To reconstruct the events and personalities that shaped the cultural climate and social environment of certain Istrian and Rijeka towns between the late 19th and early 20th centuries (following Trieste, Central Europe, and even earlier Venice), it is essential to explore the cafés, which defined a lifestyle and their own specific cultural landscape . Cafés in particular, but also theaters, cinemas, sports, art, and literary clubs, were the hubs for the intertwining of diverse ethnic groups and experiences. Within the historical context of these cultural settings, they also served as hotbeds for the dissemination of irredentist ideals, becoming vital meeting places, points of reference, and cultural exchanges for Istrian-Kvarner culture. Trieste, a city that has always been a point of reference, especially for Istria, was, from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a hub for the dissemination and diffusion of fundamental cultural and economic phenomena, while also brimming with political tensions and irredentist aspirations for Italianness. The lifestyle and atmosphere of the city made Trieste a new city with a complex cultural climate, open to stimuli from Central Europe, mixed with those from the East and the South (meaning the Adriatic coast and Greece), a few strong gusts from Northern Europe and across the Channel, and a few breaths of fresh air from France. An avant-garde society developed in the city of San Giusto, a vibrant community open to new experiences and horizons, epitomized by Roberto (Bobi) Bazlen, a frequenter of the Caffè Garibaldi along with all the other famous Trieste scholars.

However, the variegated reality of nearby Istria and its major centers of cultural propulsion are particularly captivating, revealing themselves, in a more unexpected way, to be rich in ideas and activities of all kinds. Starting with Pola, Vienna's military port second only to Trieste, where artistic expressions ranging from every field found expression. To continue with Rovinj, a city with many facets that, beyond the economic and social reality that was tendentially popular and at the same time entrepreneurial, also revealed profound refinements and aspects of uniqueness that ranged from the "barber" shops to the activities of the musical bands, from the important scientific research of the Institute of Marine Biology, to the prominent seasons of the Gandusio Theater and the gatherings in the various Cafés.

