Oprtalj

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Oprtalj / Portole
coat of arms
coat of arms
Oprtalj (Croatia)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
Coordinates: 45 ° 23 ′ 45 ″  N , 13 ° 50 ′ 14 ″  E
Basic data
State : Croatian flag Croatia
County : Flag of Istria County Istria
Height : 288  m. i. J.
Area : 70  km²
Residents : 850 (2011)
Population density : 12 inhabitants per km²
Telephone code : (+385) 052
Postal code :
License plate : PU
Structure and administration
(status: 2013, cf. )
Community type : local community
Mayor : Aleksander Krt ( IDS / DDI )
Website :

Oprtalj / Portole d'Istria is a municipality in the Istria County , Croatia . The number of inhabitants of the municipality was 850 in 2011. At the same time Oprtalj / Portole is the main town of the municipality with 79 inhabitants. The area is best known for its abundance of truffles . Oprtalj / Portole belongs to the part of Istria in which place and information boards, many notices and often street names are shown in the two traditional national languages Croatian and Italian .

location

Milestone with distance from Trieste

Oprtalj / Portole is a small town in the interior of the Istrian peninsula , approx. 10 km north of Motovuns / Montonas . Oprtalj / Portole is 378 m above sea level in a hilly position. After Trieste , the old, the first of leading Austria -developed state road Istrian what just before the border crossing Sveta Lucija to Brezovica pri Gradinu in Slovenia , in the northern municipality, a massive milestone recalls that read: V miles from Trieste , where an Austrian Mile 7 ' Measures 586 meters. From Sveta Lucija / Santa Lucia this road belongs to the country road with the serial number 5007 (E 751) and then crosses the actual town of Oprtalj, then leads by means of numerous serpentines into the deep valley of the river Mirna / Quieto ( Latin Ningus ) to Livade / Levade, a district in the municipality, and from there on to Motovun / Montona.

history

View of Oprtalj

The place goes back to a castellian who is attributed either to the Venetians or the Illyrians . After the final Roman conquest, the inhabitants, Histrier , were not expelled as they were on the fertile, flatter west coast of Istria. Through the settlement of Italian settlers in the coastal area, who acquired conquered land through purchase or donation (e.g. to veterans), and the establishment of Roman colonies, Roman culture and economy became dominant in Istria. Oprtalj / Portole, like the whole mountainous hinterland, was gradually integrated economically and culturally. In contrast to the coastal area, however, there are inscriptions in the hinterland with Latinized Illyrian names of people and deities. The name Portole probably goes back to the Latin name Ad Portulae . The Ningus (today Mirna / Quieto) below the city was still navigable at that time.

With the demographic and, as a consequence, military crisis of the Roman Empire , the penetration of new peoples into the empire could no longer be prevented. While the demographically equally troubled Istrian coastal fringes could last longer, especially since Roman refugees from the overrun hinterland - up to the top of Pannonia - temporarily halted the decline in population. At the time of the Pax Romana , villae rusticae were not walled in to defend themselves and were not manned by armed guards. That changed now. The incursions made life outside fortified cities perilous, the cities built or renewed city walls. Presumably Oprtalj / Portole was also such a re-fortified place, as it was located in the complex of an Illyrian castellier.

Since the Slavs conquered the land in the 7th century, there are not only the Romansh population, who Italianized themselves in later centuries, but also Slavic inhabitants, who predominantly dominated rural areas and later settled down. a. became speakers of today's Croatian and Slovenian. The new residents and farmers of the country, who ran family farms and were only partially or loosely subject to the sovereignty of the Romanesque townspeople, attracted feudal lords from the up-and-coming Central Europe. Off the coast, German-speaking aristocrats conquered areas for themselves and subsequently divided up among their several sons. In this way, beyond the area that the Romanesque coastal inhabitants could effectively rule, a feudal area was created that was declared a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire .

There was largely no awareness as a language group, the idea of ​​the nation only dates back to the end of the 18th century, but people in rural areas, regardless of whether they are Roman, Illyrian or Slavic descent - after centuries of marriages, descent is a questionable concept anyway -, mostly adapted to the prevailing Slavic speakers there, whereas townspeople and seafarers, regardless of their origin, spoke Romansh or later Italian. The language was mainly used functionally and many whose activities and lives affected both areas were bilingual.

The earliest surviving mention of the town can be found in a document from 1102. In 1209 Oprtalj was conquered for the Patriarch of Aquileia , Wolfger von Erla , who seized the high medieval margraviate of Istria as a secular domain for the patriarchate. In the struggle for supremacy in the Adriatic , the Republic of Venice prevailed against the patriarchs and in 1420 Portole fell to the Venetians, who held it until the republic was dissolved in 1797. Napoleon Bonaparte , who had overpowered Venice, left the Venetian coastline with Oprtalj to the Habsburg Monarchy , which united the gained territory with the Istrian hinterland, the inner-Austrian county of Mitterburg (seat: Pazin / Pisino ).

