Nation-Building in the Borderlands

The article examines the Slovenization of public space in the Habsburg crownland of Gorizia and Gradisca from the late nineteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War. As in other ethnically mixed regions of the empire, public space became a contested arena shaped by the rise of nationalism, with competing national groups seeking to inscribe their ideologies onto the urban landscape. The Slovene national movement aimed to assert its identity and political aspirations through symbolic spatial interventions. However, owing to the specific circumstances of the Slovene community in the region—characterized by a predominantly rural population and internal divisions between liberal and conservative currents—Slovene spatial politics exhibited distinctive features compared to other nationally driven spatial strategies. The article traces the gradual assertion of a Slovene presence in local public space, from the first nationally inspired monument erected in 1898 to the construction of the national hall in the center of the provincial capital, Gorizia

Assertion · Ethnically diverse · Ideology · Politics · Population · Public space · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Central European national history · Eastern European Communism and Reforms