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44-577: For centuries the city of Rijeka was a corpus separatum within the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian . This is linked to a long political autonomy, which led to the foundation in 1896 of the local namesake party. Headed by Riccardo Zanella , on 24 April 1921 the autonomists won the parliamentary elections of the newborn Free State of Fiume , but their government was overthrown in March of

88-495: A Latin term meaning " separated body ", refers to the status of the City of Fiume (modern Rijeka, Croatia ) while given a special legal and political status different from its environment under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary . Formally known as City of Fiume and its District ( Hungarian : Fiume város és kerülete ), it was instituted by Empress Maria Theresa in 1779, determining

132-569: A group of Slovenian and Croat partisans of the liberation movement , with the so-called Declarations of Pazin of September 13, 1943. This event, connected to the fall of fascism, gave rise to the resurgence of the ever dormant autonomist feelings of the Fiuman population. The political heirs of Zanella - at the time exiled in France - regrouped in the Autonomous Movement under the guidance of some of

176-522: A guide, translator and intelligence officer on the Isonzo Front and earning a War Cross for Military Valor by Italy and a Military Cross by the United Kingdom (as well as a death sentence in absentia for treason by Austria-Hungary), ending the war with the rank of captain in 1917. After the end of the war he held the office of mayor of Fiume from November 1919 to December 1920, during

220-576: A head-quarter of the newly formed United Nations (this idea was following on the footsteps of the previous Wilsonian proposal of having Fiume as a head-quarter of the League of Nations ). The idea found also the official support of the Italian president Alcide de Gasperi , after the Allies displayed little interest in the option of keeping Italian sovereignty over Fiume's territory. Tito in official correspondence with

264-718: A long footnote on how to interpret the two acts of 1776 and 1779. The act presented a precedent for the Hungarian constitutional praxis, since it was the first time that a part of the Holy Roman Empire (and a hereditary fief of the Habsburgs) was given to the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom. Therefore, since the Croatian and Hungarian estates had widely diverging interests with respect to Fiume, they produced very different interpretations of

308-622: A royal rescript dated 23 April 1779, made the City of Fiume directly subject to the Hungarian Crown as a corpus separatum (that is, not as a part of Croatia, which was in a personal union with Hungary). Since Fiume had to serve a similar function for Hungary as the Imperial Free City of Trieste did for the Habsburg lands, the Hungarian estates (and probably the Queen) wanted to grant the City

352-461: A similar degree of institutional autonomy to that already enjoyed by Trieste. According to Maria Theresa's rescript, Fiume was created a corpus separatum – that is, a political body with greater autonomy than a Free imperial city or a Hungarian county , and a territory comparable to the other partes adnexae constituting the Crown of St Stephen . The city's position was thus comparable to those of

396-501: The regna : as Trieste was considered to be a crown land of the Austrian hereditary lands ( Erblande ), so Fiume was considered to be a pars adnexa to the crown. After the royal rescript of 23 April 1779, the stage was set for all the political confrontations that were to happen in Fiume for more than a century and a half. In a sense, it can be said that all history that followed was

440-593: The Revolution of 1848 and the enactment of the Austrian March Constitution , the city was included in the autonomous Croatian kingdom as a seat of a comitatus with no special autonomy. In 1868, following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 which created Austria-Hungary , Croatia was allowed to negotiate its own settlement with Hungary. The final Croatian–Hungarian Settlement left

484-509: The occupation of the city by the "legionnaires" of Gabriele D'Annunzio , whom Gigante befriended; when the Italian Army attacked D'Annunzio's troops in the so-called " Bloody Christmas ", Gigante resigned from his post as a mayor to take part in the fighting, and later sheltered D'Annunzio in his house and was part of the delegation that negotiated the ceasefire, along with Giovanni Host-Venturi . A staunch Italian nationalist and an advocate of

