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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2009
To Liberate Me from the detestable yoke of foreignness,… I implore you to change my surname,” Umberto Terchig begged Italian authorities in Venezia Giulia, Italy's new northeastern border territory incorporated in the wake of the Habsburg collapse. In Venezia Giulia, comprised of several of the provinces of the former Austrian Adriatic littoral, some 1,000 individuals in the population of approximately 350,000 requested surname changes over the period from the end of World War I in 1918 to the Fascist takeover in 1922. Most petitioners hailed from Trieste and the city's immediate surroundings. Their level of education and relative sophistication varied. Nonetheless, these individuals shared a particular “nationality consciousness” that led them to choose name change as a means to establish national belonging in Italy. Former Habsburg subjects, like Umberto Terchig, living throughout the successor states sought to rearticulate ethnic and national identities to reflect personal affinities and ambitions consistent with institutional arrangements and associations in emerging state frameworks.
1 Achivio di Stato (Trieste)—Commissariato General Civile per la Venezia Giulia (hereafter AdS[TS]—CGCVG), Atti Generali (hereafter AG), 1919–22, busta (envelope) 82. Venezia Giulia, the Italian name given to the territory, will be used throughout the article. The area is roughly analogous (although not entirely) to the Slavic Julian March.
2 Issues of citizenship, rather than name change, preoccupied those born outside the territory. For each petitioner, the official file holds the request, officials' notes on the disposition of the request, a copy of the name-change decree (where a change was granted), and documents related to any appeal of the official decision. The entreaties demonstrate a range of social, cultural, and political backgrounds by their diction, method of address, manner of writing, and even mode of preparation.
3 For the purposes of this paper, “ethnic” refers to cultural and social conceptions of identity conceived without specific reference to the state, while “national” refers to identity linked to state frameworks and citizenship. Of particular interest with regard to the rearticulation of interwar nationalism is Brubaker, Rogers, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Haslinger, Peter refers specifically to this tendency from a regional perspective in “Building a Regional Identity: The Burgenland, 1921–1938,” Austrian History Yearbook 32 (2001): 105–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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11 This 1920 border was short-lived. As a result of Mussolini's revanchism and the dispute over the internationalized city of Fiume (Rijeka), it was redrawn in 1924.
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Census counts of Slovenes had increased significantly from 1900 to 1910 as trends toward assimilation slowed. In 1910, the findings of the census were so contested that a recount was conducted in the Adriatic provinces. This significantly increased the number of Slovenes and Croats, much to the consternation of Italian proponents. Brix, Emil, Die Umgangssprachen in Altösterreich zwischen Agitation und Assimilation: die Sprachenstatistik in den zisleithanischen Volkszählungen, 1880 bis 1910 (Vienna, 1982)Google Scholar, analyzes the ambiguities and complexities of the census data.
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Many similarities are evident between Trieste and L'viv with regard to the development of toponyms. See the discussion by Binder, Harald, “Making and Defending a Polish Town: ‘Lwów’ (Lemberg), 1848–1914,” Austrian History Yearbook 34 (2003): 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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24 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Grablovitz; busta 97, Bünger; busta 99, Znidarčič and busta 130, Nitsche.
25 Scholars tend to agree that nationalism rests on perceptions of national community, but their attempts to catalog characteristics that delineate nations have been unsuccessful. The literature on ethnic and national identity is immense. See, for example, the variety of perspectives offered in Balakrishnan, Gopal, Mapping the Nation (London, 1996)Google Scholar; and Eley, Geoff and Suny, Ronald Grigor, eds., Becoming National (New York, 1996)Google Scholar. Most useful in the context of this article are approaches derived from seminal works in culture and anthropology, including Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983)Google Scholar; and Hobsbawm, Eric, Inventing Tradition (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar
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27 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Albrecht; busta 113, Doliach.
28 Italian authorities facilitated the emigration of railroad workers, customs agents, and other imperial agents. See AdS(TS)—CGCVG, di gabinetto, Atti (1919–1922)Google Scholar, busta 36.
29 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Brandenburg, Dolzan, Poscher; and busta 130, Michelstädter.
30 The complaint was dismissed. AdS(TS)—CGCVG, Divisione VII, busta 17,15 February 1919 and supporting documents.
31 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Goldschmiedt.
32 On Italian urban culture, see Ascoli, Albert and von Henneberg, Krystyna, eds., Making and Remaking Italy (Oxford, 2001)Google Scholar, in particular, the essays by Adrian Lyttelton and Silvana Patriarca. Binder, , “Making and Defending,” 59ff.Google Scholar, discusses the impact of this rural vision in the Polish case.
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48 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Löwy to Lesič in Belgrade and Kohn to Varadi in Budapest. The petitioners were clearly of Jewish birth; Italian authorities forwarded the changes to the Jewish Community. Laws in post-World War I Germany did not specifically prohibit name change for Jews, but made it difficult by precluding “arbitrary” changes. Bering, Dietz, The Stigma of Names: Antisemitism in German Daily Life, 1812–1933 (Cambridge, 1992), 136.Google Scholar
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52 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97.
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58 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97, undated and unsigned report by Mosconi (Summer 1920?).
59 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Fuchs. Cases related to ennoblement were referred directly to Rome. AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97,9 February 1920.
60 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97,9 February 1920 and 13 August 1919; busta 82, Flego.
61 See, for example, AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Krainz, Schneider, and Zvetermich. On officials' views on illegitimacy and the law, see busta 97, 25 August 1919.
62 Carabinieri reports appear throughout the files.
63 Ads(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97, Fazzini; and busta 98, Hirn, Matosel, and Gioppo.
64 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 98, Moretti; and busta 99, Vellig.
65 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Venutti; and busta 97, Danese.
66 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 114, Trobitz.
67 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 82, Arnerrytsch. The change was granted on 19 August 1919.
68 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97, quoted and requoted in several memoranda sent to Rome, July 1919 to February 1920.
69 AdS(TS)—CGCVG, AG, busta 97, undated and unsigned report by Mosconi (Summer 1920?).
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72 Records of these name “rectifications” are held in Archivio di Stato (Trieste)—Prefettura della Provincia di Trieste, Divisione I: Riduzione Cognomi Trieste, No. 11419 (1926–43).