In 1805 Bonaparte took over all of Istria from Austria with Oprtalj / Portole and soon integrated it into the Illyrian provinces . It was during this period that feudal restrictions on land ownership were lifted and land was converted into free property. As a result, the rural population began to rise. The Illyrian provinces became the Kingdom of Illyria , which was a new title for the Habsburg crown. Administratively, after the reform of 1867, Oprtalj / Portole belonged to the Crown Land of Istria, a self-governing unit within the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary ( Cisleithanien ). However, Istria was under the control of the Cisleithan Lieutenancy for the coastal country - together with the Free City of Trieste and the County of Gorizia - with its seat in Trieste.

The contrasts between Italian-speaking and Slavic intensified with the economic advancement of the rural population after the Napoleonic creation of free property and Austrian emancipation of labor services and charges. The switch from subsistence to market production allowed social advancement outside the Italian-speaking cities. Now people from rural areas have become respectable taxpayers without having adapted to the Italian language in a city. But the mandates in the self-governing body of the modern margraviate of Istria , the Landtag in Parenzo / Poreč , were not only elected according to tax brackets, but also in a regional constituency division, with the coastline being over-represented compared to the hinterland, which resulted in a dominance of Italian-speaking MPs. Since the economic rise no longer necessarily went hand in hand with Italianization in the cities, there was also a need for higher Slavic educational institutions (grammar schools), the establishment of which the Landtag delayed and, if possible, suppressed. This discrimination increasingly led to a language war. The Slavic-speaking population now also demanded increased representation in the state parliament, Vienna and the German-speaking coastal governor in Trieste tried to orchestrate the dispute as far as possible without the contending parties allying themselves against Vienna. The number of mandates for the Istrian inland rose only slowly and the state Slavic-language educational offers increased, but fell short of demand.

From 1902 to 1935 Oprtalj / Portole was connected to the railway network. The company Trieste Parenzo Canfanaro (TPC) built a 123 km long narrow-gauge railway - popularly known as Parenzana - which runs from the Trieste train station Stazione dello Stato u. a. via Optrtalj to Poreč / Parenzo . It was initially operated by the Imperial and Royal Austrian State Railways and from 1920 by Ferrovie dello Stato . The planned expansion to Kanfanar / Canfanaro never came. The rail connection made it much easier to market local products on the Austrian-Hungarian markets, but also internationally. The Oprtalj / Portole train station, however, was around 100 meters above sea level. Only a few foundation walls remain of the former train station.

After the defeat of Austria-Hungary in the First World War, Oprtalj / Portole and all of Istria were incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy .

In 1943 Oprtalj / Portole came under large German occupation and until 1945 belonged to the Adriatic Coastal Operation Zone . Then came the Allied occupation by British and Americans. Heated-up Slavic-speaking partisans terrorized Italian-speakers and justified themselves by stating that Italian-speaking people were collectively responsible for the fascist anti-Slavic national politics (see: Foibe massacre ). In 1947 the British and Americans created the Free Territory of Trieste , an American-British-Yugoslav zone of occupation around Trieste, which was directly connected to the municipality of Oprtalj. Oprtalj itself was annexed by Yugoslavia after the Treaty of Paris (peace treaty between the Allies with Italy) in 1947 and became part of the Croatian republic . Accordingly, Slavic national politics now came to fruition. According to the peace treaty, the Free Territory of Trieste was divided into two zones, A and B, with the now Yugoslav Oprtalj bordered on Zone B, in which Yugoslavia held the role of the occupying power. According to a memorandum signed by Great Britain, Italy, the USA and Yugoslavia, the latter took over the administration of Zone B in 1954, and after the Treaty of Osimo in 1975 it also came to Yugoslavia under international law.

The expulsion and exodus of the Italian-speaking Portolans and anyone who feared a Communist takeover was largely over by the time. As a result, the number of Portolans had fallen by 80% and the place had become a ghost town. The influx of Slavic-speaking Portolans from the rural areas of the municipality could not compensate for this, especially since the rural exodus led to a general population decline in these areas.

