Lecture: Tolerance in Rijeka in Historical Perspective

When we are talking about tolerance in a historical prospective then certainly we have to deal with a concept that would usually be considered in a discipline called historical anthropology. We are dealing with cultural concepts which would be used as a tool for analysing the historical sources. The most of the time the other category in a historical research is a space – territory. When we are talking about analysing territories then we are dealing with another historiographical discipline – eco-history. Eco-history is observing interactions between human, i.e., a community and its natural environment, i.e., resources.

So, let us apply this in the case of the city of Rijeka.

Rijeka is a city on the coast and therefore here are two facts that direct development of Rijeka’s community – the sea and the hinterland. Reading the geographical map, we can notice that there is not much to provide from in Rijeka’s vicinity or surroundings – carst territory which steeply goes immediately up from the seashore. It indicates that here is not much territory to be used for agriculture. So, people would be more oriented to the sea. And what is the sea to provide for – beside the basic fishing, the most important for this maritime community as for all of those on the Kvarner is the communication. The sea is connection with other communities. And the communication is exchange – primarily, here we are talking about exchanging of goods i.e. trade. But where those goods are coming from to Rijeka if not across the sea – then, the hinterland. So, another important connection is through the mountains towards middle Europe (Alps and Pannonia). Looking in this way we can understand why a city was established exactly on this point – as the shortest way to reaching the sea from the central Europe.

Being the port, or the point of goods exchange, the city needed to be open. With goods here come merchants. Merchants are welcome as long as they are not the competition to the locals. And they are not, they are rather needed. They are coming from the countries across the sea or from the hinterland. They stay in the city. They are bringing their way of living and they stay here as long as the business goes well and is in accordance with the local politic. In this way they are tolerated.

Here we are coming to an anthropological term of “tolerance” in a historical prospective. A logic of a community should be driven first of all by some pragmatic reasons which will bring to the highest prosperity of its members. A trade point as well as port is a very good example to see how this was functioning through a time span or historical prospective. When talking about this, a wider context (especially economy and politics) should be considered.

So, let me shortly tell you the story about the city of Rijeka (history, in the first place, is telling past stories).

From the historical resources we know that human communities on this territory were present from prehistory but the first real evidence of a settlement are from the late Antiquity when Romans had established a rather large military camp here – Tarsatica – that was in a large defence system called Claustra Alpii Iuliarum. Now we come to the first example of tolerance/intolerance. Some people were to be excluded from coming (penetrating) into the territory of another community. Roman Empire was a large political construction which encompassed different people and communities around Mediterranean and up to north to Germany and Britain. Majority of those peoples were included into the Roman territories by “sword” i.e. conquering in war. This was also the case of the Liburnina territories – eastern Adriatic. Later the people living on these territories were included into the large Roman society (community) but the central government wanted to control immigration of people to their territory. Again, we are talking about protection of the resources. Therefore, the Empire built a large defence system which Rijeka i.e. Tarsatica was also a part of. Here we come to a concept which is pretty much present in nowadays politics of EU – control of immigration and Rijeka and its wide surrounding are in the zone where many illegal immigrants from Asia and Levant are passing through in their intention to reach the centre of Europe. A bit different circumstances but the same concept in 2000 years – strict control of people’s movement and Rijeka as the city on the border.

During its history the city of Rijeka was most of the time on the border. During the middle ages here were the borders of the feudal possessions of different feudal families who were not all the time to friendly to each other and sometimes the city was involved into conflicts. Conflicts have to be considered as the top of intolerance of others. The citizens of Rijeka had to deal with soldiers of different armies which were accepted (tolerated) as necessary for defence of citizens property and freedom but then also not to be tolerated in the way that very often they would be seen as threat to citizens properties and freedoms. For instance, the Uskoks from Senj who were actually protecting the whole wide area including the city of Rijeka from the Ottomans as well as from the Venetians, they were not allowed to stay over night in the city because they might misbehave or behave in the way which was not to be tolerated in the city. Therefore, they had special place on the other side of the Rječina river to stay – foresteria dove alloggiano gli skoki.

So far, I was talking only about some examples of exclusions or intolerance. Therefore, not much examples of so “famous Rijeka tolerance”. Well, the community needed to protect itself and its values such as wellbeing of its citizens and free trade and entrepreneurship. In this case all those who were willing to move to the city with good idea for starting of a business – trade or manufacture and they showed as successful which was visible by their income, they could have applied for Rijeka’s citizenship and be the full members of Rijeka’s political elite. To explain more precisely – during the middle ages Rijeka was a feudal possession of different feudal families (first the patriarch of Aquilea, then Walsse Family, Duino and then Habsburgs). Habsburgs granted the city of Rijeka a special status of free port in order to bust the trade and increase the port’s traffic. City enjoyed a certain tolerance which was contained into this exception of trade taxes and certain political autonomy. City was ruled by a committee organized by members of patrician families. The were closed society. Exceptionally they would accept someone to enter their exclusive club if the person was wealthy enough. So, the tool for tolerate someone was the money. In this way Rijeka was quite particular. Despite religious or ethnic exclusions or intolerance in the whole Monarchy of Habsburgs, in Rijeka would be accepted different communities such as orthodox, Muslims (not in such as large extend) or protestants, different ethnic groups such as Slavic, German, Italian, British, Jewish – would be accepted as long they would contribute to the well being of the city. On the other side some locals were excluded i.e. not tolerated if they could not provide enough for their living. This was regulated by the rule of pertinenza i.e. pertinenc (zavičajnost) which meant that someone is resident of Rijeka and full member of Rijeka community (with social and political rights). Not all the people born in Rijeka would have this, and certainly not people who were present in Rijeka every day but they were from some places around Rijeka. The problem was when those people were expelled from the city. They were not tolerate because they didn’t have pertinenza. This in large extent happened in Rijeka after WWI. During the Italian occupation of Rijeka until 1945 this law was gradually applied. Rijeka’ became a very intolerant city. This caused the opposite reaction when after WWII a large number of those people who were feeling exclusively right to have Rijeka pertinenza (because of their Italian citizenship) were expelled from the city. The new Yugoslavian regime let them known that they were not to be tolerated anymore.

After WWII Rijeka is developing again as a port and industrial city which needed to recreate the new working class and people from all around ex-Yugoslavia are more than welcome. This create again a multi-ethnic and multicultural community with the aim of providing and contributing to the well being of the city. Again, the economic well-being was a tool for tolerance amongst different society groups. With the collapse of Yugoslavia, Rijeka did not become less tolerant society. I would say that being Riječanin, meant that you are of a kind of mix origin and this included tolerance towards all others. Unfortunately, only lately, 10 years ago we can notice that certain intolerance is being the case in this city. Is this due to collapse of industry or newcomers came in such a large number that they are changing the “philocaly climate” of the city, I, as a historian would not have an answer to this. However, I would say that it should not be tolerate that a person is beaten to death just because he was of different ethnic origin. This happened during the fascism in Rijeka, and few months ago. This recent is a single case but it indicates that communities such as Rijeka which nourished a certain tolerance based on economic wealth of the whole society, are not immune to the extremes of intolerance and it is something that makes me worry. But I would leave this to you to resolve or not in your future work through this week and wish you good work and pleasant stay in Rijeka (still considered the most tolerant city in Croatia).

Tea Perinčić, PhD.