Discourses and Practices of the In-Between in the Alpine-Adriatic Region: Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Trieste 1815-1914

The project is an interdisciplinary, transnational cooperation project, involving cultural anthropologists and historians from Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Koper.

It aims at analysing the „in-between“ in the Alps-Adriatic Region from 1815 to 1914 in terms of the economic, cultural and social practices as well as language practices of the people livingin the three cities of Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Trieste at thattime. There were manifold cultural, economic and political-administrative relations between these cities. The free trade harbour of Trieste was a common point of reference for Klagenfurt and Ljubljana. Klagenfurt was an important hub for the transport of people and goods from the northern territories toCarniola (Ljubljana) and Trieste. All three cities underwent a process of nationalisation towardsthe end of the 19th century. After the First World War, Klagenfurt became part of Austria, the state that followed on from the Monarchy. Ljubljana was assigned to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and Trieste to Italy. 

The inevitable formation of nation states is currently the dominant narrative of the history ofthe Alps-Adriatic region. In contrast, the project is based on the assumption that the process ofthe formation ofnationstateswas not clear-cut. It assumes proceeds on the assumption that the affiliation to the respective nations was also characterised by an „in-between“, sometimes evenby an indifference-referred to as „national indifference“. The terms „in-between“ and „national indifference“ refer to different dimensions of everyday and working life, which cannot solely be explained by an affiliation to nation states (e.g. gender, language, class, religion). They manifest, for example, in the use of several languages, in transnational trade relations, in joint leisure pursuits in associations and in family relations across national borders.

The objective of the project is to render these developments comprehensible and to tell a „newhistory“ of the Alps-Adriatic region, which has so far been presented mainly as a history ofnationalisation,characteristic of Central Europe. Byengagingwith“national indifference“, theproject also aims to contribute to a key concept in historical research and the social sciences.

Taking the three cities of Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Trieste as examples, the project exploresthe forms of the „in-between“which can befound: (1) in discourses articulated in contemporary ethnographies, (2) in practices to be found in associations and institutions, marked by their cultural, social, religious and economic relations and (3) on the basis of unpublished diaries, letters or autobiographies of persons living at the time.