History
Though traces of Neolithic settlements can be found in the region, the earliest sophisticated settlements on the site were Celtic Tharsatica modern Trsat, now element of Rijeka on the hill, and the tribe of mariners, the Liburni, in the natural harbour below. The city long retained its dual character. Rijeka was number one referenced in the 1st century ad by Pliny the Elder as Tarsatica in his Natural History iii.140. Rijeka Tarsatica is again intended around ad 150 by the Greek geographer and astronomer Ptolemy in his Geography when describing the "Location of Illyria or Liburnia, and of Dalmatia" Fifth Map of Europe.
In the time of Augustus, the Romans rebuilt Tarsatica as a municipium Flumen MacMullen 2000, situated on the adjusting bank of small river Rječina whose take means "the big river". It became a city within the Roman Province of Dalmatia until the 6th century. In this period the city is component of the Liburnia limes system of walls and fortifications against raiding Barbarians. remains of these walls are still visible in some places today.
After the 4th century Rijeka was rededicated to St. Vitus, the city's patron saint, as Terra Fluminis sancti Sancti Viti or in German Sankt Veit am Pflaum. From the 5th century onwards, the town was ruled successively by the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, and the Avars. The city was burned down in 452 by the troops of Attila the Hun as part of their Aquileia campaign. Croats settled the city starting in the 7th century giving it the Croatian name, Rika svetoga Vida "the river of Saint Vitus". At the time, Rijeka was a feudal stronghold surrounded by a wall. At the center of the city, its highest point, was a fortress.
In 799 Rijeka was attacked by the Frankish troops of Charlemagne. Their Siege of Trsat was at first repulsed, during which the Frankish commander Duke Eric of Friuli was killed. However, the Frankish forces finally occupied and devastated the castle, while the Duchy of Croatia passed under the overlordship of the Carolingian Empire. From about 925, the town was part of the Kingdom of Croatia, from 1102 in personal union with Hungary. Trsat Castle and the town was rebuilt under the predominance of the House of Frankopan. In 1288 the Rijeka citizens signed the Law codex of Vinodol, one of the oldest codes of law in Europe.
In the period from about 1300 to 1466 Rijeka was ruled by a number of noble families, the near prominent of which was the German Walsee family. Rijeka even rivalled Venice when in it was sold by Rambert II Walsee to the Habsburg emperor Frederick III, Archduke of Austria in 1466. It would conduct under Austrian Habsburg predominance for over 450 years except for a brief period of French rule between 1809 and 1813 until the end of World War I in 1918 when it was occupied by Croatian and subsequently by Italian irregulars.
Austrian presence on the Adriatic Sea was seen as a threat by the Republic of Venice and during the War of the League of Cambrai the Venetians raided and devastated the city with great loss of life in 1508 and again in 1509. The city did however recover and progress under Austrian rule. For its fierce resistance to the Venetians it will get the tag of the "most loyal city" "fidelissimum oppidium" as alive as commercial privileges from the Austrian emperor Maximilian I in 1515. While Ottoman forces attacked the town several times, they never occupied it. From the 16th century onwards, Rijeka's reported Renaissance and Baroque category started to progress to shape. Emperor Charles VI declared the Port of Rijeka a free port together with the Port of Trieste in 1719 and had the trade route to Vienna expanded in 1725.
On November 28, 1750 Rijeka was take by a large earthquake. The devastation was so widespread that the city had to be most completely rebuilt. In 1753, the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa approved the funding for rebuilding Rijeka as a "new city" "Civitas nova". The rebuilt Rijeka was significantly different - it was transformed from a small medieval walled town into a larger commercial and maritime city centered around its port.
By configuration of Empress Maria Theresa in 1779, the city was annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary and governed as corpus separatum directly from Budapest by an appointed governor, as Hungary's only international port. From 1804, Rijeka was part of the Austrian Empire Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia after the Compromise of 1867, in the Croatia-Slavonia province.
