Original scientific paper
ADRIATIC AND CIRCULATION OF PEOPLE: EXAMPLES OF COLONISATION FROM THE CENTRAL DALMATIA TO THE CITY OF PULA (17TH – 19TH CENTURIES)
Slaven BERTOŠA
Abstract
Registers of the city of Pula for the period between 1613 and 1817 are kept in the State archives in Pazin. These records are very interesting historical source for the history of Pula but also for the history of the entire peninsula of Istria. The oldest extent registers of baptisms and weddings are from 1613, registers of deceased from 1625, and registers of confirmations were started from 1626. All these registers are written in Italian and Latin. On the basis of these registers both historiographies – Croatian and Italian – emphasisethat Pula managed to survive as populated city only because of constant migrations, since in the foresaid period the number of deceased outnumbered the number of newly born. The number of emigrants from Dalmatia to Pula was reasonably high, and one can find continues records of their presence in the mentioned records. Already from the beginning of the sixteenth century the Venetian Republic supported intensive colonisation from the central Dalmatia to the southern Istria, and this enforced Croatian ethnical element in these parts. Documents from the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, beside the last names of domicile population, mention many of emigrants’ surnames. Regarding these emigrants, one can find in the registers 30 Croatian and 10 Italian surnames. There
are also 20 more surnames that cannot be sorted in these two categories, since the author could not deduce their ethnical background. All in all, registers mention 60 surnames but the total number of the mentions is a bit higher since some last names are mentioned several times. Concerning the form and provenience, there were 50% Croatian and 17% Italian surnames. In this analysis of the emigrants from the central Dalmatia it is also important to pay attention to the locations from which emigrants came. Regarding this aspect the city of Split is mentioned 16 times (cca. 23%), Dalmatia generally is mentioned 11 times (cca. 16%), the island of Brač and city of Šibenik take the third place since they are mentioned 9 times (cca. 13%). All the other settlements, beside Trogir, are mentioned only three, two or one time. Regarding the type of the source, the most frequent are registers of deceased (34 times, almost 50%). The registers of baptisms follow, together with registers of weddings, and the least frequent are records in the registers of confirmations. The second category is the real number of colonists. From Split came 15 of them (cca. 23%), from Brač and Šibenik 9 (cca. 14%), and from Dalmatia 8 of them (cca. 12%). The situation with other cities, beside Trogir, is also similar as it was already mentioned. Concerning the time intervals, it is visible that the most colonists came in the period between 1613 and 1633 (23 persons), and the smallest number of the colonists came in the following period between 1664 and 1714 (only 7 persons). In the period between 1715 and 1765 came 18 of them and in the interval between 1766 and 1817 twelve colonist came to Pula. At the end, one should conclude that this investigation of migrations from the central Dalmatia to Pula contribute to our better knowledge about the relations between central Dalmatia and the Venetian Istria in the early modern period.
Keywords
Istria; central Dalmatia; Pula (Pola) migrations; public records; demography
Hrčak ID:
9650
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2005.
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