 -1805/6 and 1813 - 1918). After World War I Istria went to Italy, but after World War II only a minor part around Trieste was annexed to Italy (the communes Milje and Dolim); a bigger part fell to Slovenia (Koper, Izola, Piran, Podgrad), and the biggest to Croatia.

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