In the immediate neighbourhood of Rieka, across the bay, lies Abbazia,
which Nature and the Austrians have made into a charming spot. By the
famous "Strandweg" that winds under rocks and palm and laurel, you go to
Volosca in the easterly and to Lovrana in the westerly direction. Just
at the back of all these pretty places stands the range of Istria's
green mountains. More than twenty years ago a certain Dr. Krsti['c],
from the neighbourhood of Zadar, conceived the happy thought of
printing, in the peasant dialect, a newspaper which would discourse on
Italy in articles no peasant could resist. He was given subsidies, and
for some time the newspaper was published at Volosca. But perhaps the
peasants did not read it any more than those near Zadar would take in
the _Pravi Dalmatinac_ ("The Real Dalmatian"), which attempted a few
years previous to the War to preach sectionalism to the Serbo-Croats.
The Italians who came to the Abbazia district in November 1918 did not
try such methods. In the combined commune of Volosca-Abbazia the
population at the 1910 census consisted of 4309 Yugoslavs, 1534
German-Austrians, and 418 Italians. Most of the 418 had never seen
Italy; the only true Italians were some officials who had come from
other parts of Istria. The official language was Italian, which was
regarded as more elegant. The district doctor was Italian, but all the
other 29 non-official doctors were either Germans, Czechs or Croats. At
Volosca eighteen years ago there was no Croat school; when one was
opened the Italian school at once lost half its membership and before
the War had been reduced to 25 pupils. Before the War at Abbazia the
Croat school had six classes, while the Italian had ceased for lack of
patronage. The German school had 160 pupils; this has now been
dissolved, the pupils being mostly sent to the re-opened Italian school.
Thus it will be seen that efforts were required to Italianize these
places. The efforts were continued even during the War, it is said by
the ex-Empress Zita. At any rate the people who had altered their
Italian names saw that they had been premature and reassumed their
former ones. They reassumed the pre-war privileges: at Lovrana, for
example, they "ran" the village, not having allowed any communal
elections since 1905 and arranging that their Croat colleagues in the
council should all be illiterate peasants. Some Italians were interned
in 1915, as the Croats had been in 1914, but the council came again into
their hands. At the meetings they had been obliged, owing to the
council's composition, to talk Croatian; but their own predominance was
undisturbed. On their return to power during the War they displayed more
generosity, and admitted even educated Croats to the council. And if
such out-and-out Italians as the Signori Grossmann, Pegan, etc. of
Lovrana were kinder to the Yugoslavs than the Signori Grbac,
Koro[vs]a['c] and Codri['c] of Rieka it may be because the gentle spirit
of the place affected them. The leading families would even intermarry;
Signor Gelletich, Lovrana's Italian potentate, gave his sister to the
Croat chieftain. But, as we have said, idylls had to end when in
November 1918 the Italian army came upon the scene. Abbazia and Volosca
and Lovrana were painted thoroughly in the Italian colours. Public
buildings, private houses--irrespective of their inmates--had patches of
green, white and red bestowed upon them. Everything was painted--some
occupation had to be found for the military, who appeared to be more
numerous than the inhabitants. Meanwhile, their commanding officers had
other brilliant ideas: an Italian kindergarten was opened at Volosca,
and the peasant women of the hills around were promised that if they
came with their children to the opening ceremony, every one of them
would be rewarded with 1 lb. of sugar. So they came and were
photographed--it looked extremely well to have so many women seizing
this first opportunity of an Italian education for their babies. Some
one at Rieka most unfortunately had forgotten to consign the sugar. The
Italian officer who was appointed to discharge the functions of podesta,
that is, mayor, of Abbazia was a certain Lieut.-Colonel Stadler. He sent
to Rome and Paris various telegrams as to the people's ardent hope of
being joined to Italy. The people's own telegrams to Paris went by a
more circuitous route. But Stadler did not seem to care much for the
French, nor yet for the English. About a dozen of the educated people,
thinking that the French might also come to Abbazia and wishing to be
able to converse with them, took lessons in that language; another
dozen, with a similar motive, had a Mr. Po[vs]ci['c], a naturalized
American subject, to give them English lessons. Away with these baubles,
cried Stadler; on January 10 he stopped the lessons.