Even after Croatia's independence, Oprtalj / Portole remained part of this republic. With the introduction of increased local self-government in Croatia in 1993, Oprtalj received the status of a municipality (Općina / Comune) with the districts mentioned below. After the war in Yugoslavia , Miroslav Nemec and some colleagues from the German cultural scene (including Doris Dörrie) initiated the "Hand in Hand" association for war orphans regardless of Yugoslav origin, now generally for orphans. This foundation has acquired four of the previously empty, dilapidated townhouses, renovated them and turned them into homes. For all children in the community there is a school in a representative villa at the eastern entrance to the village, which belonged to a manufacturer before Yugoslav communism.

Settlements in the municipality

The settlements ( Croatian naselje ) are listed in alphabetical order of the Croatian names, followed by the Italian names. Under Mussolini , various places in Italy were identified - rightly or speculatively - with known ancient places and renamed accordingly. The district of Zrenj / Sdregna, which in church tradition is identified with the birthplace of the church father and Latin translator of the Bible Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus , was therefore renamed Stridone, as the ancient name of his birthplace has been passed down as Stridon. Čepić, on the other hand, received the new Italian spelling Ceppi, because the older Ceppich, with its consonant ending, which is unusual for Italian, implied that the place name was not of Italian origin. For some places were in old documents and are z. Partly in the historical literature derived or own German terms are still in use today.

Istarske Toplice Thermal Bath

The Istarske Toplice thermal baths ( Terme di Santo Stefano in Italian , outdated German Niedergrund ) are located in the municipality .  

Attractions

In the actual Oprtalj

  • Loggia, during the flea market

  • City gate from 1756

  • St. George Cathedral

  • Campanile of the cathedral

  • Church of Our Lady of the Greeks

  • St. Rochus Church

City gate

Nestled between houses, it is located opposite the loggia and was built in its current form in 1756.

Venetian Loggia (Lođa / Loggia)

Opposite the old city gate, the portolan podestà had a loggia built in the Renaissance style in the 16th century , where the court met until 1797 and announcements were made. It was renovated in the 18th century and in 2006. It contains stone fragments and stone coats of arms from Roman, Venetian and more recent times, including a Venetian lion of St. Mark that once hung on the town hall.

Catholic Cathedral of St. George (Crkva Sv.Jurja / Duomo di San Giorgio)

The name of the church is not given because it was or is a cathedral , but once served as a collegiate church with a collegiate of canons. The current building was built in 1526 in place of a previous building, which probably dates back to the 6th century. The church was renovated in 1774. The current facade dates from the 17th century. The wrought-iron decorations on the windows and the large outside staircase were added in the 18th century.

The furnishings include works - including an altar painting by Baldassarre d'Anna from the 17th century - from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and an organ by Gaetano Callido from the 18th century. The 27 m high campanile was built in 1740 and renovated in 2007-2008. It also served as a defense tower. One of its three bells served as a storm and fire bell , and one - the smallest - rang in the curfew.

Catholic Church of St. Rochus (Crkva Sv.Roka / Chiesa di San Rocco)

The single-nave church is located at the southern entrance to the city next to the school. A loggia overshadows the entrance. The church was built in 1581 in place of a previous building. The interior is decorated with frescoes by the artist Antun iz Padove depicting saints. The church was renovated in 1913 and contains the coats of arms and foundation inscriptions of old Portolan families.

Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Greeks (Crkva Sv. Marije / Chiesa della Madonna dei Greci)

The single-nave church is located at the western entrance to the city at the end of a beautiful cypress avenue. The church was founded in 1479 as the church of one of the formerly numerous Portolan Catholic brotherhoods. In 1770 a shady loggia was built in front of the entrance. In the interior, the master Clerigino di Capodistria decorated the walls with late Gothic frescoes of Mary of Nazareth in a protective cloak, including pictures of members of the Brotherhood (north wall), the Assumption of Mary (south wall), of prophets (under the triumphal arch above the choir), and of saints (on the triumphal arch ).

Catholic Church of St. Helena (Crkva Sv.Jelene / Chiesa di Santa Elena)

A little south of the town, on the road to Motovun / Montona, this church is clearly visible from the road on the hill of the same name. This single-nave church from the 15th century has frescoes Clerigino di Capodistrias, depicting the Majestas Domini , saints, evangelists and the Ascension of Jesus of Nazareth . In addition, a Glagolitic inscription from 1496 has been preserved.

In Vižintini Vrhi / Monti di Visintini

Catholic Church of St. Leonhard (Crkva Sveti Leonarda / Chiesa San Leonardo)

The single-nave church stands in a single location outside the town center and was rebuilt in 1894 in place of a previous building, parts of which were preserved and integrated into the current building. The roof is covered with the traditional, irregularly broken flat natural stone. From the previous building, frescoes from the first half of the 15th century and an altarpiece by the Zaratin artist Zorzi Ventura from the 17th century.