In Pola, the modern and current one, which we still see today, a precise Habsburg choice of the role that was attributed to it, as a navy arsenal and military port, is evident, which meant that between before and after 1856 a real caesura could be observed in the "refoundation" of the thousand-year-old city. Pola took on all the characteristics of the city, not only military, but bourgeois, where a working class politically oriented towards socialism coexisted with the imperial ideology of the officers, with the nascent Italian and Croatian nationalisms, with a small and medium bourgeoisie. And being also the seat of the best cultural elite, it became the center of a scientific positivism that poured into hydrographic, astronomical, meteorological, medical, but also philosophical, historical and literary studies. In the imagination of the Austrian navy, Pola was to represent the gateway to the world and so it became a truly modern city with the first cinemas, theatres, public baths, advertisements and newspapers in several languages, large hospitals, many restaurants and cafés. Many sports clubs were born, mainly dedicated to marine sports (Rowing Clubs, for example) or gymnastics, or skating, which supported the city's social life for a very long time, until the outbreak of the Second World War. The theatres were very active, both prose and music (Filodrammatica, the Ciscutti) and, in the summer, the splendid seasons at the Arena, for which ferry or transport services were organised even from Trieste or other locations in Istria and Quarnaro, as well as the rest of Italy. The Politeama Ciscutti began its activity with the opera season with works by Giuseppe Verdi. Theatrical performances, musical programs, film screenings, dances and charity events, circus events, even boxing, wrestling and fencing shows took place there. Before the First World War, the program was often a function of Italian irredentist propaganda, and many dramatic and operatic shows came from various Italian cultural centers. But all the moments of meeting, organization, and "waiting" took place right in the Cafés, in the historical sense of the term, where all citizens, men and women, pleasantly entertained. These places also became meeting places for many intellectuals who, as per tradition, met here and exchanged opinions, producing that humus not only worldly, but above all cultural that meant that even James Joyce lived for a certain period in Pola, having come here from Trieste to teach English at the "Berlitz" then operating in the city (a sign of great progress!) and to collaborate on the work of a cultural magazine. The great Irish artist, a regular visitor to cafés in the capital of Istria, often stopped at the one that today bears his name, Joyce Coffee, next to the Arco dei Sergi, at the beginning of the Corso and in front of what is now a restaurant, but until the end of the Second World War was the Cafe Italia. From that nerve centre of the city he could observe every coming and going, meet other cultural figures, journalists and students, peeking at the entrance to the important road that leads to the splendid Liberty building of the market, a meeting place still today and still used for the same purpose, always very popular. Always introduced by the Arco dei Sergi, walking along the Corso you reach Piazza Foro, where the elegant doors of the Espresso Diana. There was no shortage of similar places where important events were celebrated by citizens and representatives of the institutions in the important "Corsie": the Coffee of the Mirrors, namesake of the famous Trieste native, coincidentally in Corsia Francesco Giuseppe (on the Riva Grande). Espresso Europe, was inaugurated a few months after a brief but significant visit by the emperor himself, in January 1887; for its good taste and impeccable service it was worthy of recommendation and frequently crowded by journalists who worked for many Italian newspapers, including the prestigious «Gazzetta di Venezia», and for the various foreign newspapers present in Pola. The Coffee Europe was located in the Casa Quadri, in Piazzale Kandler. Furthermore, the Miramar Coffee and Espresso ofhotel Central, but above all the Espresso dell'Hotel Riviera, next to the Arena and with a splendid view of the gulf, where concerts and meetings of a widely represented bourgeois and citizen world took place. To conclude in style, although the ancient Pietas Julia was equipped with many other splendid rooms, it is worth remembering the Casino Marina with its elegant and sparkling Coffee sauce