ITALIAN DRAMA THEATER THEMES IN RIJEKA’S ITALIAN PRESS 1900-1914

Abstract

Due to its position and historical events, Rijeka has always been a place of contact and intertwining of different traditions, cultures, and languages. During the period from the beginning of the 20th century until the First World War, there was a rich publishing tradition in that multilingual and multicultural environment, and in that period as many as 13 periodicals were published in four languages that were then in use (Croatian, Italian, German, and Hungarian), and in Rijeka’s two theaters, theatrical performances in four languages were given regularly. During this period, Rijeka hosted about fifty Italian acting troupes which delivered more than 950 performances, which is of special importance for the spiritual currents within its urban cultural life. These guest acting troupes also played a significant role in Rijeka’s theatrical development as links with European theatrical life and beyond, with the culture of the time on a Central European scale. Following such a development, Rijeka found itself at the center of civilizational interaction of different cultural traditions and played a very important role as a mediator between Croatian, Italian, Hungarian and German cultural circles of that time.Valuable evidence of this can be found in Rijeka’s Italian periodicals, which have not been sufficiently researched so far. Wanting to contribute to a more complete picture of Rijeka’s theatrical life of that time and Rijeka’s cultural identity, we used articles from five of Rijeka’s Italian periodicals (La Voce del Popolo, Il Popolo, La Bilancia, La Difesa and La Giovine Fiume) as original documentation for the analysis of theatrical themes related to the Italian segment of the Rijeka Drama Theater. Our intention was to complete the picture of the state of Rijeka’s Italian drama theater as a significant factor within Rijeka’s cultural identity, and to contribute to its recognizability in the international context through literary-critical analysis of theatrical reviews and critiques in available periodicals.