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528-625: The polling station and later occupied the town hall and assumed "dictatorial powers" for thirty-six hours, before ceding power to an extraordinary commissioner appointed by the Italian government. Following the annexation of the city to Italy in 1924, he joined the National Fascist Party (on the same year he was awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy motu proprio by King Victor Emmanuel III ) and from January 1930 to February 1934 he held once again

572-514: The City and three villages: The territory of Fiume after the end of World War I was involved in a series of events that, after various military occupations (the longest lasting was the one led by Gabriele D'Annunzio , also called the Italian Regency of Carnaro ), saw the creation of an ephemeral successor entity in the Free State of Fiume . The Free State existed officially 4 years, before it

616-830: The Corpus separatum was settled with the Statute given on 17 April 1872 by the Hungarian Minister of the Interior . At the top of Fiume and its district ( Hungarian : Fiume város és kerülete ) there was the Governor appointed directly from the King after a proposal from the Hungarian Prime Minister . The Governor of Fiume was entitled to membership in the House of Magnates . The municipal self-rule

660-545: The Liburnia Autonomist Movement (or Movimento Autonomista Liburnico), led by the engineer Giovanni Rubini . Also considering aformal agreement with the AVNOJ impossible, they planned the transformation of the Fiume region into a federated state. The autonomists established their own program which they sent to London, Berlin, Washington and Rome. The program of the movement centered around the intention of making Fiume

704-521: The annexation of the city to Italy, Gigante strongly opposed the Autonomist Party and soon became close to the nascent Fascist movement (albeit not with its leader Benito Mussolini , whom he held in low esteem and would have liked to see replaced by D'Annunzio); in 1921, when the Autonomist Party won the local elections, he led a group of squadristi and former "legionnaires" in an assault on

748-708: The association, and was repeatedly persecuted by the Austro-Hungarian authorities for his pro-Italian stance. In 1915 he volunteered for the Royal Italian Army during the First World War (despite a severe form of arthritis that afflicted him, resulting in the exemption from military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army and the initial rejection of his enlistment request by the Italian Army), serving as

792-522: The autonomists considered it impossible to form a political alliance with them, who were considered too undemocratic and illiberal, but continued to work on opposing the Nazi -Fascists together. At the beginning of 1944 a part of the zanelliani faction, above all the younger ones, merged into the Italian Autonomous Fiume Movement (FAI), founded by don Luigi Polano . They targeted for the city

836-699: The autonomous project of Rubini during a search, inside a file entitled "Memorandum Rubini", was the formal cause chosen by the Germans to justify the arrest of the Fiume Police chief Giovanni Palatucci , September 13, 1944. From this makes us think that Palatucci was among the proponents of the Federalist solution advocated by the Liburnic Autonomist Movement. Tito 's troops entered Fiume on May 3, 1945, without any major insurrectionary movement developing in

880-645: The capital of a state called the Free Territory of Quarnero , which would include the former Hungarian Littoral, the Western part of the Gorski Kotar, a few nearby Slovenian municipalities and the islands of Krk, Rab and Lošinj as well as the easternmost part of Istria. All this territory would have been divided into cantons, on the Swiss model. Each canton would have had the right to use the local mother tongue in its area, while

924-508: The city as a consequence of the growing discrimination, targeted violence and terrorist acts by local authorities. These crimes, although extensively documented and widely confirmed by historians both in Croatia and Italy, still fail to be officially recognised by Rijeka's authorities nowadays and are a source of continuous internal tensions between the population and the city's political elite. Corpus separatum (Fiume) Corpus separatum ,

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968-623: The city of Fiume, following the World War I the population dropped to 45,885. It had the following composition identified by association with linguistic communities: According to the census of 1900, the county was composed of the following religious communities: Total: According to the census of 1910, the county was composed of the following religious communities: Total: 45°20′N 14°26′E  /  45.333°N 14.433°E  / 45.333; 14.433 Riccardo Gigante Riccardo Gigante (29 January 1881 – 4 May 1945)