where all the high society of Pula converged, the high representatives of the Imperial Navy, the representatives of the institutions, but also the students of the German Gymnasium for renowned balls, receptions or important official occasions and representation. All the Cafés and palaces that were maintained, continued even during the Kingdom of Italy to be places of reference and aggregation of a recreational, cultural and social type, bringing excitement and effervescence to the public life of the city. It can be said, in short, that around the cafés and theaters a great activity flourished, as well as cultural, economic, determining also a tourist industry and a notable architectural ferment related to their construction in Pola, in the locations of Quarnaro, such as Abbazia, frequented by the elite of the Austro-Hungarian world and then of the Kingdom of Italy, as well as in particularly evolved and prominent towns such as Capodistria, Parenzo and particularly Rovigno, a city without a doubt multifaceted. Here the activity of cafés, cinemas, drama clubs, choirs and music schools flourished in an exceptional way. The places where the town met: squares, cafés and barber shops (the most famous ones are the Chronicles of Rovinj by Antonio Segariol Barbers that constitute an absolute uniqueness), allowed the sharing of a common belonging and of a close cohesion and solidarity, which made its inhabitants feel united in a single and strong identity. In Istria, still under the Habsburgs, the Mazzinian ideals, which had been spreading in the mid-nineteenth century, had favored the formation of a national and patriotic idea that had spread to all social classes, without distinction and which found ample opportunity for diffusion and circulation between cafes and barbers, so much so that already in 1881 a Catholic reading society was founded in Rovigno, composed of 75 members and about a thousand volumes, as reported by Segariol himself, who also says that ten years later the City Hall Café in Piazza della Riva. The ancient building was embellished with the erection of new doors and beautiful arches. Located in a very central position, it was a very elegant place and a meeting place for men and women, in a city where women in those years assumed an increasingly public and prominent social position, being women who worked outside the home or family business, thus constituting themselves customers who were not exclusively men's followers. The expertly managed Café even took care of creating very elegant posters to congratulate its customers on the "new year" as appeared in the greeting for 1898. Always in the very center, the Coffee to the Nations with a significant name, which chronicles and images show us as particularly crowded and where, as in all the others, it was possible to find, according to custom, several newspapers available to customers. In the town that lived on intense work activities distributed between trade, merchant travel (it was the era of Japonism), fishing, the rich agriculture that produced excellent wines and oils, as it still does today, women and men who worked intensely had the pleasure of spending their little free time, exchanging friendships, loves, irredentist political passions between the cafes, the cinemas and the theatre. The position of the Coffee at the Navy, next to the Cinema Parigi (it is curious that the people of Rovinj have long ago jokingly called their beloved city, the little Paris); while the elegant building of the Cine Roma (it is no coincidence that both cinemas were named after two great capitals), located along the Rive, an immemorial place of strolling, still stands in the same place today and has been used as a Multimedia Centre, following, one might say, a natural evolution of the times, but retaining its nature as a place of entertainment, concerts, dances, conferences, film screenings with the inevitable Café underneath. Finally, the cafés located in Valdibora constituted a sort of waiting room in front of the “Antonio Gandusio” theatre, named after one of the greatest comic actors of the 900th century, born in Rovigno on 29 July 1873, and who died after a life of intense artistic activity both in the theatre and in the cinema, on 23 May 1951 in Milan. Gandusio was such a great promoter of culture with his theatre and the companies he brought everywhere, that in September 2001 a large event was held in Rovinj, aimed at reviving the memory and interest in the life and work of the artist that started from the theatre and the cafés of his Istrian hometown.

