The third largest city in
Croatia, also known by its
Italian name of
Fiume until becoming part of
Yugoslavia in
1945. Both names, in fact, mean '
river', and refer to the straggly Rijeka svetog Vida that would mark the city's
partition between
Italy and
Yugoslavia between the
world wars. On the very east of the
Istrian
peninsula, Rijeka commands the
Gulf of Kvarner near the top of the
Adriatic Sea, and is now served by an airport on the nearby island of
Krk.
Rijeka's development as a port stems from
1766 when it was put under
Hungarian jurisdiction by the
Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa. Her father
Charles VI had chosen
Trieste ahead of Rijeka as the principal
Austro-Hungarian port, in a conscious attempt to compete with a declining
Venice. Previously,
Trsat Castle, high above the city, had formed part of the
Habsburg coastal defences against Venice, the
Ottoman Empire and assorted
Adriatic corsairs, but fell into disrepair until restored by an
Irish-born
Austrian general with a passion for
archaeology on the side.
Rijeka became disputed between
Hungary and Croatia, then an autonomous kingdom within Hungary, when its status had to be negotiated as part of the
Ausgleich, or Compromise, which established the system of
dualism between Austria and Hungary.
According to a possibly
apocryphal tale, the Croatian text of the
Nagodba, Hungary's own Compromise with Croatia, stated that it had not been possible to come to any agreement. A particularly sly
Magyar then pasted on their own version (the so-called 'Rijeka patch') before it was delivered to Emperor
Franz Joseph. Italian immigration into Rijeka was then encouraged to dilute the Slav population.
Rijeka was the site (along with
Zadar) of the
1905 declaration to form the
Croat-Serb Coalition, the first party belonging to more than one branch of the southern Slavs. This step towards
Yugoslavian unification was ultimately of little help at the
conference table in Paris: under pressure from
nationalists to reclaim the full extent of
Italia Irredenta, the Italian delegates
Vittorio Orlando and
Sidney Sonnino went beyond the extensive promises the
Entente had made to Italy in the
Treaty of London to induce her to enter the
war and staked their claim to Rijeka as well.
In fact, as soon as the armistice had been signed, Italian troops had occupied Istria, one of their Treaty of London claims, and turned a blind eye to the occupation of Rijeka by the maverick poet and
aviator Gabriele D'Annunzio. D'Annunzio stormed into Rijeka with three thousand black-shirted
arditi, Italian
shock troops, and declared himself dictator of the
Republic of Fiume on
September 12, 1919, to the embarrassment even of the Italian government.
During D'Annunzio's two-year regime, he would experiment with much of the
civic ritual that later characterised the style of
Benito Mussolini. Appearing on the
balcony of the
Governor's Palace, his official residence where he supposedly liked to have his
four-poster bed strewn with red, white and pink
roses, the citizens of Rijeka were expected to raise the
Fascist salute and hail him as
il Duce. Rijeka's status was not decided until
1924, when it was assigned to
Italy,
Yugoslavia having to develop
Šibenik as her main outlet to the
Adriatic.
In
Tito's Yugoslavia, Rijeka was again a port and a
shipbuilding centre, although eclipsed by
Trieste and
Koper during the 1990s as a result of the
wars of the Yugoslavian succession. Under the first Croatian president
Franjo Tudjman -
liberator of Croatia or dictatorial
nationalist, depending on whose newspapers you read - Rijeka was renowned as a centre of opposition, and its own newspaper
Novi list one of the few remaining
independent media.
It is probably the only city in Croatia where one is likely to see a
gay rights billboard next to an advertisement for the country's leading
nationalist rock star.
Just as typically
rijecki, perhaps, is the
clock tower in the middle of Rijeka's main shopping street, the
Korzo (a
pastel-coloured concourse in true Austrian style), which still displays the
Habsburg emblem of the crowned
double eagle, three changes of
sovereignty later. Unfortunately, one has
Titoism to thank for the giant shopping centre immediately opposite, masquerading as a
Leicester Square multiplex to a casual observer.
Another of the city's landmarks,
St. Vitus Cathedral, appears on the 100
kuna banknote. Drivers on the last bus from Rijeka to
Opatija on a Saturday night are not as happy to see these as one might think.