Trijalistička reforma Austro-Ugarske u časopisima slovenskih liberala iz Trsta i Gorice

Abstract

The article uses the Slovenian liberal newspapers from Trieste (Edinost) and Gorizia (Soča) to present the idea of introducing the third state unit in the Habsburg Monarchy before the First World War. The author presents the broader context in which the concept was formed, and then analyzes the comments in two newspapers on the reactions of various political groups, their ambitions and national tensions which arouse in the context of the discussion on proposed reform. The author defends the thesis that trialist concept was foremost an Austrian attempt to federalize the Habsburg Monarchy in order to reduce the strength of Hungary. At the beginning of the 20th century the majority of Slovenes and Croats, including Slovene liberals from Trieste and Gorizia, supported this idea because it implied their political emancipation. On the other hand, Hungarians, Italians, German nationalists and Serbs saw this concept as a threat to their own national interests. In the further development of the trialist concept, due to Austria's ambitions to satisfy the Italians, Trieste and Gorizia were excluded from the imagined third unit, which led to tensions between Slovenian liberals and conservatives and in Croatian-Slovenian relations as well. The Slovenian liberals from Trieste and Gorizia began to advocate the idea of ​​a broader federalism, where the Habsburg Monarchy would have more than three federal units, while in the context of South Slavic relations they inclined to Serbian state visions.