The Marina Casino in Pula

 

What can we say at this point about Fiume, the pearl of the Quarnaro? Its cultural wealth between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is demonstrated by the metamorphosis of the urban reality, by the variety and functionality of the buildings and the updating of the architectural choices, from Neoclassicism to the Secession Style. The foresight of the municipal administration, the competence of the military engineer Giovanni Ciotta, who was mayor uninterruptedly from 1876 to 1892, the objective conditions of expansion of industrial production and demographic increase led, in 1873, to the competition for the elaboration of a Master Plan for the city, based on the prediction of an essentially commercial urban development and the new needs of the community. The urban planning project launched by Paolo Grassi contemplated the extension of the urban fabric to the surrounding hills, with new residential neighborhoods and green spaces, redesigned the road system with new arteries, such as the Volosca and Scurigne roads, adequate in width and layout to the flow of traffic, provided for public administrative buildings, reserving the area between the river, the port and the railway for industrial plants. The architectural redefinition of the city experienced a first, important phase at the end of the nineteenth century and even more so between 1910 and 1915 until the interruption imposed by the war events. The driving force behind this profound transformation of the city was the push towards industrialization and the development of the port imposed by the Hungarian government: while Hungarian capital found significant employment in the processing industry of essential raw materials or those destined for export, small-scale industry was left to local initiative, a condition that attracted to Fiume a not insignificant influx of entrepreneurs and businessmen from the various regions of the empire, especially from Trieste, but also from the Italian Adriatic coast. Among the prominent companies were the Danubius shipyards, later merged with the Ganz Company of Budapest in joint-venture, the shipyard founded by the engineer Giuseppe Farkas and the Whitehead torpedo factory whose building, designed by M.Curet, was based on the criteria of modern work hygiene and absolute functionality. In addition to schools, covered markets, a new orphanage, a Capuchin monastery, workers' quarters were planned in areas outside the Old Town, considered narrow and unhealthy, while the demolition of the dilapidated buildings in the center would have allowed the construction of prestigious representative buildings and places dedicated to social life. After the demolition of the oldest permanent theater, built in neoclassical style, the studio of Fellner and Helmer, which had already proven itself by designing theater buildings in Prague and New York, was commissioned to design the Verdi Theater, an Auditorium capable of seating 1240 spectators, with a steel structure, revolving stage and innovative technological solutions. The interior was decorated by the Artists' Company with Franz Mastsch and the brothers Ernst and Gustav Klimt. The inauguration of the theatre, in 1885, saw a triumphal performance of theAida. The Verdi Theatre was an important social gathering place, with the possibility of attending opera and drama performances, for which the most famous Italian companies came to the city, as well as organizing social events such as the Carnival masked ball, a major event in Rijeka society. In 1911, an ambitious project was undertaken, the Fenice Theatre, conceived as a multifunctional building. The cultural centre, which included the theatre, a hall for variety shows and a Casino (ballroom), was flanked by a residential building, equipped with a lift and a roof garden, with elegant apartments, each consisting of at least six rooms. The external appearance of the building is striking for the geometric essentiality of the attic, decorated with steps alternating with columns, with a “metaphysical” and decidedly Jugendstjl. The interiors, modern and functional, look to French and German models, adopting a very deep orchestra, with the effect of the mystic gulf desired by Wagner in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In rapid succession, in the few years preceding the Great War, the variety theatres opened: the Thalia Theatre (1910), the Apollo Theatre (1912), the Odeon Arena (inaugurated on 26 July 1913 with the comic opera Don Pasquale by Donizzetti), the Teatro Varieté Fenice (1914), later called Sala Bianca. The first film screenings took place in mobile structures, the travelling cinemas, then, between 1906 and 1914 at least nine permanent cinemas were opened, some of which were also used for variety shows. The mass of travellers who passed through the city was very heterogeneous and socially differentiated, from businessmen to whom the most elegant hotel structures were dedicated, to emigrants, leaving for the Americas, for whom a hostel was built. Near the business centres and the port, hotels were built hotels that rivaled the most daring and prestigious architecture of the major centers of Europe, such as the Hotel Bristol, designed by the engineer Emilio Ambrosini and inaugurated at the end of 1909. Equipped with a lift and toilets on each floor, the hotel housed the restaurant on the ground floor, where an exquisitely Viennese café opened up with large windows, echoed by the others that dotted the Corsia Deak. Following the Central European custom, the patrons of the Rijeka cafés could entertain themselves by reading the newspapers, a wide selection of titles and publications from all over the world, in addition to the Hungarian press, the premises “La Bilancia” and “La Voce del Popolo”, the former pro-government, the latter autonomist, and for a few years Frano Supilo’s “Novi List”, the first Croatian-language newspaper. Piazza Adamich, the pulsating centre of the city, surrounded by elegant and cosmopolitan cafes such as the well-known Schenk Coffee, opened near the pier of the same name, with the docking of the steamboats busy shuttling between Rijeka, Opatija, the Kvarner and beyond. But also Piazza Elisabetta, graced by flowerbeds, exhibited the awnings covering the Caffè Adria, while the very popular Boukonig Coffee in 1891 it extended its tables along the Franz Joseph Garden. Places of meeting and social and cultural exchange, the Rijeka cafés contributed significantly to the entrepreneurial and intellectual life of the multi-ethnic and multilingual city, differentiating themselves according to their clientele. Thus, along the Corso, in the Čitaonica building the Maritime Coffee, meeting place for shipowners and captains, while the frequenters of the Coffee Europe, on the opposite side of the street, were getting carried away by political discussions.

The Schenck Café in Rijeka

 

It is therefore truly original and interesting to observe how the Cafés, which elsewhere (with the exception of Milan and Venice) in Italy or in Europe had always been short-term stopping points, instead between Istria, Fiume, Trieste and Central Europe favoured the circulation of artists, ideas and the consequent cultural interferences, determining reciprocity and influences that contributed to the formulation of a complex culture in the sharing of human and political ideals, trends in taste and mixtures of different languages, ethnic groups and traditions.

 

by Donatella Schürzel and Maria Grazia Chiappori
Source: Il Piccolo – 27/04/2021

 

Column “Readers of “Il Piccolo” for 140 years” edited by the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia and the Multimedia Documentation Center of Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian Culture.