Istria

Istria (Croatian, Slovene: Istra, Italian: Istria), formerly Histria (Latin), is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner.

The geographical features of Istria include Učka mountain which is the highest point in the Ćićarija mountain range, the rivers Dragonja, Mirna, Pazinčica and Raša, and the Lim bay. Istria lies in three countries: Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. The largest portion, Croatian Istria (Hrvatska Istra), is further divided into two counties. The largest portion is Istria county in western Croatia. Important towns in Istria county include Pula, Poreč, Rovinj, Pazin, Labin, Umag, Motovun, Buzet and Buje, as well as smaller towns of Višnjan, Roč, and Hum. A small slice in the north, including the coastal towns of Izola, Piran, Portorož and Koper, lies in Slovenia and is commonly known as Slovenian Istria (Slovenska Istra), while a tiny region consisting of the comunes of Muggia and San Dorligo della Valle belongs to Italy.

Cities and municipalities

Data are relative, for Croatia, to the official census of 2001, for Slovenia, to that one relative to year 2002. In the municipalities marked by an asterisk (*) holds the official bilingualism Croatian/Italian, in those ones marked by two asterisks (**) the bilingualism Italian/Slovenian is official.

Ethnicity

As with many other regions in the former Yugoslavia, common concepts about ethnicity and nationality fail when applied to Istria. Discussions about Istrian ethnicity often use the words "Italian," "Croatian" and "Slovene" to describe the character of Istrian people. However, these terms are best understood as "national affiliations" that may exist in combination with or independently of linguistic, cultural and historical attributes.

In Istrian contexts, for example, the word "Italian" can just as easily refer to autochthonous speakers of the Venetian language whose antecedents in the region extend before the inception of the Venetian Republic or Istriot language the oldest spoken language in Istria, dated back to the Romans, today spoken in the south west of Istria, but also to a descendant of immigrated during the Mussolini period. It can also refer to Istrian Slavs who adopted the veneer of Italian culture as they moved from rural to urban areas, or from the farms into the bourgeoisie. In fact most of the families in Inner Istria are mixed descendants.

Similarly, national powers claim Istrian Slavs according to local language, so that speakers of Čakavian and Štokavian dialects of the Croatian language are considered to be Croatians, while speakers of other dialects may be considered to be Slovene. Those Croatian dialect speakers are descendants of the first Slavic immigrants which settled in the region in the 7th and the 8th centuries as well as the refugees of the Turkish invasion and the Ottoman Empire from Bosnia and Dalmatia from the 16 century. Often they were slavizised Vlachs, the so called Morlachs. The Venetian Republic settled them down in Inner Istria, devastated by wars and plague. Many villages have the Morlachian name like Katun. Like with all other regions, the local dialects of the Slavic communities are very slightly varied across close distances. The Istrian Slavic and Italian vernaculars had both developed for many generations before being divided as they are today. This meant that Croats/Slovenes on one side and Venetians/other Italians on the other will have yielded towards each other culturally whilst distancing themselves from members of their ethnic groups living farther away. There is still the Romanian community to mention, the Istro-Romanians in the east and north of Istria (Ćićarija) and parts of neighbouring Liburnia (the east coast of the peninsula which is not part of Istria).

Some Istrians consider themselves simply to be Istrians, with no additional national affiliation (in the 2001 Croatian census 8,865 (4.3%) people in Istria county declared themselves "Istrian"). Nevertheless, most residents of Croatian Istria declare themselves as Croatian, while most residents of Slovenian Istria declare themselves as Slovene.

The small town of Peroj has had a unique history which exemplifies the multi-ethnic complexity of the history of the region, as do some towns on both sides of the Cicerija mountains that are still identified with the Istro-Romanian people which the UNESCO Redbook of Endangered Languages calls "the smallest ethnic group in Europe".

Demographic history

The region has traditionally been ethnically mixed. Under Austrian rule in the 19th century, it included a large population of Italians, Croats, Slovenes and some Vlachs/Istro-Romanians and Montenegrins. In 1910, the ethnic and linguistic composition was completely mixed. According to the Austrian census results, out of 404,309 inhabitants in Istria, 168,116 (41.6%) spoke Croatian, 147,416 (36.5%) spoke Italian, 55,365 (13.7%) spoke Slovene, 13,279 (3.3%) spoke German, 882 (0.2%) spoke Romanian, 2,116 (0.5%) spoke other languages and 17,135 (4.2%) were non-citizens, which had not been asked for their language of communication. During the last decades of Habsburg dynasty the coast of Istria profited from the tourism within the Empire. Generally speaking, Italians lived on coast, while Croats and Slovenes lived inland.