1012-565: The city, not last thanks to the promises of cultural and political respect the Titoists made to the local population. Upon entering the city and in the first month, the communist authorities got rid of more than 600 civilians only in the first month of occupation. Soon the Yugoslav propaganda machine was put on work and it started treating the autonomists harshly, accusing them of betrayal, opportunism and even fascism, in order to weaken their position in

1056-518: The city. From the first hours of the occupation, the Yugoslav secret police organized punitive teams to search for the autonomous leaders and get rid of them: between May the 2nd and May the 4th lost Mario Blasich, Nevio Skull, Mario De Hajnal, Giuseppe Sincich, Radoslav Baucer and other autonomist leaders were victims of summary killings. They all were collaborating with the partisans for years. Their fate had been anticipated by that of Giovanni Rubini, who

1100-577: The continuation of a statute of autonomy, similar to that enjoyed at the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, also advocating armed resistance against the Nazi-Fascists (albeit without creating partisan formations), but accepting collaboration with the Yugoslavs, above all for the protection of the industrial heritage of the city, threatened with destruction by the Germans. This autonomist component

1144-564: The following year by the nationalist and pro- fascist group, reunited in the National Block . Zanella was forced into exile together with all his cabinet, later the city was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy following the Treaty of Rome (1924) . The city of Rijeka, one of the landmarks of the Adriatic dispute between Italians and Slavs (Slovenians and Croats), was declared annexed to Yugoslavia by

1188-575: The liking of the Ustashe . Having remained in Fiume even in the face of the arrival of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army , on 3 May 1945, he was immediately arrested by the OZNA and executed by firing squad on the next day in the woods near Kastav . He was buried in a mass grave which was located in 1992 and excavated in 2018, when his remains were identified through DNA testing and repatriated. In 2020 he

1232-462: The local Fiuman population, and the city's remarkable bilingualism was de facto (but not de jure) abolished 9 years later, in 1954, riding heavily the nationalists sentiments during the Triest Crisis , an operation largely fabricated by the Yugoslav authorities to gather popular support internally. The exodus of Fiuman people in this 9 year period brought 58,000 of the 66,000 inhabitants to leave

1276-484: The official language of state institutions would have been Italian. Among the most important exponents of the Movement we should mention: Ramiro Antonini , Icilio Bacci , Salvatore Belasic (or Bellasich), Carlo Colussi , Riccardo Gigante , Ruggero Gotthardi, Arturo Maineri, Ettore Rippa, Gino Sirola, Antonio Vio and Arnaldo Viola. Of these, the Yugoslavs later killed Bacci, Colussi, Gigante and Sirola. The discovery of

1320-467: The oldest Autonomist Party members, among them one of the most authoritative was Mario Blasich . Referring to the Treaty of Rapallo (1920) and the fact that the Free State of Fiume had indeed been the first country victim of a fascist one, they again requested the implementation of an autonomous statute for the post-war Fiume. Despite cooperating with the communists during the war in anti-fascist actions,

1364-456: The other leaders and Zanella himself showed clear openings towards the idea, but in fact the Yugoslavs acted quickly, probably pushed above all by Kardelj, incorporating Fiume in Croatia itself and de facto separating it on the ground from the Istrian territories which kept being treated as disputed territories for a longer period. This ushered in a heavy attack on all civic rights initially granted to

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1408-515: The peace talks in Paris the ousted president of the Free State of Fiume Riccardo Zanella tried to spearhead the cause of the tiny state, this time supported also by the previous political rival Andrea Ossoinack . The new Italian minister of foreign affairs Carlo Sforza , an early anti-fascist dissident, supported this idea and lobbied with the Allies to have Fiume reinstated as a free state and for it to become

1452-827: The position of mayor of Fiume; he was then he made a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy in February 1934, and in January 1937 he became president of the Società di Navigazione Fiumana (Fiuman Shipping Company). After the Armistice of Cassibile he joined the Italian Social Republic and was appointed governor of the province of Fiume , a post he however only held for five weeks as the German occupation authorities soon replaced him with someone more to

