Abstract

Within the context of contemporary developments of the idea of nationhood among the populations of the Habsburg empire, the case of Venezia Giulia symbolizes the ambivalence of Adriatic irredentism, both Italian and Slovenian or Slavic, that expressed on one side a liberal matrix (the desire for a single national state) and on the other, a Hapsburgian characteristic of bitter national competition. The numerous cultural, sporting but above all musical societies springing up in this region between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are evidence of this ambivalence: all formed part of the same dimension of political struggle between different ethnic groups tending to affirm their own position relative to the heart of the multi-national state.