In the second half of the 19th century a clash of new ideological movements, Italian irredentism (which claimed Trieste and Istria) and Slovene and Croatian nationalism (developing individual identities in some quarters whilst seeking to unite in a South Slav bid in others), resulted in growing ethnic conflict between Italians one side and Slovenes and Croats in opposition. This was intertwined with the class conflict, as inhabitants of Istrian towns were mostly Italian, whilst Croats or Slovenes largely lived out in the countryside.

There is a long tradition of tolerance between the people who live there, regardless of their nationality, and although many Istrians today are ethnic Croats, a strong regional identity has existed over the years. The Croatian word for the Istrians is Istrani, or Istrijani, the latter being in the local Chakavian dialect. The term Istrani is also used in Slovenia. Today the Italian minority is organized in many towns, it consists officially around 45.000 inhabitants, the Istrian county in Croatia is bilingual, as are large parts of Slovenian Istria. Every citizen has the right to speak either Italian or Croatian (Slovene in Slovenian Istria) in public administration or in court. Furthemore, Istria is a supranational European Region that includes Italian, Slovenian and Croatian Istria.

General information

Croatian Istria

Istrian county

• Location: Istrian county is Croatian westernmost.
• Area: 2.820 km˛
• Population: 206.344 (2001 census)
• Rivers: Dragonja, Mirna, and Raša
• Administrative centre: Pazin, 9.000 inhabitants
• Economic centre: Pula, 59.000 inhabitants
• Official languages: Croatian, Italian
• Natively spoken languages: 183.636 Serbo-Croatian (89,00%), 15.867 Italian (7,71%), 1.894 Slovene (0,92%), 1.877 Albanian (0,91%), 655 unknown (-) (2001 census)
• Ethnic composition: 148.328 Croats (71,88%), 14.284 Italians (6,92%), 6.613 Serbs (3,20%), 3.077 Bosnians (1,49%); 8.865 Istrians (4,30%), 13.113 undeclared (6,35%) (2001 census)
• Currency: Croatian Kuna (kn).

Kvarner county (Istrian part)

• Municipalities of Opatija, Lovran, Matulji, and Mošćenička Draga
• Area: 310 km˛
• Population: 28.891 (2001 census)
• Official language: Croatian
• Natively spoken languages: 27.440 Serbo-Croatian (95,29%), 554 Slovene (1,93%), 278 Italian (0,97%), 125 unknown (-) (2001 census)
• Ethnic composition: 25.398 Croats (88,33%), 657 Serbs (2,28%), 556 Slovenes (1,93%), 287 Italians (1,00%), 1.032 undeclared (3,59%) (2001 census)
• Currency: Croatian Kuna (kn).

Slovenian Istria

• Municipalities of Koper, Izola and Piran
• Area: 384 sqkm
• Population: 78.846 (2002 census)
• Official languages: Slovene, Italians
• Natively spoken languages: 56.482 Slovene (75,13%), 13.579 Serbo-Croatian (18,08%), 2.853 Italian (3,80%), 3.669 unknown (-)
• Ethnic composition: Slovenes (68,4%), Croats (4,8%), Serbs (3,4%), Bosnians (2,5%), Italians (2,3%), Istrians (1,5%), Albanians (0,6%), other (18,0%) (2002 census)
• Currency: Euro

Italian Istria

Comune di Muggia

• Population: 13.208 (31.12.2004)
• Official language: Italian
• Natively spoken languages: 12.424 Italians (94,8%), 623 Slovenes (4,8%), 57 other (0,4%) (1971 census, population 13.104)
• Currency: Euro

Comune di San Dorligo della Valle/Dolina

• Population: 6.025 (31.12.2004)
• Official language: Italian, in official town hall activities also Slovene
• Natively spoken languages: 4.009 Slovenes (70,5%), 1.659 Italians (29,2%), 15 other (0,3%) (1971 census, population 5.683)
• Currency: Euro