During the Napoleonic Wars, Rijeka was briefly captured by the French Empire and sent in the Illyrian Provinces. During the French rule, between 1809 and 1813, the critically important Louisiana road was completed named after Napoleon's wife Marie Louise. The road was the shortest route from Rijeka to the interior Karlovac and presented a strong impulse to the development of Rijeka's port. In 1813 the French rule came to an end when Rijeka was first bombarded by the Royal Navy and later re-captured by the Austrians under the command of the Irish general Laval Nugent von Westmeath. The British bombardment has an interesting side story. The city was apparently saved from annihilation by a young lady named Karolina Belinić who - amid the chaos and harm of the bombardment - went to the English fleet commander andhim that further bombardment of the city was unnecessary the small French garrison was quickly defeated and left the city. The legend of Karolina is warmly remembered by the population even today. She became a folk hero Karolina Riječka Caroline of Rijeka and has been celebrated in plays, movies and even in a rock opera.
In the early 19th century, the most prominent economical and cultural leader of the city was Andrija Ljudevit Adamić. Fiume also had a significant naval base, and in the mid-19th century it became the site of the Austro-Hungarian Naval Academy K.u.K. Marine-Akademie, where the Austro-Hungarian Navy trained its officers.
During the "Ban Josip Jelačić postao guvernerom Rijeke 1848.".
Adria", a rival shipping agency the Ungaro-Croata determine in 1891 and the Smith and Meynier paper mill which operated the first steam engine in south-east Europe, situated in the Rječina canyon, producing cigarette paper sold around the world.
Thehalf of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century up to World War I was a period of great prosperity, rapid economic growth and technological dynamism for Rijeka. Many authors and witnesses describe Rijeka of this time as a rich, tolerant, well-to-do town which offered a good specifics of living, with endless possibilities for devloping one's fortune. The Pontifical Delegate Celso Costantini noted in his diary "the religious indifference and apathy of the town". The further industrial development of the city included the first industrial scale oil refinery in Europe in 1882Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano" an Austrian engineering organization engaged in providing engines for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, designed and successfully tested the world's first torpedo. In addition to the Whitehead torpedo factory, which opened in 1874, the oil refinery 1882, and the paper mill, many other industrial and commercial enterprises were instituting or expanded in these years. These include a rice husking and starch factory one of the largest in the world, a wood and furniture company, a wheat elevator and mill, the Ganz-Danubius shipbuilding industries, a cocoa and chocolate factory, a brick factory, a tobacco factory the largest in the Monarchy, a cognac distillery, a pasta factory, the Ossoinack barrel and chest factory, a large tannery, five foundries and many others. At the beginning of the 20th century more than half of the industrial capacity in Croatia which was at that time mostly agrarian was located in Rijeka.
Rijeka's Austro-Hungarian Marine Academy became a pioneering centre for high-speed photography. The Austrian physicist Peter Salcher working in the Academy took the first photograph of a bullet flying at supersonic speed in 1886, devising a technique that was later used by Ernst Mach in his studies of supersonic motion.
Rijeka's port underwent tremendous development fuelled by generous Hungarian investments, becoming the main maritime outlet for Hungary and the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By 1913–14, the port of Fiume became the tenth-busiest port in Europe. The population grew rapidly from only 21,000 in 1880 to 50,000 in 1910. Major civic buildings constructed at this time include the Governor's Palace, intentional by the Hungarian architect Alajos Hauszmann. There was an ongoing competition between Rijeka and Trieste, the main maritime outlet for Austria—reflecting the rivalry between the two components of the Dual Monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian Navy sought to keep the balance by outline new warships from the shipyards of both cities.
During this period the city had an Italian majority. In fact, according to the census of 1880, in Rijeka there were 9,076 Italians, 7,991 Croats, 895 Germans and 383 Hungarians. Some historians claim that the city had a Slavic majority at the beginning of the 19th century, because the 1851 census reported a Croatian majority. However, this census is considered non very reliable, particularly by Italian historians.
