The Archive Services in the Areas of Istria, Rijeka and Zadar

Abstract

This article is a supplemented and extended version of a lead paper read at a meeting of Croatian archivists (Brioni Islands, October 19-21, 1988). In his introduction (convened on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the decision for Istria to be united with Croatia and Slovenia within the new Yugoslavia) the author gives a brief account of the period 1918-1943 and then describes the growth of archive services in the coastal areas allotted to Yugoslavia. The main topics include: the statutory regulations of some mediaeval municipalities previously belonging to Venice and Austria; the difficulties encountered in the efforts to preserve sources of historic importance; revitalization of the Zadar Archive (existing since 1624); the revival of archives at the time of Napoleon; the care for archive records in the area of Istria and Rijeka during the Austrian rule; the royalist-fascist pre-war period when archives materials were collected in Zadar and Rijeka for very specific purposes; the post-war period of modern regional archives being formed in Kopar, Rijeka, Pazin and Zadar as parts of integrated national archive networks of Croatia and Slovenia. These four coastal archives are now important scientific, cultural and educational centres of that part of the Adriatic.