HR-DAPA-907 District People’s Court for Istria (Tribunale del popolo per l’Istria) 1945/1949 [1950] Summary Inventory

Abstract

The archives of the Fonds in custody of the State Archives in Pazin under the identification code HR-DAPA-907 was created during the activity of the District People’s Court for Istria (later District Court for Istria/District Court of Pula), the second-instance judicial body operating in the period between 1945 and 1949. When established, its seat was in Pula, but then moved to Labin, for a brief period to Pazin, and finally, after 1947, again to Pula. Its territorial jurisdiction comprised the Croatian part of Istria, with the exception of the territories which in the period 1945 to 1947 were comprised by the »Zone A«, namely the area occupied by the Allies. The Court ceased to exist on 30 June 1949, when its function was taken over by the District Court of Rijeka. The summary inventory at the fonds level provides general information on the archives and the creator of the Fonds, including, under the section General Context, an ample overview of the historical background during which the archives were created. Descriptions contained at lower levels (series and sub series) try to give details on individual units of archives and make them more approachable to the users. The Fonds is divided into three units (series) according to the Court divisions which created it: Court Administration and Management, Criminal Division, and Civil Division. Unfortunately, the archives of the last two series have been preserved in fragments, while the level of conservation of the archives of Court Administration and Management is satisfactory. Consequently, sub-series have been formed and described only in relation to Court Administration and Management Series, which was divided into 25 sub-series, formed to reflect the creator’s mode of storing documents. The content of these sub-series is varied and brings a handful of data on the establishment and operation of the district and county courts in Istria, their employees and collaborators, court prisons, etc. A part of the archives is temporarily unavailable due to personal information protection reasons. Keeping in mind the role and importance of judicial bodies in the period immediately after World War II, particularly in Istria, in the vacuum between two states and two social organisations, archives contained in this Fonds represent an important source for the research of this turbulent period of the Istrian history.