The Problem of the Slovene University in Trieste During the Austrian Period

Abstract

The author describes the struggle for the university in Trieste at the beginning of the 20th century. The Austrian Italians demanded their own university in Trieste, and not in their centre in the Tridentine region. The Austrian Slavs were opposed to this idea, because Trieste vvas the centre of a region with the majority of the Slovenian and Croatian inhabitants and not in itself a completely Italian tovvn. Athough the Slovenes vvere to get the university in Ljubljana or elementary and secondary schools in Trieste as an exhange for this, the Slovenian national-radical youth rejected the Italian demands, and just the opposite, it demanded the Slovenian university in Trieste. In this way the university would have helped the Slovenes to preserve the passage to the sea.