1496-541: The possession of Fiume unsettled, pending future negotiations according to article 66, as it appeared in the Croatian version, while in the Hungarian version Fiume was declared a Corpus separatum directly connected to the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen and therefore not falling within the domain of Croatian autonomy within the kingdom , but within the domain of the joint Hungarian parliament and government. Understandably, each parliament signed its respective treaty, but when

1540-516: The rescript. The Croatians refused to accept the Hungarian reading of the document - they denied that the City could have been excluded from the surrounding territory, that was already framed into a comitatus . During the Napoleonic Wars , the city was briefly part of the Illyrian Provinces , ending its status as corpus separatum . Fiume returned to the Hungarian Crown in 1822; after

1584-639: The semi-autonomous status of Fiume within the Habsburg monarchy until the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Maria Theresa, with her sovereign decision of 2 October 1776, gave up possession of Fiume, which for a long time was administered with the adjacent hereditary Inner Austrian fiefs of the Habsburgs within the Holy Roman Empire , and gave it to the Kingdom of Hungary , of which she

1628-542: The two versions went to Emperor Franz Joseph I for signing, a piece of paper (the Kriptic ) containing a Croatian translation of the Hungarian claim to Fiume had been pasted over the Croatian version. The settlement was defined as provisory. For a definitive settlement, an agreement from Hungary, Croatia and Fiume was necessary and was never achieved up to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in October 1918. The administration of

1672-484: The union elections organized in Fiume's factories in early 1946 by the occupational authorities. These elections were therefore not recognised by the communist leadership and as a consequence between 1500 and 2000 sympathisers of the Autonomist cause were arrested by the occupational authorities. New elections were held in mid 1946, under supervision and rigged to have plebiscitary victory of the communist candidates. During

1716-498: Was also queen, with a view of fostering trade. Since Hungary proper was some 500 kilometres (310 mi) away, the city was initially annexed to the Habsburg Kingdom of Croatia , whose territory began east of the city walls. Croatia was ruled in personal union with Hungary since 1102, and with it formed the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen . Two and a half years later, Maria Theresa, in her capacity as Queen of Hungary , by

1760-531: Was an Italian irredentist and Fascist politician, who played an important role in the history of Fiume during the interwar period and the Fascist era . He was born in Fiume when the city was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , and after graduation he started a career as a journalist; in 1907, at the age of 26, he became director of the magazine La Giovane Fiume , printed by the homonymous Italian irredentist association of Fiume. In 1910 he became president of

1804-401: Was considered in a very suspicious and dangerous way by the Yugoslav liberation movement, appearing as a possible alternative to the simple and plain annexation of the city that the Titoist planned for the city, albeit while publicly declaring and promising full autonomy to the local population. After the fall of fascism (25 July 1943) other autonomists, mainly former fascist militants, joined

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1848-410: Was considered the most prominent leader of these political faction and therefore killed by a Yugoslav commando at the entrance of his house on the 21st of April 1945. Nonetheless the movement was able to hold a significant influence and great following in Fiume well into the 2 years of Jugoslav occupation, and despite many of its leaders being killed by the Jugoslav secret police, it was able to dominate

1892-435: Was entrusted to a Rappresentanza of 56 members whose mandate lasted 6 years. The citizens had the right to elect their representative at the House of Representatives . From 1896 onwards the Hungarian Government reduced the scope of municipal autonomy that was practically ended by 1913. Fiume and the district administered as a corpus separatum had a total area of 21 square kilometres (8.1 sq mi) and comprised

1936-468: Was militarily occupied and eventually annexed to the Kingdom of Italy as part of the Province of Fiume in 1924, annexation that marked the end of the historic Fiuman autonomy. In 1900, the corpus separatum had a population of 38,955 people and by 1910, the population increased to 49,608. According to the census taken by the Italian National Council of Fiume ( Italian : Consiglio Nazionale Italiano di Fiume ) in December 1918 after Italian army captured

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