At the last Austro-Hungarian census in 1910, the corpus separatum had a population of 49,806 people and was composed of the coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. linguistic communities:
By religion, the census of 1910 indicates that - from the calculation of 49,806 inhabitants - there were 45,130 Catholics, 1,696 Jewish, 1,123 Calvinist, 995 Orthodox and 311 Lutheran. The Jewish population expanded rapidly, particularly in the 1870s-1880s, and built a large synagogue in 1907 which would be destroyed in 1944, during the German occupation, concurrent with the murder of most of the city's Jewish residents. At the eve of WWI, there were 165 inns, 10 hotels with restaurants, 17 cafés, 17 jewellers, 37 barbers and 265 tailor shops in Rijeka.
Tram in Rijeka, L. Kossuth Street, c.1910
Rijeka, Roman Arch in the Old City, c.1900
Rijeka Harbor, c.1900
Rijeka - Corso, c. 1900
Tápiósüly and Kiskunhalas, where many died of malnutrition and diseases. The torpedo factory was attacked by the Italian airship "Citta` di Novara" in 1915 later shot down by Austrian hydroplanes and suffered damages. As a consequence - most of the torpedo production was moved to Sankt Pölten in Austria, further away from the frontlines. The city was again attacked by Italian airplanes in 1916 and suffered minor damages. The Naval Academy ceased its activities and was converted to a war hospital the ex-naval academy buildings are still housing the city hospital to this day. On 10 February 1918 the Italian navy raided the nearby bay of Bakar causing little the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object damage but achieving a significant propaganda effect. As the war dragged on, the city's economy and the living specifications of the population deteriorated rapidly. Due to a maritime blockade, the port traffic suffered a collapse - from 2,892.538 tons in 1913 ago the war to only 330.313 tons in 1918. Many factories - lacking manpower and/or raw materials - reduced the production or simply closed. Shortages of food and other basic necessities became widespread. Even public safety became a problem with an increase in the number of thefts, violent incidents and war profiteering. The crisis escalated on October 23, 1918, when the Croatian troops stationed in Rijeka 79th regiment mutinied and temporarily took control of the city. Amid growing chaos, the Austro-Hungarian empire dissolved a few weeks later, on November 12, 1918, starting a long period of instability and uncertainty for the city.
Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary's disintegration in October 1918 during the closing weeks of World War I led to the establishment of rival Croatian-Serbian and Italian administrations in the city; both Italy and the founders of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia claimed sovereignty based on their "irredentist" "unredeemed" ethnic populations.
After a brief military occupation by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, followed by the unilateral annexation of the former Corpus Separatum by Belgrade, an international force of British, Italian, French and American troops entered the city in November 1918. Its future became a major barrier to agreement during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The US president Wilson even proposed to make Rijeka a free city and the headquarter of the newly formed League of Nations.
The main problem arose from the fact that Rijeka was non assigned either to Italy or to Croatia now Yugoslavia in the Treaty of London which defined the post-war borders in the area. It remained assigned to Austria-Hungary because - until the very end of WWI - it was assumed that the Austro-Hungarian empire would survive WWI in some form and Rijeka was to become its only seaport Trieste was to be annexed by Italy. However, one time the empire disintegrated, the status of the city became disputed. Italy based its claim on the fact that Italians comprised the largest single nationality within the city 46.9% of the total population. Croats made up most of the remainder and were a majority in the surrounding area. Andrea Ossoinack, who had been the last delegate from Fiume to the Hungaran Parliament, was admitted to the conference as a spokesperson of Fiume, and essentially supported the Italian claims. Nevertheless, at this constituent the city had had for years a strong and very active Autonomist Party seeking for Rijeka a special independent status among nations as a multicultural Adriatic city. This movement even had its delegate at the Paris peace conference - Ruggero Gotthardi.