Julian March
The Julian March (Croatian and Slovene: Julijska krajina), also called Julian Venetia (Italian: Venezia Giulia; Venetian: Venesia Julia; Friulian: Vignesie Julie; Austrian German: Julisch Venetien), is an area of southern Central Europe which is currently divided among Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia.[1][2] The term was coined in 1863 by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, a native of the area, to demonstrate that the Austrian Littoral, Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino (then all part of the Austrian Empire) shared a common Italian linguistic identity. Ascoli emphasized the Augustan partition of Roman Italy at the beginning of the Empire, when Venetia et Histria was Regio X (the Tenth Region).[2][3][4]
"Venezia Giulia" redirects here. For the post-WWII Allied police corps, see Venezia Giulia Police Force.
The term was later endorsed by Italian irredentists, who sought to annex regions in which ethnic Italians made up most (or a substantial portion) of the population: the Austrian Littoral, Trentino, Fiume and Dalmatia. The Triple Entente promised the regions to Italy in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in exchange for Italy's joining the Allied Powers in World War I. The secret 1915 Treaty of London promised Italy territories largely inhabited by Italians (such as Trentino) in addition to those largely inhabited by Croats or Slovenes; the territories housed 421,444 Italians, and about 327,000 ethnic Slovenes.[5][6]
A contemporary Italian autonomous region, bordering on Slovenia, is named Friuli-Venezia Giulia ("Friuli and Julian Venetia").[7]
The term "Julian March" is a partial translation of the Italian name "Venezia Giulia" (or "Julian Venetia"), coined by the Italian Jewish historical linguist Graziadio Ascoli, who was born in Gorizia. The term "March" in "Julian March" refers to a medieval European designation for a borderland or frontier district, more specifically, a buffer zone between different realms.
In an 1863 newspaper article,[4] Ascoli focused on a wide geographical area north and east of Venice which was under Austrian rule; he called it Triveneto ("the three Venetian regions"). Ascoli divided Triveneto into three parts:
According to this definition, Triveneto overlaps the ancient Roman region of Regio X - Venetia et Histria introduced by Emperor Augustus in his administrative reorganization of Italy at the beginning of the first century AD. Ascoli (who was born in Gorizia) coined his terms for linguistic and cultural reasons, saying that the languages spoken in the three areas were substantially similar. His goal was to stress to the ruling Austrian Empire the region's[8] Latin and Venetian roots and the importance of the Italian linguistic element.[4]
The term "Venezia Giulia" did not catch on immediately, and began to be used widely only in the first decade of the 20th century.[4] It was used in official administrative acts by the Italian government in 1922–1923 and after 1946, when it was included in the name of the new region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Proposed banner from the 1920's
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