Population development

The table shows the population development of the actual town without the meanwhile incorporated villages in the area.

Population by years
1857 1869 1880 1890 1900 1910 1921 1931 1948 1953 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001
2,667 2,825 619 610 587 762 3,271 3.138 293 223 169 104 87 104 118

Remarks

  1. ↑ Oprtalj / Portole: odmorište za dušu i tijelo / il ristoro per l'anima e il corpo , Turistička Zejednica Općine Oprtalj / Ente Turistico del Comune di Portole (ed.), Oprtalj / Portole: Grafika Laganis, 2008, p. 1. No ISBN.
  2. ↑ For example, in 1933 the Fiumicino River, which flows through Savignano di Romagna (now Savignano sul Rubicone ), was identified as the ancient Rubicon and renamed. The Sicilian city of Girgenti was officially renamed Agrigento at the end of 1929 , because it better reflects the city's Roman name.
  3. ↑ A good overview of today's names and some historical variants is provided by Peter Štih, Studies on the History of the Counts of Gorizia: the Ministerials and Milites of the Counts of Gorizia in Istria and Carniola [Goriski grofje ter njihovi ministeriali in militi v Istri in na Kranjskem; dt.], Vienna et al .: Oldenbourg, 1996, (reports from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research: supplementary volume; 32), 266 pp. ISBN 3-486-64834-9 .
  4. ↑ - Republika Hrvatska - Državni zavod za statistiku: Naselja i stanovništvo Republike Hrvatske 1857-2001.

Web links

Commons : Oprtalj  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  • Kaltenegger, Roland , Operation Zone "Adriatic Coastal Land": the struggle for Trieste, Istria and Fiume 1944/45 , Graz and Stuttgart: Stocker, 1993, 327 pp. ISBN 3-7020-0665-6 .
  • Marusić, Branko, Istria in the early Middle Ages: Archeological [!] -Historical presentation , Nevenka Hampel-Mladin (ex.), Pula / Pola: Archaeological Museum of Istria , 1960, (cultural and historical monuments in Istria; 3). No ISBN.
  • Mlakar, Stefan, The Romans in Istria , Nevenka Hampel-Mladin (ex.), Pula / Pola: Archaeological Museum of Istria, 1962, (cultural and historical monuments in Istria; 4). No ISBN.
  • Orlić, Paolo and Ana Pibernik, Parenzana - The Route of Health and Friendship , Milojka Bizajl and Lea Caharija (translated into English), Istria County (ed., As part of the Interreg IIIA Neighborhood Program Slovenia-Hungary-Croatia 2004-2006 der EU) Poreč / Parenzo: Istarska županija / Regione Istriana, 2007. No ISBN.
  • Oprtalj / Portole: odmorište za dušu i tijelo / il ristoro per l'anima e il corpo , Turistička Zejednica Općine Općine Oprtalj / Ente Turistico del Comune di Portole (ed.): Grafika Laganis, Oprtalj 2008. No ISBN.
  • Oprtalj / Portole , Marijan Bradanović (ed.) With contributions in Italian and Croatian by Marijan Bradanović, Niki Fachin, Christian Gallo, Vladimir Lay, Ivan Milotić and Ivan Zupanc as well as Željko Bistrović (photos), Viviana Viviani (translated into Italian) , Oprtalj / Portole: Općina Oprtalj / Comune di Portole, 2009, 259 pp. ISBN 978-953-55675-0-9 .
  • Sotriffer, Christian, Istria and the Karst: History, Culture and Landscape , Linz on the Danube: Oberösterreichischer Landesverlag, 1972, 158 pp. No ISBN.
  • Štih, Peter, Studies on the History of the Counts of Gorizia: the Ministerials and Milites of the Counts of Gorizia in Istria and Carniola [Goriski grofje ter njihovi ministeriali in militi v Istri in na Kranjskem; dt.], Vienna et al .: Oldenbourg, 1996, (reports from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research: supplementary volume; 32), 266 pp. ISBN 3-486-64834-9 .
  • Vilfan, Sergij, "From the French Illyrian Provinces to the Austrian Kingdom of Illyria", in: Napoleonic rule in Germany and Italy - Administration and Justice , Christof Dipper , Wolfgang Schieder and Reiner Schulze (eds.), Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1995, (Writings on European legal and constitutional history; Vol. 16), pp. 93-118. ISBN 3-428-08267-2
  • Wiggermann, Frank, KuK Kriegsmarine und Politik: a contribution to the history of the Italian national movement in Istria , Vienna: Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004, (studies on the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy; 28), also: Münster in Westphalia, Westfälische Wilhelms-Univ., Diss., 2000, 456 pp. ISBN 3-7001-3209-3 .