Rural life in the Karst during the urban development in Trieste at the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

The article presents the history of the way of life in the small Karst village of Gorjansko and its immediate surroundings at the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century, when the Karst served as an important hinterland for Trieste’s economic, social, and cultural development. The key question set by the author is in what ways the socio-economic and demographic changes facing Trieste also reflected in the Karst. The presented and analysed historical material is based on oral and newspaper sources in which the inhabitants of the Karst talked about the new economic activities and occupations that emerged in Gorjansko due to their work in Trieste, the changing behavioural patterns, differences between genders, the development of new occupations, as well as embracing more liberal norms and values. Trieste’s proximity allowed the people from the Karst to take full advantage of the economic upturn in the years leading up to the First World War as well as to pass relatively unscathed through the economic and political crisis, which hit the region in the period between the two world wars.