Associazione Patria

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The Associazione Patria (German: Union Fatherland , also Liberal National Party ) was an Italian national Trieste party in Austria-Hungary .

history

The Associazione Patria has its roots in the revolutionary years 1848/49 . Previously there was a relatively peaceful coexistence of the mainly Italian urban population with the merchant families from various European regions, the German-Austrian civil servants and the rural-Slovenian population of the Trieste region, so two political camps formed in the revolutionary years. On one side stood the group loyal to the Habsburg Monarchy, which included the civil servants and the majority of merchants, the Slovenes and a small part of the Italian population. On the other side stood the large part of the Italian population, led by nationally minded intellectuals, who shared the idea of ​​the Risorgimento and advocated the unification of Trieste with Italy.

In Trieste, however, there were only sporadic riots during the revolutionary years, while there was no major uprising. In addition, due to the suppression of the uprisings in northern Italy and the peace treaty between Austria and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a union of Trieste with other Italian settlement areas was a long way off. Therefore the Italian nationalists had to come to terms with the political situation. They subsequently focused on the defense of communal autonomy and the cultural assimilation of the Slavic population as well as non-Italian immigrants. In addition, the National Liberals pursued legal and secret contacts with the mother country Italy. Ideologically they also pursued an anti-socialist and anti-clerical policy.

The Italian national circles first met in the Societá dei Trestini (Society of the Trieste), from 1868/69 the organization of the Libernational carried the official name Societá del Progresso (Society of Progress). In 1890 the Austrian authorities forced the dissolution of the Societá del Progresso , whose members merged to form the Societá Progressista (Progress Association) around 1892/93 . In 1899, the Mazzinian Republican wing split off from the Progressive Union as the Associazione Democratica (Democratic Union), but reunification took place in 1901. As a result, the party was officially called Associazione Patria , with the Mazzinians split off again in 1902. Despite the official name Associazione Patria, the party was consistently referred to in everyday life as partito italianissimo (the Italian party) or later as partito liberale-nazionale ( liberal national party).

Between 1861 and 1871, the National Liberals provided around half of the Trieste deputies in the Chamber of Deputies of the Reichsrat, with the municipal council sending two deputies to Vienna from among its members. Although the National Liberals almost always had an absolute majority in the municipal council, based on a compromise solution they left the remaining seats in the Reichsrat to the forces loyal to Austria. After the right to vote for the House of Representatives was passed from the municipal council to the citizens of Trieste in 1873, the National Liberals boycotted the elections to the Imperial Council up to and including 1891, whereby Trieste was represented during this time by exclusively conservative, Austria-loyal representatives, German-liberal politicians or Slovenian MPs. It was only after the curial suffrage was extended to the general electoral class in 1897 that the National Liberals took part again in the elections, winning all five mandates in 1897 and 1901. In 1907 she got one mandate, in 1911 two seats.

literature

  • Eduard Winkler: Suffrage reforms and elections in Trieste 1905–1909. An analysis of political participation in a multinational urban region of the Habsburg monarchy. R. Oldenbourg Verlag , Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-56486-2 .