Narodni dom v Trstu

Until the First World War, Trieste had been part of the Habsburg Monarchy for over five hundred years, and, before the monarchy’s collapse, it was its most important port and the city with by far the largest ethnic Slovene population. In 1904, the Slovene bourgeoisie built its own cultural center there, which soon became the focal point of Slovene social life in the city. This is why it was perceived as an obstacle by Italian nationa­lists, who saw it as a »desecration« of Italian soil. After the First World War, when the city was occupied by Italian troops, the cultural center was attacked and set on fire on July 13th, 1920. The burning of the cultural center was one of the first »successes« of the emerging Fascist movement and the symbolic beginning of growing anti-Slovene sentiment. The formal process to return the Slovene Cultural Center to the Slovene ethnic community in Trieste only began a hundred years later.